Festive shopping drives retail sales in Pune

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Sep 6, 2021

As shoppers begin to stock up for the upcoming festive season, stores and malls in Pune have seen a jump in sales and are optimistic for continued retail recovery.

Ahead of the festive season, Pune’s shoppers are back out on the high street and in malls to purchase clothing and gift items, giving retailers in the city a sense of optimism, ET Bureau reported. Customer numbers increased by 100% in the first week of September compared to rates in August, Pune-based SGS Mall’s centre head Vikas Ladhe told TNN.
 
“But when we think of pre-Covid numbers, sales are 40% of what they used to be,” said Ladhe. “Though we have to face the brunt of the pandemic, we can hope for sales to grow steadily over the upcoming festive season to encourage recovery of business.”

Retailers are hoping for another boost to sales after Navratri and are relying on continued vaccine uptake to circumvent any potential third wave of the virus and keep footfalls high. Other areas in the city which have reported rising footfalls from the weekend include Pimpri Chinchwad, Laxmi Road, and FC Road. 
 
As per current retail health and safety regulations, visitors to malls must show they are vaccinated while high streets do not need to check. This has led some Pune malls to request for the local government to remove vaccine mandates for malls as they fear they will lose business to their high street counterparts, especially as fewer young people are vaccinated thus far.