Luxury brands cash in on govt demonetization move

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Nov 10, 2016

 
Luxury brands cashed in on the government’s decision to scrap high currency notes as people thronged to luxury outlets to spend big currency notes before the deadline.
 

Luxury brands were open well past midnight and raked in the revenues until the early hours of the morning, as sales kept soaring.

Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes post midnight on Tuesday, luxury retailers such as Ethos, which sells watch brands including Rolex, Brogue, Carl F Bucherer and Dior, sent mailers and notifications to clients stating stores would be open until midnight for customers.

A store manager at one of the leading global fashion brands said her store remained open until 8 in the morning on Wednesday and it sold merchandise worth more than Rs 1 crore in less than three hours.
 
“There were long queues at the billing counter as people tried to dispense with their cash. We billed in excess of Rs 1 crore within three hours. We billed the merchandise sold post midnight by raising backdated invoices,” she said on condition of anonymity, to the Economic Times.