Retailers across electronics, fashion, apparels and food and beverages are pinning their hopes on the extended Republic Day weekend to drive sales, after a mixed festive season.
While electronic retailers had a strong festive quarter, with year-on-year sales growth of 25-30%, driven by premium products, fashion and apparel retailers saw a muted October-December period, with growth coming in at 4%, according to the Retailers Association of India, an apex body of organised retailers.
A dozen-odd offline retailers, brands and restaurants that FE spoke to say that the weekend of Friday to Sunday may see a sales uptick of around 15-20% versus last year.
Cinemas expect footfalls on the back of the Hrithik Roshan-Deepika Padukone movie Fighter, which released on Thursday.
Distributors say that opening day collections will be in the region of Rs 25-30 crore, with the long weekend likely to add to the tally.
“Consumers offers and exchange programmes, discounts by as much as 40-50% and easy financing should drive sales this Republic Day weekend. It is also the first big shopping occasion after the festive season, ” Nilesh Gupta, director at electronics retail chain Vijay Sales, which has stores in the north and west of India, said.
“A combination of a big movie release (such as Fighter) as well as a national holiday on the occasion of Republic Day should spur retail sales. Retailers and brands are also using the occasion to offload existing inventory to make way for new products ahead of the spring/summer period,” Mukesh Kumar, MD and CEO, Quest Properties India, who is also the chairman of the board at the Shopping Centres Association of India, said.
Kamal Nandi, business head and executive vice-president, Godrej Appliances, says that the R-Day sale period could set the stage for a robust retail season. “
R-Day is the first shopping occasion of the calendar year. Brands and retailers will be optimistic after a strong festive quarter last year,” he said.
Gupta says that he expects mobile phones, laptops and large-screen TVs to see good sales traction during the R-Day weekend this year.
Executives at Croma say that the retailer has attractive deals on a range of products, including those under the Croma brand and other labels such as Apple, Philips, LG and Samsung. The categories include TVs, refrigerators, mobile phones and laptops.
Customers can also benefit from EMI options starting at Rs 999 along with up to Rs 5,000 benefits by exchanging old electronic items, and an extra 10% discount on select bank cards, Croma said.
Reliance Digital, on the other hand, is pushing instant offers of Rs 26,000 on a range of products from smartwatches to smartphones, small and large domestic appliances, laptops and water purifiers this R-Day.