EOSS fails to lift sales for retailers this year

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

retailers this year, reporting only 7% growth in June from a year ago, despite EOSS starting early.Delhi rains made it worse in July for shopping complexes as shoppers preferred to stay indoors during the flood-like situation. According to the Retail Business Survey by the Retailers Association of India (RAI), June 2023 showed a moderate growth of 7% compared to the sales levels during the same period last year. Last year, the growth rate in June was over 50% due to the low base of 2021.

But in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, growth was 13% for the same month. «The growth has been muted and is expected to continue like this till September. The EOSS start was very slow but there has been some improvement in the last two weeks.

Still, in comparison to last year and pre pandemic, it's very muted,» said Lifestyle CEO Devarajan Iyer. Retailers were expecting some recovery by offering hefty discounts during the end of season sales, but there has been only a marginal growth in both footfall and sale. «Due to the slow growth rate in the last 3-4 months, we have also slowed down the expansion.

We were planning to open one store every 30 days, now we are opening one at 50 days. We expect the festive buying to start from September, that will help in double-digit growth,» said Sameer Manglani, owner of Meena Bazaar. According to RAI data, south India reported growth of 8%, while east India and west India indicated a growth of 7% and 6%, followed by north India at 5%.