Customer walk-ins account for brisk sales during festive season

CHENNAI: With festivals back-to-back, the food and textile industry has received new collections and items on their list to attract more customers after the pandemic restrictions were lifted this year. The stores in the city witnessed a brisk sale where sales increased by 30 percent post- pandemic lockdown.

Jayantilal Challani, President, The Jewellers and Diamond Traders Association of Madras, said, “The sales have witnessed an increase by 30 per cent, compared to the pre-COVID days. Recently, the jewellery shops in the city experienced a brisk sale after almost two years.”

“Earlier, customers purchased during weddings or festival occasions, whereas now, whenever there is a hike or bonus from their organisation, they buy and save for the future. So, throughout the year, we had a brisk sale in the jewellery business,” he added.

With the festival season, there are various new collections arriving in the stores. The highest product purchased was diamond jewels, such as an uncut diamond, the Victoria diamond, which has an antique finish. There is a general sale of gold jewellery. Jayanthilal said though people opt for customised jewels for weddings, as the stores have new collections of designed jewellery, customers choose to purchase displayed items from the shop.

Likewise, there are various new collections of clothes arriving at the textile shops in T Nagar with the festival seasons around the corner. To attract customers, there are offers and discounts announced from this week. “Compared to the COVID lockdown days, business is much better during the special occasions during the weekends. We witnessed a good number of customers at the store. There are combo offers available, for example – two sarees can be purchased for Rs 1,000 – Rs 2,000,” stated a staff member at Chennai Silks.

On the other hand, with new varieties of clothes arriving at the stores in the city, the customers are looking forward to purchasing even for Deepavali. “There are more new designs this year than expected which are at affordable prices. Also, it is surprising that there are discounts available even for the Ayudha Pooja festival,” said T Aravind, a resident of Pallavaram.

Just two weeks left for Deepavali, both the jewellery and textile shops are to receive new collections of products in large numbers from next week. And they are expecting more customers like in pre-pandemic days.

After the state government implemented a pandemic-induced lockdown, due to shortage of manpower and restrictions, only 50 per cent of food items were available on the menu. “For almost two years, we have been operating hotels with a limited eatables list. With the restrictions lifted across the state, we have planned to add more food items to the menu and bring 100 per cent availability from this week,” said M Ravi, President, Chennai Hotel Association.

In the revised menu list, the hotel association includes fusion food such as sodhi idli, podi idli, Thai kothu parotta, Ceylon parotta stuffed with dry fruits, onions etc. As the hotel and restaurant business witnessed brisk sales during the festival seasons. The hotel owners are likely to hire manpower, including chefs, and other staff workers.