Retailers plan R-day discounts to boost sales

Consumers reeling under inflationary pressure can expect some relief on their daily consumption basket with major retail chains planning to offer attractive deals and huge discounts on essentials like food and clothing, and others like high-value consumer durables, appliances and home care products around the Republic Day. Food inflation is hovering over 17% mainly due to increase in prices of pulses, sugar, onions and potatoes.


Large retailers like Big Bazaar, part of the Future group, have created a major shopping event (Sabse Saste Din) around Republic Day, a holiday for most of the country, to entice consumers, who otherwise shopped only during festivals like Diwali or special occasions like weddings.

This year it will be the fifth such shopping festival — expected to grow sales by 25-30% over last year's revenues of nearly Rs 200 crore registered during this event alone.

"Shopping festivals like this spur customers to make aspirational purchases, buy discretionary products and try out new products (like snack foods, beanbags) thanks to great deals (this year) offered on 300-400 products, along with discounts on durables and appliances ranging from 5-35% during these days," says Sadashiv Nayak, president, Big Bazaar

For instance, a couple of years back 80,000 DVD players were sold over the three-day shopping event at a marked down price of Rs 4,000, and last year, people flocked to buy 22,000 food combos (5 kg each of rice, edible oil and sugar) at Rs 599. By offering huge discounts and deals on these products, retailers like Big Bazaar and Reliance Retail have also become ‘price warriors' in certain categories like durables, electronics and even clothes.

During these shopping festivals generally around a weekend, retailers can expect sales to go up three to four times, combined with a huge spurt in footfalls. For example, last year during ‘Sabse Saste Din', there were 55 lakh customer walk-ins at Big Bazaar stores across 70 cities, an increase of footfalls by four to six times, while the sales quadrupled and touched nearly Rs 200 crore. So for both customers and retailers it has emerged as a win-win proposition.

Agrees a Spencer's Retail official: "We research on the consumers shopping habits during specific occasions and construct the promos in a manner that they fit the shopping requirement of the consumers, ensure ‘value for money', induce additional purchases which in turn boost our average bill value for us. Hence, it is a win-win situation for both the consumers and the retailers like us as both the parties get what they want in terms of savings and revenue generated, respectively".

This year there is a renewed interest, retailers feel, in shopping festivals due to rising food prices, and consumers can expect savings of 10-15% on entire shopping basket. "The recent increase in prices of food essentials like pulses, sugar and atta can be offset by savings made on clothing, packaged food and discretionary products like fashion, footware and gold," an executive with a large retail chain said.

With the success of these events, retailers start planning for it over six months in advance and place orders to get best deals.