Festival Of Lights, And ‘Fights’: Diwali Season Pits E-Commerce Firms Against Retailers, And Look Who’s Cracking Up

Diwali, which was the primary season of sale for brick-and-mortar stores has been taken over mainly by online retail giants like Flipkart and Amazon, say four prominent retailers.

With bumper discounts ranging from 40-90 per cent, the business of offline retailers has taken a severe beating.

Nowadays, it is Diwali throughout the year,” said Alok Dubey, CEO of Arvind Brands, the brand marketing company for US Polo, Flying Machine etc.

Continuous discounting by online giants throughout the year has made the offline retailers also start giving them. Discounts were once only offered in the July-August and January sale seasons. Also, Diwali season was never used for fashion discounts, the greatest discounts ever being coupons and free shirts only. That was until giants like Flipkart started giving deep discounts and lured customers.

Offline retailers are now reacting by offering limited discounts but this has resulted in lower profit margins. This is only expected to widen as the average yearly discount, which was 15 per cent, has gone up to even 30 per cent for some brands, as reported by ET.

Diwali still is the biggest revenue generator, but the over-reliance on it has waned. Viney Singh, chief executive of ethnic-wear seller Fabindia, agrees. “Retailers have created a lot more sales properties during other times of the year where you also do healthy sales,” he said.