Retailers across electronics, fashion and apparel, and food and beverage segments as well as cinema chains are pinning hopes on the extended Independence Day-Rakshabandhan weekend to drive sales, after a difficult April-June quarter this year, which saw a retail slowdown.

Executives at firms such as Croma, Vijay Sales and Reliance Digital to apparel chains such as Pantaloons, Lifestyle and V-Mart say that the weekend of Thursday (Independence Day) to Monday (Rakshabandhan) may see a sales uptick of around 15-20% versus last year on positive consumer sentiment, good deals led by cashbacks, easy financing options, exchange programmes as well as discounts of at least 50-60% on various products.

The Independence Day-Rakshabandhan weekend will also kick off the festive season, which will commence with regional festivals such as Onam and Ganesh Chathurthi in the first week of September.

“There is pent-up demand and consumers are coming back to the marketplace as the festive season will begin,” said Nilesh Gupta, director at electronics retail chain Vijay Sales, which has stores in north and west India. “We expect strong footfalls as well as sales growth of at least 15-20% as we get into this long weekend, led by categories such as mobile phones, TVs and large appliances,” he added.

“Retailers and brands are also using the occasion to offload existing inventory to make way for new products ahead of the upcoming festive season in September-October,” Anand Agarwal, chief financial officer, V-Mart Retail, said.

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Cinemas expect footfalls on the back of six films that will release on Thursday, including three movies in Hindi (Stree 2, Khel Khel Mein and Veda) and three south films (Vikram’s Thangalaan in Tamil, Ravi Teja’s Mr Bachchan and Ram Pothineni’s Double Ismart in Telugu). Of this, Stree 2, a sequel to 2018’s Stree, both starring Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao, is expected to open well (`30 crore opening day collections likely), based on advanced bookings, trade experts said.

“This is the first long weekend after a difficult first half of calendar year 2024. Not only is it important from a business perspective, but this weekend will also set the tone for the upcoming festive season,” Kunal Sawhney, chief operating officer, CineLine India, which runs the MovieMax chain of cinemas in the country, said.

Sawhney said that Stree 2 may do the heavy lifting in terms of box office performance, contributing around `150-170 crore in terms of earnings in its first weekend. The rest may chip in with `50-70 crore in collections, though the south films are likely to perform well in their respective regional markets, he added.

Mukesh Kumar, a retail expert and the former MD & CEO of Quest Properties India, said a combination of big movie releases as well as a national holiday should help spur retail sales this year.