Spending low during end of season sales

Customers are continuing to hold back on optional spending in categories such as television, home appliances, fashion, lifestyle and apparel posting poor sales in the October-December quarter, with no recovery in sight in January as well, despite almost all brands and retailers running end-of-season and Republic Day sales. As per white goods industry sales tracker GfK, television sales declined by 8 per cent while refrigerator grew by about 2 per cent and washing machine by around 3 per cent during the quarter, even as leading companies said sales in January continued to remain muted at similar levels.

Fashion and lifestyle brands and retailers reported 10-12 per cent drop in sales in the same period with the ongoing discount failing to lift the mood. There is no third-party agency which tracks apparel sales. Lifestyle International executive director Vasanth Kumar says sales picked up for a brief period at December-end due to the beginning of discounts, but that again failed out in January.