Fun
Republic Mall - E-City Ventures of the Essel Group
was
opened two months ago on Avinashi Road in peelamedu,Coimbatore. The Company is
behind the successful lifestyle brand Fun Republic - currently operating in 4
lifestyle malls in Mumbai, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Coimbatore. It is the second mall in the Coimbatore
city. The mall brings together some of the hottest
names in the retail sector - Reliance group, Shoppers Stop, a host of other
retail brands like Basics Life, and fast food giant McDonald’s etc. As
it is new many people want to come there. The location where the mall was built
is its major advantage because the mall is surrounded by densely populated
residential areas and many colleges. Moreover it has bus stop facility in front
of the mall itself. The large dome-shaped
structure of the mall is beautiful
and its infrastructure is good. But the mall is not completed, still some civil
works are under process.
When
coming to shops, prices of the products are affordable For instance the reliance
mart shop in that mall gives A-Z products in lower prices. Customers are
telling that the reliance mart is giving exciting offers for many of the
products as they opened newly. Major players like McDonald, Shoppers stop, Basics
have already opened the shops. But, KFC, Fun Cinemas are yet to open. The mall
also has Indian style restaurant like Annapoorna where traditional cuisines are
available. They also into promotional events, games and customer interaction
services at their place.
In
the mall Air conditioner is not properly completed, for instance in lifts they
use air conditioner instead of fan but it is not working properly. Some of the
escalators are also not working. Due to this customers are suffering. In first
floor only rest room opened and in other floors rest rooms are still preparing
to open. The parking area of the mall doesn’t meet the requirement in peak
hours. It has three basements for parking which is small and not enough.
Customers are suffering a lot to park their vehicles. To clear this they have
given a private parking next to mall which also does not seem to be able to
meet the requirement. Some customers say, that for parking they charge Rs.10
for two wheelers and Rs.20 for four wheelers, which is high when compare to
Brooke fields mall. Even now the fun cinema is not opened there is problem in
parking, when it opens the mall will face the major problem of parking
vehicles. So they have to take steps for parking.
Even
though there are quite some brands in fun republic, absence of key retail
outlets like Ezone, hush puppies, staples etc is quite a concern. Most of the
eatery place at the fourth floor constitute of local players which throws a surprise
to the consumers who were actually intend to look for global food giants like
pizza hut, mainland china , sub way etc. The eating point which is a common
space shared by all the outlets do not have proper arrangement of tables.
Arrangement looks haphazard and spillage of foods is also need to be looked at.
On
the whole this mall is a wonderful addition to Coimbatore. If they address the
issues mentioned above then it is most likely that they will be able to earn
even more revenue and also improve their brand image as well.
