Retail sector growth: Retail sales for the month of July witnessed a growth of 9 per cent year-on-year, according to the 42nd edition of the Retail Business Survey by retailers’ body Retailers Association of India (RAI). Retail sales across all the regions indicated growth during the month as compared to July 2022.
Southern India showed a 12 per cent growth in sales, followed by Western India with 9 per cent growth. Northern and Eastern parts witnessed a 7 per cent growth each during July this year. In terms of categories, Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) and Food & Grocery reported a growth of 15 per cent and 14 per cent respectively followed by jewellery (12 per cent) and sports goods (11 per cent).
Speaking about the findings, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI said, “As consumers are now getting into their normal business routines, we are seeing a trend of O2O, or online-to-offline, where customers discover the products online but make purchases in-store. Moreover, brands are making concerted efforts to create a favourable shopping environment for customers. Retailers have seen a pick-up in business in the last week of July as many of them have started their End-of-Season sales.”
In comparison, according to the June 2023 survey by RAI, retail sales in India showed moderate growth of 7 per cent as compared to the sales levels during the same period in June 2022.
Also read: Retailers’ body RAI signs MoU with Tamil Nadu govt for new Retail policy, support MSMEs
Retailers Association of India is a not-for-profit organization that works with all the stakeholders of the retail industry to address the challenges of the industry. Recently, RAI announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with FaMeTN (Erstwhile MSME Trade and Investment Promotion Bureau), the trade and export promotion body under the Government of Tamil Nadu to help in forming a Retail Policy in the state and support the retailers and MSMEs.
Importantly, retailers along with wholesale traders were brought under the MSME definition in July 2021 by the government to extend the benefits of priority sector lending to them by financial institutions.
Also read: Retail sales see moderate 7% growth in June: RAI survey
In June 2023, the scheduled commercial banks had deployed Rs 4.30 lakh crore to retail trade borrowers of the country, with a 23.3 per cent growth from Rs 3.49 lakh crore deployed in June 2022, according to the August bulletin by the Reserve Bank of India.