As 2017 heads to a close, brick-and-mortar retailers and online e-tailers have lined up an array of discounts. In fact, the end-of-season sale, an annual affair that usually begins after December 25, has kicked off well before Christmas this year. Industry insiders claim this is because the festive season sales didn’t deliver to expectations, especially for e-tailers. Pantaloons, Louis Philippe, Aldo, Vero Moda, Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Only, Globus, Benetton, Lifestyle and Shoppers Stop, along with online fashion portals like Myntra, Jabong and Amazon Fashion, are currently offering discounts ranging between 20% and 40% on a range of merchandise. The discounts are expected to increase even further to as much as 60-70% before the end of January, which has traditionally been the discount sales period. “With e-tailers advancing their end of season sale this year, offline players too have started offering discounts. In terms of business, we expect a 20% growth in sales in the third quarter compared to the same period last year,” said Vasanth Kumar, executive director, Max Fashion, part of the Dubai-based Landmark Group.
Harkirat Singh, MD, Woodland, too is bullish about the prospects in the rest of the year. Though the fashion and lifestyle brand has been able to achieve its sales target for 2017, it has been a challenging year for the company. “After two slow quarters on the back demonetisation and GST (goods and services tax), the market grew exponentially in the third quarter in terms of sales. The fourth quarter too is expected to be good,” said Harkirat. Woodland, which announced its end-of-season sale from December 16, is offering a flat 35% off on all products. Luxury brands such as Lacoste too expect a 5-10% growth in sales this year compared with last year’s end-of-season sale. “During end-of-season sale customers are expected to shell out anywhere in the range of Rs 6,000-8,000. We are currently we are offering a range of discounts on our products,” said Rajesh Jain, MD and CEO of Lacoste India. However, analysts point out that with both e-tailers and retailers offering too much of discounts too often, the novelty factor of sales have tapered off. But that hasn’t had any adverse impact on the businesses just yet. “Despite offering sale almost through out the year, retailer and e-tailers have continued to earn healthy margins. That is because now they put select stock on sale, mostly slow-moving items. Also, now companies have begun to manufacture select lines of apparel and merchandise that are sold only during sale,” explained Arvind Singhal, chairman, Technopak Advisors, a market research firm.
Meanwhile, e-tailers such as Amazon India and Jabong and Myntra have also begun their respective sales from Friday till December 25. While Myntra and Jabong are calling their sale, ‘End of reason’, Amazon has called its sale ‘Wardrobe refresh’. According to Amazon India, Prime members already have previewed items on sale on Thursday from 9 pm onwards — three hours before the sale went live. “From an exciting line up of top fashion brands including our international exclusives, to deals/offers for existing as well as first-time shoppers, the sale has something for everyone,” said Arun Sirdeshmukh, business head, Amazon Fashion.