The gauge of consumer sentiments in festivity 2022

05 September 2022, Mumbai:

Consumers are now participants in a global market and this has a key impact on the consumer buying & preferences. The $3 trillion global fashion business accounts for 2% of the world's GDP. The underlying assumption as always is as festivity is lined up thus contextually its a most crucial time for the Indian advertising business as spending is expected to bring a lot more returns than usual.

Festive season to drive consumer spending: 48% will shop more during 2022 festive season vs 2021, says Axis survey. “Historically what has been witnessed is that sooner the festive season approaches reflecting a "festive spirit", driving consumers to buy leading to pushing volumes up including triggering non-discretionary buying. Its September analysis said that 48 per cent of consumers tend to shop more during the festive season as compared to the rest of the year. It also revealed that 20 per cent of the consumers plan to shop more this festive season in comparison to last year while 32 per cent plan to shop the same as the previous year.”

Covid & its impact

Beginning in China in 2020, the COVID-19 virus spread gradually but steadily over the remainder of the year before releasing additional strains in 2021 and causing successive waves of fatalities. Because of it, there have been several lockdowns, travel limitations, social withdrawal, and other COVID-acceptable behaviors worldwide. The situation put the retail sector, namely the fashion section, in chaos, having an influence on sales, profitability, inventory, jobs, and the entire ecosystem. When individuals were advised to stay at home as a preventative step to slow the spread of the illness, the disruption in worldwide fashion began. Markets, shopping centers, and other establishments were all closed down to rule out any chance of their coming out. This prevented customers from buying outside for months, pushing them to migrate to internet shopping. The fact that only necessities could be purchased online and that non-essential items, like apparel/clothing, could only be sold afterward made the situation much worse.

Post Covid consumer spending have revved up · E-commerce buying continues to be accelerated having already gone to level next in the global fashion landscape. Customers are already buying luxury items for meeting their aspirations and desires. The last few years have seen remarkable development in the fashion industry in the new emerging paradigm. The psychology of consumer behavior has undergone sea change in the new emerging digital world.

Festive Marketing:

Though currently trade expects are sanguine to be cautiously optimistic but given macroeconomic quick indicators & demand tailwind Consumer spending sentiment in urban India is likely to be higher than what was observed during last year's festive season. Brands continue to stay optimistic that improving consumer sentiments & economic resilience shall help them bounce back and as fashion industry continues to open up on the back of corona risk concerns fading. Festivity good effect

One ET report states,”Demand for discretionary products, electronics and gift items in the festive season (August to December) is expected to be 15-25% more than what it was in the corresponding period of 2019”.

With many festivals already upon us in the next two-three months, consumers have started using Debit cards, UPI and credit cards aggressively for their sustained aspirational buying as bargain offers galore.

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