UK’s south Asian shops struggle as smaller weddings hit sales
The south Asian high street is facing a fight for its future as customers scale back wedding celebrations owing to the cost-of-living crisis and young people’s changing preferences.
Businesses in Manchester and London have said they have had a huge decline in customers since the pandemic with the cost of living crisis prompting many people to decide against the traditional big south Asian wedding and to seek cheaper products online. Ankush Puri opened his clothing store in Southall, west London, known as “Little India”, in 1993. He had moved to the UK from India five years earlier and was among several budding entrepreneurs with their sights on the growing south Asian retail market in the UK.
He said: “Things have changed completely since 1995 … People are selling online, they’re selling for low prices and shopkeepers have got expenses … the rents and rates are higher but your profits are low.”
The decline of Britain’s high streets – owing to online shopping, rising inflation and a lack of investment –has been well documented. Yet the south Asian retail market has remained extraordinarily resilient, meeting the needs and desires of the growing south Asian population, and offering garments, such as saris, lehenga cholis and salwar kameez, that would otherwise be impossible to find on a typical UK high street.
Puri, like many other business owners, has tried to adapt by launching a website, DesiSarees.com, and shifting from selling women’s garments to men’s. But he said he was still struggling to turn a good profit.
Some business owners are more optimistic. Bob Balu, chairman of the Soho Road Business Improvement District (BID), said the high street in Birmingham had remained busy.
Balu said the BID had invested in campaigns and advertisements across south Asian radio stations and TV channels to encourage more shoppers to the Midlands, marketing Soho Road as a “one-stop wedding centre”.
However, he acknowledged that business owners are noticing customers opting for smaller wedding functions after the pandemic.
Balu said: “There’s not one factor that could be said. I think it’s just a buildup … weddings are down, kids are not getting married young, they’re getting married in their 30s. There’s so many factors and the cost of living is affecting it.”
Poonam Millin, whose family set up one of the first south Asian retail stores in Manchester in the 1970s, Alankar Sarees, said she had noticed a “huge decline” in customers in the past six months. “You might get one customer in the morning and one in the evening … several years ago, we’d have a constant flow of people.”
A spokesperson for Southall council said: “Southall is a cultural destination of national importance and is the UK’s premier destination for celebrating the best of south Asian culture and heritage.”