Festive shopping off to a flying start!

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The wait for retailers is over – the consumers have finally responded. Buoyant urban consumers have turned on the expectations of consumer durables companies and fashion retailers who have begun expecting healthy double-digit growths up to 15% in value terms in the festival season that has begun in full swing in the country. The early part of the festive shopping season has witnessed increased activity from consumers. This is the time brands in the consumer durable fashion sectors were eagerly looking forward to since the first quarter of the financial year when demand turned sluggish, so much so that retailers and companies had to bring forward end-of-season-sales and flash discounts to boost sales which failed to adequately respond to the adrenaline shots marketing professionals liberally injected down the months. However, despite sales notching up significantly higher value, volume growth may lag behind a bit. Some of the major brands have already made significant uptick in sales projections across the October-November busy season shopping season. During this period, Godrej Appliances predicted to notch up value growth of 20%. It expects strong demand for premium white goods. “Demand is largely driven by premium products and is concentrated in city markets, while demand from rural areas continues to remain under pressure,” Kamal Nandi, business head and executive vice-president of Godrej Appliances, part of Godrej & Boyce, told Business Standard. According to this consumer durables major, volume growth could lag behind in the range of 10-12%. It must be noted that over the past few months there has been a clear preference of consumers to go for premium products across a number of product categories such as phones, automobiles and even apartments when the growth of demand for premium products has outstripped that in the lower/mass segments. Experts say that the first phase of the festive shopping season accounts for 40-50% of the entire festive sales, and this part has been encouraging. The second phase of the festive shopping kicks off about a week before Diwali. This year Diwali is on November 12. So far car sales have gone up about 16% in October compared to the same month a year ago. Smartphone sales have risen by 4-5%. Easy financing options such as EMIs, cashbacks and discounts are triggering sales. Another executive from a consumer durable retail chain told the newspaper on conditions of anonymity that demand in early October recorded an increase and sales were looking up since August. He expects value sales growth to be more than 10%. Vijay Sales has recorded 20% rise in sales this Dusshera compared to 2022. Air-conditioner sales rose in October. V-Mart sales have already gone up 10% and could rise further with Diwali drawing near. The executive highlighted the fact that demand has been choppy in non-festival season. Moreover, demand for mass products continue to suffer. However, this executive also pointed out that the slow rate of demand could be due to the effect of a high base achieved last year, on which the growth rates are being calculated.