Mall owners, retailers, and restaurateurs across India are banking on the festive season to usher in the steady stream of customers that has eluded them since the start of the COVID lockdown. But, is the Indian consumer ready to shop or for that matter eat out?

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According to Retailers Association of India (RAI) and LitmusWorld's annual consumer sentiment survey, 80 percent of Indian consumers are looking forward to shopping this festive season. However, with online shopping being the order of the day, only about 66 percent of those interested consumers are willing to shop in standalone shops, while only 37 percent are willing to walk into malls.

So will the festive season bring in the much-needed cheer for restaurants, malls, and retailers and to take stock of the situation on the ground CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan spoke to Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of Retailers Association of India, Anurag Katriar, The President of National Restaurants Association of India, Mr. Katriar is also the ED and CEO at Degustibus Hospitality and Pushpa Bector, the Executive Director of DLF Retail Malls.

Kumar Rajagopalan said, “We do believe the month of November will be a decent month, also hopefully it will go towards 90-95 percent levels compared to last year which is quite good considering that we are still in the midst of the pandemic.”

“I do believe that if this trend continues, we do not have a second lockdown then we could go towards the 100 percent levels somewhere in December.”

Pushpa Bector said, “It is very interesting, the trends that are emerging now, luxury international brands they are almost 125-130 percent of pre-COVID levels. When you look at wallet size, across the portfolio I have seen wallet-size increasing.”

“Premium malls most of the international brands have reached 90 percent of pre-COVID levels. Indian designers are also picking up now. What would be struggling a little bit even now is because of the 50 percent social distancing norms, F&B has reached around 60 percent of previous levels, but I think it will stay at around 60 percent till the 50 percent seating doesn’t change,” she added.

To know more, watch the video.

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Nov 3, 2020 5:13 PM IST