Retail businesses across India clocked in a 20 per cent sales growth during the April-October period over pre-pandemic levels but the next few months will indicate whether or not the recovery has sustained, said Kumar Rajagopalan, chief executive officer, Retailers Association of India (RAI).
The first seven months of the financial year have seen a sales growth of 20 per cent over 2019, according to the association. “If we are able to grow at 20 per cent in October-December--the marriage season--then we will be okay,” said Rajagopalan.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the RAI Kolkata Retail Summit. But what could throw a spanner is inflation. “Sustained inflation could be a challenge,” noted Rajagopalan.
“There are definitely some headwinds because of inflation. Daily consumption items have become costlier.” But he added that inflation had moderated and that should help sales momentum to continue.
The April-October sales growth accounts for inflation, but Rajagopalan said even then the growth so far has been good.
Addressing the summit, sector head-retail and FMCG, RP-Sanjiv Goenka group, said that consumption growth was back to positive after a two-year Covid pause. “India’s consumption has been growing steadily and a strong double digit growth despite the pandemic has proved to all of us that the retail sector in India has bounced back,” he said.
With the rise in per capita income, India’s retail trade is only going to get bigger and bigger, said Goenka.“The space is slowly maturing as players find their feet and their own niche markets after having experimented with different value formats and different propositions as well.”
He also said that it was expected that the next decade would see retailers double their footprint both offline and online. “This is what is going to lead to future growth.”
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