A Far Cry From The Good Old Days!. Review on Landmark - Bangalore

The opinions expressed in my review, are stemming from a comparison of the(now closed) Landmark outlet at Apex Plaza, Chennai, during its heyday with the Landmark outlet located at the Forum Mall in Bangalore.

Growing up in Chennai during the 90's and early 2000's, at least once in 2 to 3 months, my mom, dad and I used to make it a point, to go on'family outings'. As you can imagine, trips to Landmark, located at Apex Plaza, the wonderful family store that all Chennaiites like myself and my parents, knew so well and loved so much, formed an integral part of quality family time.

This was a store that catered to a wide range of customers such as book lovers, music lovers, kids, trendy crowds, etc. The original store was so family friendly, that it had everything from 'reading corners'(situated among the aisles having books for sale) where both kids and adults, could sit and thumb through interesting looking books, before deciding whether or not to buy the book, to even'listening areas', where there were these jukebox like devices, that were attached to a wall, complete with headphones, wherein the listener had the option of listening to and exploring a variety of playlists!

This in my opinion, was incredibly innovative thinking for an era, where the ipod was nothing but a dream! The employees used to even give away gift hampers to kids, whose families were regular customers, on special occasions such as birthdays and Christmas.

Owing to its popularity, Landmark soon blossomed into a number of branches across various cities in India, including Bangalore.

On moving to Bangalore, my parents and I were eager to re-live the wonderful experiences we had, as a family, at the original Landmark outlet, and hence, visited the outlet located at the Forum Mall.

Within minutes into our visit, we knew that the glory days of Landmark, were long gone.

For starters, much to my mom's dismay, the stock of books within the store, was abysmal. The book shelves were half empty. The books had been carelessly arranged in a haphazard way(not in alphabetical order or any thing!), as if the sales people just couldn't care any less! To add insult to injury, a sales assistant, cheekily informed my mom that even though the book that she was looking for, was out of stock at the store, she could either purchase a copy at the online version of the store or settle for the'e-book' version!

At the Apex plaza outlet, my mom has come across friendly, polite and knowledgeable staff, who were eager to talk to her about her favourite authors and theirs or just help her, by recommending new book titles and authors, based on her tastes.

The situation was just as bad, when it came to my nearly pointless hunt for music CD's, at the store. The staff member who was in charge of the music section of the store, looked at me, completely perplexed, when I mentioned some standard classic rock bands, whose albums I was looking out for and much to my chagrin, recommended an artist from a genre of music that I don't even like listening to, without listening to a word that I was saying!

Abysmal stock. Lack of knowledgeable staff, who are apathetic to the customer's needs and tastes.  Could it get any worse?! I really don't think so.