Feb 22, 2011 09:02 PM
6556 Views
(Updated Feb 24, 2011 11:06 AM)
This is a story for all those who want to save money in their monthly rations and in turn get fooled with all the glitzy super marts advertisements in and around Delhi & NCR.
Well, it was 13 February 2011. A holiday for whole of India and even majority of the world. But for me there was no holiday as the monthly rations had to be bought. So going by an advertisement given in English daily in the month of January 2011, and mind you it was a full page advertisement, not one page but two pages. My family, my mama and papa decided that it was time to try something new. Well this new thing was none other than the newly opened SPAR Hype Market located at Tagore Garden Pacific Mall. Now here lies the agony. We are living in the south of Delhi and this is in the West of Delhi, or I think so if my geography knowledge is right. Well one thing was sure right and that was my car’s ode meter, which said 27 Kms approx one way.
It was actually the night before last when I was given the responsibility to track down the address of Pacific Mall. Which I did on my papa’s E63 mobile and came up with a blog written by a foreigner {GORA} with pictures and all, but I forgot that these GORAS get paid more than us Indian folks, and this GORA who wrote the blog must be an expiate being paid in Dollars not Rupees . So from that blog I got the address and also a review of SPAR Hyper Market. Well I noted the address of Pacific Mall immediately thinking that I had gotten the address of Aladdin’s cave.
Come 13 February 2011 and in the afternoon we all got ready to go on a monthly rations adventure with water bottle and all. We started at 1 P.M. and landed at 2ish. I parked my car and to my surprise the ticket given to me did not have the parking rates nor was any sign placed mentioning about the parking rates. I was a bit surprised as going to Malls one sees the rates either on the tickets or signs in the parking lot. Well the parking lot was not full being Sunday and I got a nice spot to park my car. I went straight up to the toilet first as nature’s call is to be answered first.
On entering the SPAR Hyper Market I felt it would be a good experience. There was this automatic barrier that opened automatchandru021y. But I couldn’t understand why it was taking so long for the ladies to enter. Well, after waiting for 2 minutes at the entry gate inside the market all the ladies were let in and it was a rush of women. I could not understand why that happened and why the security guard had held up so many women outside while just checking their purses. Now as I looking at the thing I saw that navigation is not an easy thing in SPAR and the size of the trolley is huge, may be the size of Tata Nano, it was huge to navigate with. Had there been a crowd it would have been a nightmare to navigate your way through the isles. Well the things are not upto quality. I went to the foods sections and saw most of the tin fishes were imported and not a single can was Indian. The toiletries had a limited range. Few, costly soaps and same for Shampoos. Slowly but surely I came to realize that SPAR has kept limited variety and that too the costly kind. Let me give you an example. In Big Bazaar you can get 2 {2liter pet bottle} soft drink for Rs.99, whereas in SPAR it is Rs.1 off on a 2 liter pet bottle. Though I am not good in Mathematics but I know that instead of paying Rs.118 {120{2x2ltr=120-2{Rs.1 off on each bottle}=Rs118, it still makes sense in buying soft drinks @99 for 2-2ltr pet bottles. Like this there are many instances in which I saw how SPAR is milking Indians, and fooling them into buying expensive products and at ridiculously high prices. There was not even one single branded product which claimed buy on get one fre offer or a discount that is worth mentioning.
I was disappointed as there is lack of variety, and a huge lack of variety. My parents were not that satisfied and for me I was totally annoyed. There is one more thing, you need to get your own bag or buy one from them @Rs.10 for a bag which is made of the worst material. For those who have cars you can wheel your trolley to the car and dump them in your boot. When leaving the parking I came to the parking toll booth, where a pretty lady was seated, she took the ticket from my hand while I was thinking about the charges and then she blurted out Rs.30, by what calculation I did not want to know and pulled out from the Mall.
Well, on a closing note I would like to tell all my Indian countrymen that please do not visit the SPAR Hyper Market, as these foreigners {GORAS} are fleecing us Indians again. It is a sheer waste of time, energy, Fuel {in these times of high prices of fuels} and most importantly MONEY. There is nothing special in SPAR Hyper Market. It is best to go to Big Bazaar. No, I am not a spokRajeev_Vermarson for Big Bazaar and given Big Bazaar’s customer care skills it is pathetic, but at the end of the day it’s the discounts, variety of products that matter. One thing about the SPAR Hyper Market is that the customer care is excellent, but then again they cannot give a discount or a product that they don’t stock.
SPAR IS A WAST OF TIME, ENERGY, MONEY & FUEL.
