Can India shop India out of trouble?

Kolkata | Mumbai: Consumption picked up in the first weekend of festive season shopping, bringing relief to large retail chains, brands, malls and e-commerce marketplaces. A positive start to the Diwali sales period has assuaged concerns that the economic slowdown would hit consumption in what’s traditionally the high point of India’s shopping calendar.Several retailers, including Future Group, Spencer's Retail, Arvind Lifestyle, Reliance Digital, Vijay Sales and Great Eastern said their sales have grown by more than double digits in categories such as fashion and apparel, smartphones and consumer electronics in the first weekend of Navratri over same period last year. On average, sales have jumped 10-14%, they said.The country's two largest e-commerce marketplaces, Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, which launched their biggest sale for the year over the weekend, said overall business had doubled on the first day from the last time. Flipkart said sales in categories such as beauty, women’s ethnic wear, kidswear, sports, baby care and furniture surpassed last year's entire festival sales on day one itself. 71367220 Despite online discounts, footfall has risen in malls and stores by about 4-6% while the average bill value in brick-and-mortar stores is up 8-12%. The weekend was also the last before Durga Puja.India's largest smartphone and electronics retailer Reliance Digital's CEO Brian Bade said while it's still early days, footfall has been encouraging in the first weekend. "So have been new iPhone sales, which have been far superior this year compared to the last few," he said. Apple, which launched its latest iPhone 11 series last Friday in India with about 55,000 units, has almost sold out its inventory with retailers saying this has been one of the best launches of new iPhones in the past two years, according to senior industry executives.Electronics retailer Vijay Sales and Great Eastern Retail said Navratri had started reasonably well, despite Amazon and Flipkart. "Crowd is back to the stores and transactions are happening, which is a healthy sign," said Vijay Sales managing partner Nilesh Gupta.Great Eastern director Pulkit Baid said there has been good momentum. "Finally, it feels like festive," he said. Consumer goods makers and retailers had been cautious about this year's festive season business due to a slowing economy, lack of new job creation and poor consumer sentiment in urban and rural India over the past three quarters. However, recent measures by the government such as a cut in corporate tax rates to boost investment, have led to a rise in the feel-good factor, industry executives said.Apart from this, the central bank has told banks to link retail loans to external benchmarks, lowering the cost of funds, and the stock market has been buoyant.Offline retailers said apparel sales have been encouraging, growing by 15-50% in the past two days even though sales of fastmoving consumer goods (FMCG) are yet to pick up. "Grocery sales growth still remains under pressure," said Kishore Biyani, founder of Future Group, which owns Central, Big Bazaar and Brand Factory stores. "However, apparel is performing really well and there is no doubt it will be a good festive season for us in the lifestyle segment." Spencer’s Retail too reported high double-digit growth in apparel sales. "Let’s hope it leads to a good festive season going forward," said managing director Devendra Chawla. Malls in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru were teeming with shoppers over the weekend."We saw high footfalls and more shopping bags over the past two days," said Rajendra Kalkar, president (west), High Street Phoenix Mall, which runs Phoenix Mills in Mumbai. "However, it's too early to predict whether it was entirely led by pre-festive season buying or a non-rainy weekend in Mumbai after a long time." Arvind Lifestyle Brands managing director J Suresh said sales grew by double digits. He, however, warned that post Diwali the situation might be dampened unless overall consumer sentiment improved. Arvind Lifestyle runs nearly two dozen brands such as Gap, Arrow, Children's Place and Sephora. The festive season, which starts with Onam in Kerala, extends through Navratri-Durga Puja and ends with Dhanteras-Diwali. It accounts for almost 35-40% of annual sales.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2nJeVnX