Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Retail companies, which largely comprise MSMEs, has neared complete recovery in September from the pandemic influence as sales in the course of the month stood at 96 per cent of the pre-Covid sales level. The uptick in retail sales has been visible post relaxation in Covid-connected restrictions enforced in the course of the second wave in February this year that had halted retail recovery for the following two-3 months. The all round month-to-month sales recovery in retail was 88 per cent in August in comparison to August 2019 and 72 per cent in July vis-a-vis July 2019. The present festive season, which would last till the new year, is anticipated to assistance retail sales cross the pre-pandemic levels.
The information on sales recovery was based on the month-to-month survey of retail companies by the Retailers Association of India (RAI). “As compared to September 2020, there is a 26 per cent growth in sales in the month of September 2021,” the survey noted.
“Full recovery is possible in October depending on the retail category. In fact, there can be as much as 10-15 per cent growth and provided there is no third wave. The biggest boost will be from the point of view of garments, wearable accessories, footwear, jewellery, etc., that depicts customer cheer in the market. There is some amount of pent-up demand and people have money to spend this festive season which is likely to help recover the sector further,” Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI told TheSpuzz Online.
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Consumer durables & electronics, meals and groceries, and rapid service restaurants (QSR) have totally recovered and are indicating double-digit development on pre-pandemic levels, according to the information. On the other hand, sports goods and apparel & clothes have also began to choose up pace as socialising and offices resume. However, categories such as beauty and Wellness which involve salons, footwear, and jewellery are however to catch up to the pre-pandemic levels of sales.
“Hair segment has picked up well by around 50 per cent and is likely to hit 60-65 per cent ahead as customers are more comfortable since they don’t have to remove the mask. Through the hair segment, the beauty and wellness sector has been able to reopen their doors to customers post-pandemic. However, spas have hardly recovered by around 10 per cent while beauty and skincare services have recovered by 35-40 per cent. During the current festive season, we expect the segment to cross 70 per cent,” Rekha Chaudhari, Managing Director, Oneline Wellness told TheSpuzz Online. Chaudhari had last year launched Indian Professional Beauty & Wellness Hygiene Alliance to address Covid influence on the sector.
“A lot of players have exceeded 80 per cent of their pre-Covid sales in casual dining space at least. However, every city has a different recovery path as every city has been under different restrictions. For instance, restaurant timing in Delhi has been normalised but not in Noida while timing in Gururgram got normalised prior to any other city but Mumbai’s timings are still restricted, etc.,” Kabir Suri, Co-founder and Director, Azure Hospitality had told TheSpuzz Online about the recovery in August.