Independence Day spending spree liberates retailers from sales gloom

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Thanks to the Independence Day weekend sale, retailers are finally feeling liberated from the concerns and worries around sluggish sales that have been gnawing at their heads since early summer this year.

According to a report in the Business Standard, tepid sales since winter that were attributed to inflationary pressures, unseasonal rains and lack of consumer confidence finally gave way to buying spree among the shoppers during the weekend.

More important, retailers interpreted it as an indication of high sales in the festival season a couple of months later.

Though retailers had unleashed end-of-season-sales (EOSS) and flash discounts to attract buyers in shopping malls, nothing would seem to be really effective in inducing the common people to spend during the period between March and mid-August. To boost sales in June, many retailers brought forward EOSS by about a fortnight but that desperate attempt too failed to have the desired effect.

The dry spell ended between August 12 and 15 as customers crowded the malls during the extended weekend.

“The EOSS was muted this year, but the last two weekends came as a surprise as we saw terrific footfall at our stores, thanks to the long weekend Friday onwards, which extended until Tuesday,” said CEO of Lifestyle, Devarjan Iyer. Lifestyle witnessed same-store sales growth much against its apprehension since the EOSS sales failed to have much effect earlier.

The footfalls also rose due to blockbuster films Rajinikanth-starrer Jailer, Sunny Deol-Ammesha Patel starrer Gadar2 and Akshay Kumar-starrer OMG2 simultaneously running right now in packed theatres all over the country.

One brand that was positively surprised by booming sales is Pepe jeans. Its CEO Manish Kapoor said that against their expectation of a 10-12% growth in sales during the weekend, they recorded 30-35%. What’s more interesting is that the brand raked in healthy sales of even its full-priced merchandise.

Another retailer that raked in big sales is electronics outlet Vijay Sales. It witnessed a 25% rise in the Independence Day sales compared to that in 2022. The retailer unleashed a series of sales promotion exercises to draw customers.

“We witnessed crowds back at our stores after five to six years. Sales were strong, and even our Sunday sales were 2.7 times higher than a normal day,” said Nilesh Gupta, MD, Vijay Sales. He added that people got out of their houses during the weekend in big numbers and the top-grossing movies also contributed to bringing the crowd outdoors.

But perhaps those connected with the movie industry were the most delighted. BookMyShow reported booming sales of tickets as people thronged movie halls to have the big screen experience.

“The I-Day weekend set the silver screen ablaze, with a massive 11.5 million cinephiles opting for the cinematic big-screen experience, the highest-ever five-day weekend on BookMyShow. More than 120,000 watched at least two or more of these titles on the silver screen between August 11 and 15,” said Ashish Saxena, COO, BookMyShow.

In a completely different domain, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail’s Chief Financial Officer Jagdish Bajaj informed investors following the financial results of the April-June quarter that they expected the sluggish sales trauma to end in the second half of the year with the festive season boosting sales.