Unprecedented Diwali Sales re-established dominance of offline markets over online markets: CAIT

On Nov 7, 2021

“The unprecedented turnout of consumers in physical markets leading to record breaking figure of 1.25 lakh crore Diwali festival sale across the Country has once again established the confidence of the consumers on traders and also vibrancy of offline trade in India has been reiterated. It’s also a strong, fittest and credible answer to all those so called think tanks, economists & retail experts and some section in Government quarters who were repeatedly saying that ‘gone are the days of offline trade’ as e-commerce will overtake retail trade in India soon and have put question marks on relevance of markets in India,” said Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).

The purchasing pattern of the consumers has greatly prompted the CAIT to demand the Government to put an end to unholy nexus of foreign funded e-commerce companies, big brands providing exclusivity and banks providing cash back on purchase from online portals. This kind of discriminatory treatment will not be tolerated any further by the traders. The CAIT has also decided to launch a ‘clean up operation of retail trade & e commerce’, the strategy of which will be decided by trade leaders of all States in an online conference convened by CAIT on 16th November, said Khandelwal.

CAIT National President B.C. Bhartia said that with revival of business on such a strong note, it is necessary that this energetic spirit of both traders & the consumers should continue to build a robust & growth oriented retail trade which has seen its worst days in last two years. The CAIT has decided to take the mettle further and will launch a special drive to upgrade, modernise & computerise the existing format of retail trade under the “Digital India” flagship program of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will soon hold talks with both Central & State Governments.

Bhartia & Khandelwal said that during this Diwali festival, the big brands in FMCG, Consumer Durables, Electronics, Mobiles , Foodgrain, toys, Gift articles, kitchenware & kitchen equipment, footwear, optical items, readymade garments, fashion apparels etc registered a growth of about 15- 20% at the level of fistributors & retailers whereas thousands of local brands or emerging brands at State levels grew upto 40% to 45% in terms of sales which left a good scope of enhancing their production capacity to boost Atmnirbhar Bharat and Vocal on Local call of PM Modi.

There are hundreds of big brands but more than 25 thousand local brands in different verticals of retail trade operating their business activities since a long time and their dealer and retailer network is much larger than branded products. The sales turnovers underlines the fact that local brands still dominate with an impressive share of about 60% of consumer expenditure in the Country. In the light of this fact, the Government must bring desired changes in its policy and craft out new and incentive based support policies for retail trade.

Bhartia & Khandelwal further said that items made or produced by small artisans, potters, craftsmen and local small entrepreneurs remained in huge demand and therefore special efforts and steps are needed to bring them in mainline of retail trade. This small but important sector has registered a whopping growth of 70% in their business as per an estimate. There is a need to revive the concept of village & cottage industry in the Country .

Bhartia & Khandelwal said that few important sectors like utensils, wedding & greeting cards, auto spare parts, machinery and few other verticals of retail could not do well and inspite of hike in prices in comparison to last year, their sales did not perform well. We need to identify such verticals and engage them to do better in future. The inclusive growth shall be the key factor for spreading the wings of domestic retail trade of India in a most structured way.

Bhartia & Khandelwal further said that in view of the tremendous performance of offline trade , a CAIT delegation will soon meet Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and will urge him to roll out National Policy for Retail Trade and to pin an end to highly discriminatory and violative mal-practices of foreign funded e commerce giants, roll out e-commerce rules , e-commerce policy and a new press note in place of press note no 2 of FDI policy, 2018.