A survey of 110 wedding apparel manufacturers was conducted by Clothing Manufacturing Association of India (CMAI) to determine the commercial trends during the just-completed wedding season. Up to 77 per cent of survey participants reported mediocre to poor sales over the previous season. In contrast to 14 per cent who blamed rising costs, more than 60 per cent of respondents blamed the general economic slump for the poor performance.
However, 13 per cent of respondents said that the fewer auspicious days this season than the season before led to the decline in sales.
A vast majority of the respondents (83 per cent) stated that there has been ‘No Growth’ in the wedding season compared to the previous season in the year 2022.
The majority of respondents (40 per cent) reported that sales were down between 10 per cent and 25 per cent from the prior year.
A significant majority of the respondents—nearly 85 per cent—said that products with lower prices performed better than those with higher prices. According to the survey results, lighter embroidery and pastel colours were more in demand.
Speaking about the domestic apparel industry, Rajesh Masand, President, Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) said, “Currently the market is seeing a fairly significant slowdown, which has been caused by the overall inflationary conditions in the Market.”
The garment sector has been expanding at an average annual pace of 8–10 per cent. After the pandemic, the apparel market experienced a comeback in 2022 as customers returned to physical stores and markets. It is predicted that the industry will have increased by between 15-20 per cent between 2022 and 2023. However, because the cost of raw materials and the total cost of manufacturing have increased significantly, this expansion has solely been driven by prices, and the volumes would still be 3-5 per cent lower than the previous year.
