At a premium mall in Chennai on a Tuesday afternoon, 48 hours to go for Deepavali, retail stores are half empty. The staff seem clueless as they are standing alongside mannequins to view customers passing by the aisles.
The scene is somewhat similar at India’s largest jewellery market and a thriving market for textiles and apparel – T. Nagar.
Festive seasons are sporadic across the country and that is when most retail stores selling apparel make money (read: profits).
The festival shopping season begins in India with Onam in Kerala followed by Ganesha Chathurthi, when regions in Western India and Karnataka see a sales boom.
This is followed by Navarathri / Durga Puja when business peaks in Eastern India and quite a bit in markets like NCR region.
The next big pan-India festival is Deepavali when retail counters clock their highest monthly sales, which is usually 2x – 3x of their average monthly sales.
Deepavali is a festival widely celebrated in Southern India (barring Kerala and somewhat in Karnataka), parts of Western India, most of Northern and Central India and in select states in Eastern India.
The festive period concludes with the Chath Puja, usually 3 -4 weeks after Deepavali, predominantly in Central India.
It is that time of the year when shopkeepers, small, big or large look forward to the most prosperous time of the year to fill their coffers. But not this year.
The manager of a Department store chain which operates over 100 stores in India was not a happy man when asked about low footfalls.
“E-Commerce has taken away all our Sales this year”, said Varun (name changed). “I was hoping for a bumper sale this year as the recently ended EoSS (end of season) didn’t do well”.
Those who are buying offline this year are buying fewer quantities than in earlier years, which brings down the average order value. Match it with lower footfalls and the store performs lesser than previous years, overall.
Aslam, a vendor on Ranganathan Street in Chennai’s T. Nagar area says the sales this year is a 20-year low in his experience as a shopkeeper.
Gopal, his neighbour says that they had purchased a lot of stocks (clothing and textiles) and is now wondering how he will repay the mounting debts.
The slowdown in offline retail clearly points out to the prevalence of e-commerce over the last 3 years.
Murugan, a fruit seller at Mylapore says even his hyperlocal business is impacted due to Quick commerce portals such as Zepto, etc.
“They are offering deep discounts on fruits with free doorstep delivery. We are sitting ducks. The Government at the State level as well as Modi-led Government has done nothing to safeguard us”, he sulks. “They only want our votes”, he summarises with a distraught on his face.
The full impact of e-commerce on offline Organised retail will only be seen at the end of this financial year. However, for the small and marginalised shopkeepers, the writing is clearly on the wall.
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