Should Star Bazaar charge me a parking fee?
I am not too sure if I'll go back to Bangalore's Star Bazaar anytime soon. Tata's impressive foray into the hypermarket business has brought Star Bazaar to Bangalore.The store is pretty impressive with a great shopping ambiance. The stock layout and variety is again impressive. I don't know about the prices as they seemed similar to other competing stores. But what's not getting me back there is what I encountered when I drove into the store car park. I was charged Rs. 20 as parking fee. Now I can't understand why. Especially when I feel they should be bending over backwards to have me patronise their store. Again, more so, 'cos just a few blocks away is Big Bazaar which has zero parking charges. Another competitor is Fabmall that's again in the nearby Forum Mall. The mall parking charges are Rs. 20, but that allows me to visit multiple stores.
Now Star Bazaar may through the parking fee want to ensure that only serious buyers come in. Well, I can put up with that, if they refund me the parking fee once they know that I purchased from their store. In fact there are stores in India that refund the parking fee once you make a purchase. The Future group's Central Mall in Bangalore for instance does just that.
Star Bazaar must realise that their promise of 'quality services at the lowest prices' requires them to not charge a genuine buyer like me, for using their parking facilities. Else the low price inside the store may be offset by my parking fee outside.
Comments
It would be great if people are not allowed to park in the malls without purchases, this will at least reduce the parking crunch on the weekends.
Agree with you that the new stores have improved on both the layout and the variety on offer-- making even Fabmall and Foodworld shake off some complacency. The latter had begun to look like a warehouse of late, the way they simply piled the stuff in narrow aisles with no regard to convenience or best-by dates.
Where Star Bazaar and Croma disappointed us totally is the completely lost and inept staffing! We were dazzled by the incompetence of the execs who couldn't elucidate selling points of a simple DVD player! All they did was repeat "Buy this one, sir. It is very popular". Ditto with a Wi-fi router and Webcam. All low-priced items.. but an indicator of what to expect.
Wonder if others found the store unprofessional and lax-- especially in light of high standards one would expect from Tata. Lifetsyle's SPAR is so much more fun...
While I agree with you on parking fee, in city like Bangalore I wouldn't mind paying if they assure me decent and ample parking for the fee! To echo your sentiment: I am not going back to Star Bazaar anytime soon, either