In response to the Coronavirus wrath and advisories issued by various local authorities and State Governments, 2 lakh outlets have been shutdown country wide in various sectors.

Offline sales have slumped by 70 per cent in the worst cases as shoppers switch to cutting on discretionary spending.

To curb these losses, the Indian retail industry wants 90-day grace period for tax filling and 120-day grace payment for loan repayment.

As the Government announces companies to shutdown and not to cut down on employees’ salary, the industry seeks April-June subsidy for 50 per cent of employee wages from Government.

With the statewise lockdown announced in the country, companies are cutting marketing costs and discounts to increase runway in order to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Considering the e-commerce industry on the broader note, sales are down by 20-30 per cent.

Specialised online retail verticals such as Myntra, Nykaa, FirstCry and Zivame with a significant offline presence have seen sales decline by as much as 20 per cent over the last 2 weeks.

For other cases, the decline has been as high as 35 per cent.

E-tailers want Government to allow marketplaces to hold stock inventories for now. Also, it requests big offline vendors to bring their inventories into e-commerce.

What has hit this industry is the disruption of operations in the wake of current lockdown scenario!