Malls lure midnight shoppers to boost sales
Jakarta-based creative worker Lika Aprilia, along with thousands of other shoppers, was busy browsing the Debenhams department store at Senayan City over the weekend when the mall offered discounts of up to 70
percent during a Ramadhan midnight sales event.
“I remembered it was the midnight sale, so I hurried to SenCy to look for anything I could find. I found two woman’s bags for only one price,” Lika told The Jakarta Post on Friday, adding that she also visited other places offering special prices.
Only a week before the Idul Fitri celebrations, retailers and fashion brands “have to work harder to lure shoppers to reach their sales targets during the peak of the people’s spending spree,” Indonesian Retailers Association (Aprindo) executive director Tutum Rahanta said.
Tutum told the Post that the midnight sale was a program that suited most people living in a big city such as Jakarta, where traffic congestion often limited their time to shop.
Senayan City PR manager Sri Ayu Ningsih said that the midnight sale program on Aug. 12–14 managed to lure 150,000 visitors a day — twice the number on regular days.
“It managed to boost tenants’ sales by 70 to 400 percent, particularly for fashion brands,” she said, adding that 270 of 300 tenants participated.
Apparently, however, mall tenants and shoppers were not easily satisfied.
“Due to the very high demand from tenants and shoppers for another midnight sale program, we decided to launch the extended shopping hours program on Aug. 20-21,” Ayu said.
“This is extraordinary. We usually need two months to prepare a midnight sale event, but we don’t want to miss the moment.”
Gandaria City also launched a Ramadhan midnight sale event on Aug. 20, with participation of 250 out of 270 tenants at the mall.
“People’s purchasing power, along with the necessity to finish Idul Fitri shopping peak about a week before Idul Fitri. So we want to bring it into play,” Gandaria City mall promotion manager Denny Maruhum Pasaribu told
the Post.
Denny said that the mall attracted no less than 45,000 visitors during the four-hour midnight shopping event and booked total transactions of some Rp 10 billion (US$1.17 million), up 15 percent from normal daily sales.
A website providing information on sales programs across the country, AdaDiskon.com, listed around 20 shopping centers in Greater Jakarta that had launched midnight sale programs last week. It also listed dozens of malls and clothing lines outside the capital offering special after-hour discount programs.
“In the United States, some joke about midnight sales as a program designated for people with low incomes. But here in Indonesia, it is a trend,” Denny said.
Debenhams marketing chief Joy Agatha said that the midnight sale programs could double both its visitor traffic and sales compared to regular weekends.
“Prior to the Idul Fitri holidays, people need to buy things. Even at 10 p.m when we are about to close, people still line up in front of our cashiers. That is why we proposed launching extended shopping hours,” she said.
“Suitcases were one of the most wanted items, especially during the holiday season.” (swd)