Raksha Bandhan: When the thread of love stretches beyond festivity

Guess who is celebrating Raksha Bandhan? It's not just the sisters and brothers, but various businesses as well, who are experiencing a boom time, thanks to the festival. Raksha Bandhan, which marks the onset of the festival season in the country, has ushered in boom time for various businesses, most notably chocolates, textiles, electronics, gift articles, jewellery, among others, resulting in sales, worth several crores of rupees.

With sweets turning expensive, Amdavadis seem to have slowly shifted to chocolates and other products instead of sweets.

"Barfi and laddoos have now turned old, and many families now prefer chocolates over them, a sure hit with people of all age groups. In our business of special rakhi chocolates, we have already exceeded our targets and are now making more new stuff to be sold on the festival day," said Vikas Punjabi, MD, The Chocolate Room.

Punjabi said that their sales of special rakhi chocolates have witnessed a huge jump of 40%, and they are expecting it to rise further on the actual festive day. Bijal Banker, a trader of special assorted chocolates, said "Sweets have turned quite expensive these days, owing to which people prefer to buy chocolates. Chocolate sales have grown by around 25% this year."

Sales of special chocolate packs have gone up ahead of the rakhi festival, even as other retailers try to make most of the festive spirit.
"Retailers of all kinds, including those of textiles, electronics and gift articles, have clocked good sales in the last few days on the back of aggressive promotions and attractive discounts, ahead of Raksha Bandhan," said market sources. The demand for all kinds of textiles, including sarees, dress materials, kids clothing, men's formal wear, and traditional clothes have clocked good sales in the days leading to Raksha Bandhan.

In spite of high gold prices, which continue to be in the region of Rs 19,000 per 10 gram, jewellers' strategy to offer discounts on jewellery and making charges have worked well in luring customers to showrooms.

"Besides Raksha Bandhan, the upcoming marriage season has also added shine to the sales of jewellery in the city," said Shantilal Patel, a city-based jeweller. While sales of chocolate products have risen, demand for sweets, the integral part of Indian festivities, is much lower than previous years, say sweet shop owners.

"Sweet sales have improved in the last couple of days as is usually the case before the festival, but sales this year have been lower than in recent years. We believe this is primarily due to high inflation, which has disturbed the budget of every household," said Murlidhar Agarwal, president of Shree Ahmedabad Mithai Farsan & Milk, Mava Traders Association.

Sweet shop owners said that sweet sales ahead of Raksha Bandhan this year are 10 - 15% lower than usual. "Due to inflation, people are buying less quantity of sweets as in the past. Someone who used to buy a kilo of sweets earlier is now buying only 750 grams or even less. As a result, sales are lower than last year or the year before it," said Kamlesh Kandoi, owner of Kandoi Bhogilal Mulchand, a leading sweet shop in the city.

Sweet shop owners also attributed the fall in their sales to the increasing popularity of chocolates as a form of gift.