Festive season sales | All depends on resolution of supply chain, operational issues: Retailers Association CEO

The Indian retail industry continues to face hurdles at the state and local level, making recovery all the more distant. 

This is evident from the fourth edition of the business survey conducted by the Retailers Association of India (RAI), with retailers estimating 64 percent year-on-year degrowth in the first half of July.

Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India, told Moneycontrol that the start of Q2 FY21 has been grim as retailers are facing huge operational setbacks due to ad-hoc local lockdowns, which has created confusion and led to supply chain and staffing issues.

“Supply chain and operations need to smoothen up to ensure that the upcoming festive season brings back the much-needed impetus to sales recovery,” he added.

Earlier this week, RAI submitted representations to state and local authorities in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka requesting for removal of timing restrictions that have been imposed in some regions derailing smooth operations.

RAI wants authorities to allow essential shops, including kiranas, general trade shops, supermarkets, hypermarkets and wholesalers, to operate every day of the week until 9 pm to cater to the daily needs of the customers.

The association said that categories such as food and consumer durables have started showing some signs of improvement with overall degrowth now at 45 percent and 30 percent, respectively, compared to the same period last year. 

Within the consumer category, large-sized retailers (sales of over Rs 300 crore) indicated degrowth of 21 percent YoY. In the food and grocery category, small & medium-sized retailers (sales less than Rs 300 crore) reported a 35 percent degrowth.

Categories such as apparel and clothing (-74 percent); footwear (-74 percent); jewellery, watches and personal accessories (-78 percent); furniture and furnishing (-63 percent); sports goods (-68 percent); beauty, wellness and personal care (-71 percent); and quick service restaurants (-73 percent) continue to descend rapidly even in the first half of July.

Retailers feel the ad-hoc local lockdowns and limited operational hours and days in several others are creating setbacks as the already stressed retail businesses is getting further interrupted and in turn dampening consumer sentiment.