Traders in north to have a dull Diwali?

The sentiments of IT traders in northern region around Diwali sales are very negative. Retailers are complaining of a somber Diwali as people are spending cautiously this year. Sales are low by almost 50% this time, compared to last year, they say. The sales are low because of the inflation.

People are buying more of home appliances than IT products. "Most people are coming with a small budget and not keen on buying laptops. In fact the sale of converged devices or touch based products are on the rise," commented Rajeev Garg of Aadhar Infotech.

As per the sales report before Diwali, the average billing sizes have increased from 10%-15% y-o-y, as premium products such as large-screen televisions, smartphones and tablets are moving off the shelf faster. While some retailers say footfalls, or number of visitors in a shop or actual footfalls have gone down significantly compared to last year, others also agreed that there is a feeling among retailers that the buzz is lower this year.

Ankur Gupta, another IT trader and retailer from Ludhiana lamented, "This year there is 'zero' sales on Diwali, we are surprised to see such a poor response from the end customers. Overall in Punjab the mood amongst traders is somber with many anticipating huge losses. I don't think we will make any profits. I just hope it is not a huge loss. We expect sales to pick up marginally in a couple of days."

The other interesting trend has been observed is that partners have started diversifying from retailing into security surveillance line of business, Gupta added, "As we have not been seen any growth in IT retail, we have decided to further diversify into non-IT business, and started importing CCTV cameras from China. The move has paid off well and we are getting impetus from this new business."

Putting another perspective, Gurpreet Singh of Premier Computers said, "We are not getting any support from our principal companies like Acer, Samsung, Dell, Sony and HP. Most of the top IT vendors are focusing more on large projects or are concerned about consumer electronics business. No extra efforts have been put by the vendors to make Diwali lucrative for their partners. Almost all companies are offering trade incentives to retailers and gifts to consumers to push sales of premium products, since a lot of inventory was stuck throughout the year."

Not only IT retailers are cribbing about sad Diwali sales, even commercial partners have the same story to share. According to DP Sinha, MD, Graphline Computers, one of the HP commercial partners for Delhi-NCR, "Our commercial business has been down by Rs 6 crore this quarter, as compared to last year. The payments have been stuck with corporate houses for more than 60-90 days, and we don't see any relief before or after Diwali."

Blaming on the corruption and govt instability behind the low market sentiments, Mukesh Gupta of Digitronics said, "The market lacks cash flow as most of the market money has been invested into real-estate, a business man is under huge financial crisis and struggling to maintain overheads and topline."

Despite the spirit of Diwali sales being low by more than 50%, as per the traders, on the positive side, IT associations are celebrating this festive season with great pomp and show.