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Shoppers left in dark about Jakarta Great Sale
Shopping spree: A customer examines footwear products in Senayan City Mall, one of the shopping centers offering discounts as part of the Jakarta Great Sale program, on Saturday
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Shopping spree: A customer examines footwear products in Senayan City Mall, one of the shopping centers offering discounts as part of the Jakarta Great Sale program, on Saturday. Organizers of the annual event to celebrate Jakartaâs anniversary are predicting sales of Rp 14.3 trillion (about US$1 billion).(JP/Awo) (about US$1 billion).(JP/Awo)
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span class="inline inline-center">Shopping spree: A customer examines footwear products in Senayan City Mall, one of the shopping centers offering discounts as part of the Jakarta Great Sale program, on Saturday. Organizers of the annual event to celebrate Jakarta's anniversary are predicting sales of Rp 14.3 trillion (about US$1 billion).(JP/Awo)
Thirty-five-year old Vansya visited Senayan City mall in South Jakarta recently with a mission.
The civil servant who lives in Bintaro, Tangerang, Banten, said he had been anticipating the capital city's annual discount fiesta, the Jakarta Great Sale (JGS), and wanted to splurge on some branded shoes he had been eyeing for a while.
Armed with a London-based credit card, he said he was ready to spend Rp 10 million (US$750.05) during his spree.
'I got good deals from Zara, Cotton On and Topman. I'll also go to Grand Indonesia shopping mall in Central Jakarta to buy a pair of Tod's loafers,' he told The Jakarta Post with enthusiasm.
Despite having a penchant for branded items and a credit card to support such cravings, Vansya's knowledge about the JGS was limited. He said he only knew about big sales in three shopping malls ' Senayan City and Gandaria City in South Jakarta and Grand Indonesia.
Little did he know that this year the shopping festival features around 2,000 tenants in 78 malls across the city, boasting discounts of up to 70 percent. Midnight sales events will also be held in 19 participating shopping malls during the shopping fiesta, held from June 6 to July 12.
First held in 1982, when it was called Festival Pertokoan (Shops Festival), the JGS has become an iconic annual program for the city. However, even after 33 years, the event still runs into the same challenges ' creative promotion and information dissemination.
In years past, the event's committee has relied on the typical methods for disseminating information about an event by, among other things, running advertisements, erecting banners in streets around malls and holding press conferences.
Internet savvy shoppers may have difficulty finding clear shopping guidance. The information on the website, festivaljakartagreatsale.com, is insufficient, neither mentioning popular outlets with the best deals nor giving information on accommodation for foreign shoppers. It merely offers a schedule of the midnight sales, a few articles on the preparations ahead of the event and a long list of participating malls with no hyperlinks to the malls' official websites.
A Google search for 'Jakarta Great Sale' will direct visitors to last year's website and an official Twitter account that was last updated on April 10. More information about the event is available in local online media, mostly written in Indonesian.
Ellen Hidayat ' the chairwoman of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Shopping Center Management Association (APPBI) and the chief executive of this year's JGS ' argued that it was difficult for the committee to provide details on discount information as participating outlets had their own policies regarding discounts. She admitted that the JGS was not very organized yet.
'The Great Singapore Sale [for example] has a professional team that only focuses on the event, including the website,' she said, adding that the JGS was more of a volunteer-based project run by her shopping center association members.
Ellen said the 2015 JGS website had just been finished and was still being tested. Soon the festival organizers will cooperate with Google to develop a shopping application, she said.
Ellen insisted that the participating tenants offered real discounts.
'I've inspected several shopping malls in Central and North Jakarta and have found that outlets like Guess, DKNY and Furla offer good deals. I even bought some Hugo Boss apparel that was 50 percent off,' she said.
Furla brand manager Brenda Levi said that every year soaring sales were recorded during the JGS, with customers coming from Surabaya, cities in Bali and even Kalimantan, as well as from Malaysia, China and South Korea.
She said the stores had especially enticing deals.
'There will be a special promo on the bags, such as a 10 percent discount at midnight, or gifts given on top of the discount,' Brenda told The Jakarta Post over the weekend. (prm)
