Even as the festive season 2022 is about to start next week with Navratri, clothing and lifestyle items are witnessing a record jump in sales in the past few weeks. The sales growth points to a robust recovery in the sector after it was severely hit by the pandemic.
Clothing and lifestyle retailers as well as malls said they expect demand at a decadal-high during this festive season, according to an ET report. According to the report, Lifestyle International CEO Devarajan Iyer said, “The demand that we are currently seeing is the highest ever since we entered the country and a host of factors, including positive consumer sentiment and fresh merchandise, is driving sales… We expect festive season sales to be a bumper one this year with strong double-digit growth despite no discounting.”
This festive season is the first normal festive period after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to mall operators. The report quoted a survey by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) saying that retail businesses in the country posted a 15 per cent jump in sales during August compared with pre-pandemic levels (August 2019).
On the finance side, Delhi-based NBFC LivFin’s Director Harshad Malhotra said the disbursal for the supply chain during the pre-festive season has already shown an uptick. “During the festive season, we are expecting to disburse Rs 170 crore per month as compared to Rs 90-100 crore a year ago. Agri and food processing and consumer electronics are showing the maximum demand”, according to the ET report.
Currently, Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festivals sales are going on. The deals are the biggest deals of the year and offer deep-pocket discounts to customers. During the last year’s sale, Flipkart had said that customers saved around Rs 11,500 crore as over 3.75 lakh sellers joined hands in the “biggest Indian sale ever”. The company said it sold enough smartphones that if put together vertically, they’ll be taller than 1,000 Burj Khalifa buildings.
Flipkart had also said a watch was sold every 2 seconds during the sale, and the amount of tea that was sold in one hour can make about 50 lakh cups of tea. About 1.2 lakh chocolate bars were sold in 24 hours, and according to Flipkart, the boxes of the shoes sold during the Big Billion Days sale are 100 times the height of Mount Everest.
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Source: News18