“We need to be watchful,” Arun Narayan, VP-category, marketing & retail, at the country’s largest gold retailer Tanishq said, adding that overall response has been good. While numbers for Tanishq were better than what the company retailed last year and even pre-Covid, the pressure seems to be building up. “There is certainly an inflationary overhang that we are noticing on the whole.”
Gold prices have gone up nearly 50% from pre-Covid levels, and this is also acting as a dampener. Akhil Narang of Nirankari Jewellers, a retailer at Delhi’s retail gold market, said with less cash inflow, numbers of big-ticket purchases have come down. “While the festive rush is there, we are concerned about how things will pan out later.”
Shashank Srivastava, director (marketing & sales) at Maruti Suzuki, said Dhanteras numbers for the company are higher than last year, but a far distance from what it did in pre-Covid period. While production constraints due to semiconductor crunch may have some blame to take (output is normalising now), Srivastava said there are different worrying factors now.
Shailesh Chandra, MD of Tata Motors passenger vehicles and electric divisions, said retail growth is up 100% over last year as the company has been able to ramp up production in line with demand.
On appliances side, companies are facing a huge pressure on retailing mass-market products, especially single-door refrigerators and semi-automatic washing machines, which are not seeing much demand beyond big cities. “Pressure of inflation is there, even though we are seeing demand for premium products. Compared to pre-Covid 2019, we have seen Dhanteras and festive retail go down 20-25% in value terms this year. Post-Diwali, we may see a further dip,” said Kamal Nandi, business head & executive vice-president, Godrej Appliances.
Luxury makers, however, are in between strong numbers. Mercedes-Benz has already retailed over 800 cars this festive period, and has received more than 1,000 bookings. “We have a waiting of 3-9 months,” VP (sales & marketing) Santosh Iyer said.
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