Malls and consumerism go hand-in-hand

At malls, people end up buying overpriced items which they hardly need

Malls have become an integral part of our lives. Gone are the days of buying different things from different places. With the inception of malls, a lot has changed. People now have access to their necessary and unnecessary needs under the same roof.

This helps in saving time while shopping and also wasting it simultaneously. But lets take a look at the good parts first: Apart from the easy availability of products, malls have also become hangout zones - for youngsters and adults alike.

The bad part is, that kids accompanied by parents, usually fall for fanciful stuff at first sight. They money is spent/wasted in buying over-priced products. Is it a good idea to expose little ones to this experience frequently? Do malls encourage us to waste money on buying things we hardly need? Metrolife takes a look into the pros and cons of the matter.

“Every weekend, I am forced by family and children to take them to malls for shopping even for petty stuff, since malls provide polished services. But add that to my shopping luggage and increase in service tax and I am foolishly paying for over-priced goods to satisfy family needs... It starts with basic things like parking and other facilities which ought to be for free, since everything is so expensive anyway! There is no single consumer benefit,” says Dep, a public relations executive.

People like Dep feel that malls epitomise hardcore consumerism. First you go window shopping in these malls and before you realize it, you turn a victim of consumerism. Kids and teenagers, without understanding the C of Consumerism, fall prey each time.

“Yes. Malls have become the ‘in’ place for teens and if frequently visited, they start believing that this is how the world is - with all the razz­m­a­t­azz and glitter, whereas it is an entirely different world out there, that they will have to live in eventually,” says Bhavik Mehta, a student.

Opinions differ with different people. Dur­g­e­sh, a businessman from Bh­o­p­al says, “It depends on whe­t­her you want to purchase an item or not since nobody is for­­cing us to buy it. The store owners want to increase sales and so have offers on the­ir items. But when it comes to kids, parents should limit their visits to malls as kids don’t have better decision making capabilities.”

In a country like India where more than half the population has not even seen malls in their entire lives, being an intelligent consumer in a mall seems like an oxymoron.