Addis Abeba Short on Holiday Discount this Season

On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 31, 2014, Etenesh Yirgu, 28, a teller at the state owned bank Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), was at ZY Fashion located on Getu Commercial Centre second floor for a holiday shopping as she heard the boutique has a discount on the clothes for the Ethiopian Christmas to be celebrated on January 7, 2014.

She has been enjoying a discount market for the last two years. And she start early visiting the discount market in Bole on Tuesday a week ahead of the holiday to get the good items before they have been sold out.

“Holidays are best seasons to me as the discount for clothes ranges from a minimum of 10pc to to 50pc,” says Etenesh.

She was at ZY Fashion which offers 25pc to 50pc discount for the items they displayed at their shops that are imported by them from United Arab Emirates (UAE). The gave 25pc discounts for items they have had in stock for up to six months, and 50pc for longer than that.

“Holidays are a good opportunity for us to sell out clothes that have been in stock for long,’’ said the saleswoman of ZY.

For ZY, which has been in the boutique business for six years now, discount sales, if introduced in a timely and attractive manner, help make more money in addition to clearing items that have been in stock for too long. She made sales to at least to 10 customers daily.

Some businesses like ZY at Getu Commercial Centre, a mixed-use building, offer discount sales for holidays on their own choice, says Masresha Woldessilasie, the Centre’s general manager. But the management advises the tenants of the centre to have full shops for the holiday markets and warn them not to have higher prices, he said.

Unlike Getu, Dembel City Centre established a committee that has eight members to organize a discount sale bazaar at the building. The committee suggested 10pc to 50pc discount for the commodities sold at the mall to attract more visitors for the holiday based on the interest and desire of the tenants of the building.

The building that has total of 186 rented facilities for different purposes, of which 87 of them are commercial outlets selling cloth, electronics, leather products, shoes, jewellery and furniture. The remaining are offices rented to banks, insurance, tour &travel agencies and ticket offices.

Nib InternationalBank (NIB), Nib Insurance Company S.C, Texas Furniture and four jewellery shops as well as Dembel City Centre, itself, sponsored the discount bazaar by the businesses at the buidling. The sponsorship cost went to cover the costs of the committee for the advertisement of the event that was transmitted on radio and television shows on Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS) and for the flyers they printed for promotional purpose, according to Tigest Ergete, marketing & leasing coordinator of the mall and member of the committee that organized the bazaar. Nearly half the shops at Dembel agreed with the committee and extended offers ranging from 10pc to 50pc between December 31 to January 6, 2014,Tigest said.

Studio Leather is one of the shops offering 35pc for the leather bags, 25pc for the leather jacket and 15pc on leather belts to have more visitors as a recovery method from the frozen market for the past one year, according to the saleswoman.

Yet on other malls such as Medhanialem Mall discount sale is observed rarely on the four floors which the businesses are highly scattered. On the last holiday of Ethiopian new-year the management of the building coordinated to have a discount sale bazaar, which is not repeated for this holiday. In most areas Fortune visited around Piazza, Bole and Haya Hulet area, few seem to be interested in offering discount sales; most that offered discount were only for cothes.

Unlike previous holidays, this Christmas holiday season shows a little shift in offering discount sales for household equipment in addition to the clothes, for instance Delux Furniture has a 15pc discount on their home furniture for the holiday at the same time Mertro Plc exclusive importer of LG branded electronics products is offering additional gifts for the customers, who bought items from the company including washing machine, sound system and flat screen TV, with such gifts as mobile phones and DVD players.

Etsegnet Wodajeneh, who has her shop on the first floor of Dembel, offered 15pc discount for sofas imported from Turkey, selling a 180,000 Br sofa for 153,000 Br until the end of January.

“As it is my first experience for the discount market, I expect more visitors in the coming days,’’ she says.

The committee at Dembel goes around to check that the sotres that agreed to offer discounts are actually doing so, says Tigest.

Following, the introduction of discounts on sales seems to be losing its valour and level of trust, according to customers Fortune interviewed. But the committee of Dembel has a visit every time for the shops that announced a sale to check whether their tenants are offering a real discount, according to Tigest.

According to an expert, the trend of sale discount in Ethiopia should go far dependent on seasonal events such as holidays, and he suggest the businesses should considers it as a major marketing strategy to conduct it in a regular scheduled time framework every quarterly or by every mid-year parallel with the holidays.

On the discount sale for this holiday season at Getu, Etenesh cannot getting the shoe which appeals her interest at ZY fashion, so she left Getu Commercial Centre with a plan of visiting other malls in Bole are who are offering sales discounts with the wider expectation and belief of getting more alternatives which will comply with her desire.


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