Ajit John
PANJIM: As the state prepares itself for the festival season, retail outlets will hope the elusive customer will come out in droves and make the till boxes jingle with cash. The economy has been in a depression following the suspension of mining in the state a couple of years ago. According to retail outlets, the Herald contacted, initial signs are that business would be good during the festival season.
A manager of a jewellery outlet on 18 June Road who did not want to be identified because she was not the official spokesperson for the group said that business had picked up this month in the run up to the festival season.
She said “The business has picked up perceptibly this month, I would go as far as to say that there has been a rise by approximately 55% to 60% and during the run to Diwali it will go up to 80%”.
Asked for the basis of her confidence she said that he marriage season had commenced which meant people were buying jewellery to wear at weddings or to gift them”.
Now with Dusshera around the people were buying gold. The fact that the price of gold had dropped from Rs 2900 per gram to Rs 2600 was also instrumental in people buying the yellow metal.
If it is gold at one end dealers of cars are also looking forward to the Diwali season when several families either buy new cars or purchase their first car.
Shivang Gude the Area Sales Manager at Caculo Motors at Panjim said the outlet which retails the Ford brand expected to sell approximately 50-60 cars during the festival season. This he said would include all the variants.
They were he said selling approximately 35-40 cars a month now. This surge he said was something they experienced every year during Diwali.
Asked in his estimation what were the numbers clocked by brands like Maruti he said given that they had so many dealers in the state they were selling around 150 a month. The festival season he said would be good in a year where they had performed better than expected. The sentiment he said was largely positive and the customer would come out and spend money.
