After two years of Covid-induced lull, consumers are back to the stores, splurging on clothes, bags and beauty products.
And when it comes to festive spending, inflation does not seem to be coming in the way of consumer spending.
A lot of people from the non-metros, who earlier were subscribers of unorganised brands, are now coming to branded stores.
That’s a big change!
Devarajan Iyer, Executive Director and CEO at Lifestyle, says “The aspiration levels are increasing and branded products are selling more. Conversion of unorganised to organised is a very big movement happening across the fashion industry.”
He further added that the company that runs about 86 stores across the country has seen footfalls touching 90 per cent to 95 per cent of the pre-pandemic levels, adding “The basket sizes have increased 7-8 per cent compared to pre-Covid. We are seeing more items in the same basket…consumers are coming to stores.”
Young fashion brand FabAlley & Indya has so far recorded sales growth of 45 per cent in the East over the same (festive) period last year.
Atul Chachra, Vice President, Retail at FabAlley, expects festive sales in the region to close with a growth of 70 per cent over last year.
For Lifestyle, sales from the eastern region in September have already advanced by 35 per cent to 40 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic period of September 2019.
In the South, shopping for Onam has been brisk. While Lifestyle claims to have seen a double-digit growth in sales during the festivities compared to pre-Covid, store walk-ins for FabAlley & Indya across its stores in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru have grown by 25 per cent.
Westside is expecting a surge in demand and footfalls this year. With gifting being a major festive theme, the brand from the Tata Group is focusing on curating gifting solutions.
The retail industry, which had its share of struggles in the pandemic, imposed upon by intermittent lockdowns, is leveraging social media and celebrity reach to get more customers to the stores.
