LAHORE, Aug 6: Nila Gunbad, once the city’s busiest market, appears to be losing business.

The shops are still full of merchandize but lack customers. The shopkeepers link the decline in business to the rising cost of living, saying it is preventing people from spending on non-essentials like bicycles for children.

They deny that prices of the products for children have gone beyond the purchasing power of the people. It is indeed the prices of essentials and utility charges, they say, that have squeezed people’s budgets.

The Nila Gunbad Market has around 60 shops offering products for children between the ages of one and 13 years. The products include baby walkers, cots, cradles, swings, bicycles, tricycles, easy chairs, dinning chair, cars and scooters. The prices range between Rs250 and Rs6,000.

According to shopkeepers, average sales have dropped to no more than a hopeless two articles a day. The business, they claim, had been profitable only about five years ago. “Now, we are hardly able to pay for utilities.”

Wasim Ahmad, a shopkeeper, says about 10 traders had sold out their shops and switched over to other businesses. “Those, too, are not profitable.” He says five manufacturers of children’s items in the city, too, are suffering losses because of the bearish market trends.

Toy shops located at Yateem Khana, Ichhra, Township and Mughalpura, he claims, are suffering similarly. —- ZT