Durga Pujo is right around the corner, followed by Dussehera, Laxmi Pujo and Diwali. It’s the festive season after all.
About 65 per cent of Indian households are gearing up to spend money on shopping this festive season, with some 20 per cent of these households even contemplating spending on big ticket items.
But it’s not the same for everyone, according to a survey report by a Delhi-based market research company, LocalCircles. This survey involved 58,000 respondents across 362 districts, with 64 per cent of those surveyed being men and the rest 36 per cent being women.
About 35 per cent of those surveyed said that they don’t plan to spend anything this festive season, while about 3 per cent said they want to spend Rs 1 lakh or more. About 17 per cent respondents said they want to spend anything between Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 10,000, while about 6 per cent respondents said they are still undecided about how much they want to spend.
“It is likely that many of the respondents (35 per cent) in this category are experiencing a squeeze with high inflation, loss of livelihood or employment and are just getting by month to month,” said the report.
According to Nalin Agrawal, director, Snapmint, a fintech NBFC and ecommerce website operator, “We are today at an inflection point of fintech growth. This is driven by growing consumer aspirations with increased internet penetration, coupled with inflation, and also the consumer income growth has not been able to keep up with inflation."
The report said that inflation has hit the middle and lower classes hard, but the affluent households with high disposable incomes, who have skipped the 2020 and 2021 festive shopping, are gearing up to spend money this time.
According to the report, every one in three households are planning to spend over Rs 10,000 this festive season. The report further said that theserespondents were probably from the upper or upper middle classes with some from middle class families, too.
“It is quite a common Indian culture that some people plan their major purchases like home, automobile, jewellery, others during festive season,” the report said.
According to the report, the responses also highlight the prevailing income inequality in the aftermath of the covid pandemic and the ongoing inflation.“About one-third people want to spend more than Rs. 10,000, about one third (35 per cent) do not want to spend at all, and one-third want to spend up to Rs. 10,000,” the report said.
According to the report, about 6 per cent consumers plan to buy white goods and appliances, and another 6 per cent consumers specifically want to ‘splurge’ on smartphones, while about 4 per cent want to buy jewellery.
Incidentally, another survey published by Zest Money, a buy now pay later and equated monthly instalment (EMI) checkout platformhad also revealed the electronics and smartphone buying trend among millennials. Over 55 per cent of mostly millennial consumers said they planned to purchase smartphones and electronics. Millennials are people born between 1981 and 1996.
According to the LocalCirclessurvey, consumers are likely to spend $32 billion in festive shopping this year, which is higher than the 2020 and 2021 levels, but lower than the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. In 2019, they had spent $37 billion, and hence, the estimates are lower than 2019 levels, but still represent a significant number, the survey said.
The LocalCircles report mentioned that a third of the consumers who mentioned they would spend over Rs. 10,000 during the season in buying goods, real estate, automobiles, gadgets, others are in all probability going to be the major contributor in this year’s shopping figure.
Value for money and top quality products are the top criteria for consumers shopping this festive season, and the category where they are looking the most is Diwali supplies (35 per cent consumers) and festive groceries (26 per cent), and services like home repairs (13 per cent).
