Diwali sales down by 15-20% in Ahmedabad

Diwali, the festival of lights, failed to lighten up the faces of traders this year. Although the market was flooded with customers a couple of days before Diwali, conversion of footfalls was not so enthusiastic. Traders across all sections feel that demand dipped by around 20% during the festive season.

They had expected good business but are disappointed by the lacklustre response from the customers ahead of Diwali. Traders from almost all the sectors, be it ready-made garments, sweets, imitation jewellery, decorative items or mukhwas believe that the demand fell in the range of 15-20%.

Dhalgarwad, one of the preferable shopping streets for middle and lower middle income groups, witnessed its usual rush of customers, but traders had nothing to cheer about as the customers' budgets remained very low. "The average spending of the customer remained in the range of Rs1000 to Rs1500, depending on the buyers," said Abdulhafiz Mansuri of Dehlawala Emporium in Dhalgarwad.

He said that customer turnout was good in the last two days before Diwali and that helped them to make up to some extent. "We feared around 35-40% cut, but last moment buying reduced it to around 20%," said Mansuri. There were some sections like women's apparel where the slump was around 5-10%.

People did not slash their budgets only for garments. The bed sheet business also bore the brunt. Imtiyaz Sabuwala of Sabuwala Bedsheets said that customers reduced their budget due to inflation.

Traders of imitation jewellery, mukhwas and decorative items were also affected. "Although people do not have to spend thousands of rupees on mukhwas, we witnessed more than 30% fall in demand," said Jayesh Pujara of Kalkatta Mukhwas on Gandhi Road.

Traders cite various reasons like financial crisis in market, price hike, cautious approach by the middle class and effect of Ponzi schemes for the lower demand. Mujib Soniwala of Soni Brothers in Teen Darwaja said that many customers have burnt their fingers in Ponzi schemes, so they were yet to recover from the shock.

"Had people not invested in Ponzi schemes season of Eid and Diwali, things would not have been so bad," said Soniwala.

Sweet shop owners felt that due to a price hike, their turnover in Diwali was not affected much but volume of goods sold was quite low. "Last two days sales helped us gain some ground, but still the response was not very enthusiastic," said Kamlesh Kandoi of Kandoi Bhogilal Mulchand.

On the other hand, Jaswant Patel of Jai Hind said that the market demand was down by at least 15%. "The customers buying 1 kg Kaju Katli bought only 500 gram," said Patel.