ISLAMABAD-“We have this shop for over 40 years. I have been managing it for the past 17 years and the amount of hits we have taken in last 6 months are unprecedented. We are not even doing half of the business which we used to do,” said Sajid Baloch, a furniture vendor at Islamabad’s Abbas Market -- famous for affordable furniture.
Abbas Market which is located in mini market F-6 sector of Islamabad has 25 furniture shops in total and was once famous for foreign diplomat’s used furniture. It doesn’t even have that furniture anymore since diplomats now are more likely to purchase local furniture for their use instead of bringing it from their countries. The Nation has also been informed that when foreign diplomats leave the country they are still selling their local furniture at higher prices prices.
According to Baloch, his family owns 6 shops in Abbas Market and they don’t have to pay high rents, that’s why their furniture is affordable and famous throughout Islamabad as compared to other famous furniture markets in the twin cities where some of the vendors pay rents in millions for their showrooms. “Our profit margins have decreased more than half. If we used to sell 4 items in a day, now we are only selling 2 items and because of inflation profits are definitely not what they used to be. Our grocery prices have increased, utility bills have increased, price of raw material and almost everything has doubled because of inflation,” emphasized Baloch. Raja Sultan, student at a local university, who comes to his father’s shop as a part-timer told The Nation, “Business is not what it used to be here, my father opened this shop since almost 1985 and sales have been cut down to more than half in last one year or so. We even had to let go 3 employees out of 5 from our shop because we were not able to pay their salaries.”
“We have seen a new trend recently that a customers come out to our showroom, ask for prices and then come back after a month for the same article. If we still have the same article, the price of that article has increased 10% to 15% because of inflation. Customers are also facing effects of inflation like everybody but we don’t seem to understand that how they don’t realize what we have been going through. They aren’t wrong either but we can’t control the rates of raw materials,” said Sultan.
One of the customers at Abbas market while talking to The Nation said, “We have been buying furniture articles from here for our home and to gift our relatives on special occasions for a long time. This 5 piece wooden tea table set used to be priced at Rs5000 to Rs7000 about 3-4 years ago but now this has a retail price of Rs22000. Furniture prices have gone outrageously high. The bed sets we used to get for Rs1,00,000 are now priced at Rs150,000 or even more. This has to stop, someone in the power corridors have to think about masses.”
Alvi Auctioneers is the biggest affordable furniture retailer in Islamabad located at G-7 sector. They have huge variety of furniture of all kinds with more than dozen halls filled with furniture. The Nation talked to a senior sales associate at Alvi Auctioneers who has been working for them for 14 years. “Business is just not the same as it used to be. Sales have been dropping since 2020 onwards. We have witnessed days when there is not a single article sold in one day. We used to have so much business but it’s getting worse now. We used to empty our halls during the month of Ramzan but gone are those days.”
“Alvi Auctioneers also has complete variety of wedding furniture which is typically given by the bride’s family to the bride as a wedding gift including bed set with vanity table and a matching sofa set which Abbas Market doesn’t have. We have families coming in to see that furniture but now they are only able to afford bed set and are trying to avoid rest of the stuff since they are not able to purchase rest of the stuff,” said sales associate.
From purchasing the wood to taking it to carpenter to polishing it for the finish till transporting the furniture, there is a big chain of workers who are associated with the business but they are all feeling the impact of inflation and eventually passing all that on the consumers who don’t have the kind of purchasing power which they had earlier.