Relaxed shopping experience ~ economic slowdown?
Two weeks after Hari Raya holidays a friend coming back from Brunei to visit us. We met in 1Utama shopping center. She noticed that the crowd has reduced. She was wondering whether this is the sign of economic slowdown in Malaysia.
It could be Hari Raya holidays, I said. Many Muslim friends are celebrating their holidays for up to 30 days, such as open house, to invite friends and relatives. So they might still not come back to town yet.
Unsure by the real situation, we observe the trend for a few more weeks.
Third week on Sunday 12PM I went to IKEA for lunch. That's the usual crowd and trust me you will not want to go at 12PM as the traffic would be very jam. To my surprise, there was no jam and I could easily went in and find a parking spot. In the restaurant, the queue was long but it wasn't difficult to find a place to sit down. If you were one of IKEA frequent visitors, you would notice that finding a place to sit down was a nightmare. Not anymore.
I still didn't want to believe it. May be our government has improved traffic system. Or may be shopping center has finally improved something so that we can have more relaxed shopping experience!
Heck no.
I talked to more people. An experienced business man told me the economic has hit the retails business. It was hitting the exports business. This is a chain effect.
I waited another one week, I went to Megamall shopping center. As expected, the traffic is smoother, crowd reduced. I was talking to a retailer and he asked whether I noticed anything different to the patronage nowadays. I told him what I noticed. He said his business is dropping. It started about 2 months back. That was one month before Hari Raya.
So... this is really the slowdown of the market! It is showing sign at retails business.
Finally I talked to a Malay friend who is quite familiar with the government servants. He said few days before Hari Raya government has paid advanced salary for celebrating Hari Raya. Now everyone is waiting for the next salary month which may take longer than 30 days. So he suggested to observe again until December. He agreed that retails business seemed slowdown.
What is your observation?