Walled City
The prospect of a trip to the old Lahore had all of our group members excited. Finally, we were going to get the opportunity of seeing the architecture that has been there since the time of the Mughals. All of us had expected that the market will be small, and all the things would be moving in slow motion, in short all us thought that we will be taking a journey to the past. However, we were all in for a surprise.
Upon reaching the place, we could not rap our heads around the speed at which things were happening. The notion of it being a small market went out of our heads, after walking miles after miles but not being able to see the end of the line shops that surrounded us. The hustle and bustle of the market took us by a surprise. But upon getting to terms with everything we were able to take the interviews, along with some selfies and were able to complete the assignment that we had been sent to do.
We first visited a toy shop, which was on the outskirts of the Azam market. The toy shop belonged to Mr. Aurangzeb, who claimed to be in the market for over 5 years. He told us that he had started with a small shop and through his hard work and immaculate selling skills was able to expand his business to a larger scale. Upon being asked about the supplier, he told us that most of his products were made locally in warehouses which were also located within the same market. He said that he did not own the warehouse, but had very good terms with the manufacturer of the toys. We also asked him, how often he visited that warehouse. He said that he usually visited the place once a week, but in peak sales season he had to go their twice a week. He said that he paid his supplier in cash at the time of the transaction, or at most two days after the transaction.
After that interview, we moved further into the heart of the market where we saw ourselves surrounded by cloth shops. There we met Mr. Amanullah. Amanullah had an entirely different supply chain from our first interviewee. Amanullah imported his entire product line from China. Upon being asked further details, he told us that his brother goes to a market in China, which is similar in nature to the Azam market. His brother buys the clothes from there and then sends them to Amanullah in Lahore. He told that his brother paid in cash at the time of the transaction and had no leeway of availing a credit period. Amanullah imported his products once in two weeks and sold his product at 30% margin.
After visiting the Wazeer Khan mosque and having some drinks we went back into the market to meet our third interviewee, Mr. Shafi-ullah. He was quite an interesting man, and was particularly fond of having himself photographed. Shafi-ullah was an owner of a 13 years old cloth shop. He said that he brought in his supplies from Faisalabad, once every month. He claim to have a credit period of around a week, but tried his best to make the payment within a day or two. He claimed to have 25,000 to around 30,000 rupees worth of sales everyday (at margin of 20%).