Retail sales in August recover to 88% of pre-COVID levels boosted by festive shopping

Apparel retailers eye double digit growth in festive season as consumers return to stores

In terms of categories, RAI's survey indicated that the two categories that saw massive growth exceeding 2019 levels are Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), which grew 12 percent, and food & groceries, which grew at 4 percent in August.

However, beauty & wellness, which includes salons, along with apparel, footwear and jewellery are yet to catch up to the pre-pandemic levels of sales. RAI says that the overall industry sentiment will improve when the clothing and accessories category shows growth.

While apparel and clothing sales declined 12 percent in August, they still saw significant growth sequentially, after being down 37 percent in July. Similarly, Beauty, Wellness & personal sales saw a decline of 31 percent in August 2021 as compared to a 50 percent decline in July.

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Sales, however, are now expected to pick up on the back of a strong festive season. "As the festive season approaches and the inoculation drive picks up pace across the country, we are hopeful that the festive shopping this year will drive positive growth for most retailers, with the possibility of some retailers doing even better sales than the pre-pandemic levels," Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI), said.

Retailers that CNBC-TV18 spoke to also indicated similar optimism with the likes of Raymond and Lifestyle expecting strong double-digit growth this festive season over pre-pandemic levels. The industry’s optimism stems from a rise in demand they’ve seen in people returning to stores to shop. Compared to last year, Raymond is expecting a 50 percent growth in festive sales.

However, RAI's Rajagopalan says that even though recovery at the moment looks encouraging across categories, retailers continue to maintain cautious optimism due to the possibility of a third wave of the pandemic.

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