Last weekend I went to the new Hypercity mall in brookefields, Bangalore. I went there with expectations any customer will have about a new mall. Unfortunately it was not a nice experience to talk about.Some of the reasons:
New malls normally display some good offers to attract the initial customers. Though the mall opened just the previous day, I could see that most of the items on display are priced a slightly higher than at other places. I couldn’t digest the logic. I wonder if they assume that the IT crowd have above average standards of salary and hence they won’t bother about the higher price. Or are they trying to show any premium service offering (though I couldn’t find any). So on the pricing front, they failed totally, and I made my mind to visit the place again only if I can’t drive few more kilometers to the next place.
This mall has 25-30 payment counters, but when we reached the payment area it was the same usual long queue. May be there were not operating all, even though there are lengthy queues. Anyways it is a new mall, so they have to hire more employees probably.
I was a bit shocked when they charged me Rs.30 for the parking with no redemption option. A mall which just opened a day back is not even considering a free parking until it gets established. I think we as customers make this as a default expectation, after seeing all other big malls doing the same.
Don’t know the reason, but I bought 1 Kg chicken from this mall, and it smelled horrible when we opened the pack at home. I seriously doubt lack of refrigeration could be a reason. If they are switching off the cold storage in the night to save electricity, then they are doing a big mistake. I’m not making conclusion, but anyway I couldn’t drive back and standing the queue to show this dirty piece of chicken. Was not in a mood to call their customer care, so didn’t do that also.
Overall, I wouldn’t go there again. Either the management is trying to break even at the earliest much before the regular mall industry standards at the cost of customer or they are unaware about these facts (which is unlikely). It’s not a matter of spending a few more hundreds, in terms of parking, overpricing etc. but I think I can’t be in league to encourage this sort of money making business.