Before SM City Davao and before NCCC Mall, there was the good old JS Gaisano. Any Dabawenyo who frequented the city's few shopping malls wayback in the 1990s (or was it late 1980's?) will always remember the large fairy-tale like staircase leading to JS Gaisano's second floor. But this was before the fire which gutted the mall. It became known as JS Gaisano Citimall under the management of John Y. Gaisano. Back then, JS Citimall was famous for its entertainment shows at the 5th Level. It's marketing people always came up with promos and shows to lure people to the shopping center. Well. how can they not when Sir John always kept them on their toes. He was a hands-on manager who knew what went on his store. of bigger malls like SM and NCCC, people began to outgrow JS Citimall. I am not sure anymore whose hands JS Gaisano is under but I think the store is beginning to wake up from slumber. Their foodstreet was transferred to the 5th and some seats were placed along the grocery area for those who want to take a quick bite.
They also launched a new promo "Cars & Cash" where they will be giving away 3 Picanto cars--these really cute cars and in my favorite color at that--RED! The promo runs from November 17, 2007 to March 15, 2008. I just hope they assign better staff to take care of the raffles since the woman who was supposedly in charge of counting the raffles was so rude and didn't have the basic skills in handling customers. She also had with her a defective calculator ---to think that she was supposed to be doing the math for the raffle stubs like one stub for every P200 purchase from the Department Store. I haven't had any negative experiences with the other sales people on the top floors; in fact the people at the toys section were very nice. Maybe that girl is just having a bad hair day, oh well. I hope the Citimall Management do something about this soon before they alienate their customers again.
Gaisano Citimall has also launched a ard membership promo much like the NCCC Shoppers Card and SM's Advantage Card. I think the free membership offer expired last November---well haven't submitted mine actually since I really do not shop much here but I'm looking forward to a more vibrant Gaisano Citimall. I used to be a PR consultant with JS Citimall and I know how John Gaisano worker hard to make Citimall one of the best shops in the city. Sad to see something that used to be good for the people of Davao go down the drain. So here's goodluck to the new management---keep it going!
