This time of the year, Chandana, 33, would have been busy preparing for Ganesh Chaturthi. She would be mall hopping and making multiple trips to her favourite shops to buy new saris for herself and relatives, sometimes jewellery, among other things. “But now I am scared to step out. For the first time, I am shopping for saris online,” she said.
Every year, come Ganesh Chaturthi, various businesses related to the festival get invigorated – from idol-making to flower growers and sellers, and from shamiyana on rent to band troupes. But this year is different. A surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in the city has meant that people are planning low-key festivities, which in turn has meant that this festive season is going to be a damp squib for the businesses.
G.M. Diwakar, a flower trader, said that the Ganesh Chaturthi market is huge and diverse, which includes idol-making, clothes, jewellery, flower business, band troupes, shamiyana. “Thousands of rupees are spent even on a small Ganesh pandal on flowers and shamiyana. But as there is no public installation and immersion of Ganesh idols this year. Hence, all related businesses have fallen flat,” he said.
He added that as many markets are closed, there is absolutely no business for flower traders as well as for farmers who grow flowers, who are now suffering huge losses.
Clothes, jewellery businesses struggle
From Varamahalakshmi and Ganesh Chaturthi, festivals come knocking for a few months, which call for new clothes and jewellery. However, the pandemic has forced people to celebrate the festival in a simple way.
Prakash Prigal, a wholesale trader and president of The Bangalore Wholesale Cloth Merchants’ Association, said that there was around 70% dip in wholesale business owing to the surge in COVID-19 cases in the city from the past two months. “During Varamahalakshmi and Ganesh Chaturthi, wholesale cloth from the city is in great demand across the State. But this time, we have hardly got orders from other parts of the State,” he said.
N.K. Prabhakar, a retail trader from Hassan, said that the purchasing power of traders has been low for a long time. “By this time, we would have ordered huge amount of cloth from Bengaluru. This time, we have ordered less than 50%,” he said adding that the rent and transportation cost have remained the same, which is hitting them hard.
Ashok S., a cloth merchant in Ganganagar in the city, said customers are not willing to buy even with a 50% discount. “Old stocks has piled up. Most of our stock has been unsold for over three months. There is no demand. There has been a slight rise in business from the past few days, but we do not know if it will sustain,” he said.
With gold prices going up each day, the situation is no different for the jewellery industry. “The lockdown resulted in reduction of purchasing power of the middle class and upper middle class. Now the lockdown is lifted, but gold prices are soaring. Only those who have money and see gold as a good investment are buying jewellery,” said Dinesh P. of The Jewelers’ Association.
A jeweller from K.R. Puram said that most of their business happens during festival seasons, but this year there has been no “festive flair”. “Apart from the lack of business, we are also tense about the safety and security of our shops. We just cannot close the shop and keep the jewellery at home,” the jeweller said.
Malls see visitors
Though retailers, shopping complexes and malls have taken necessary precautions to welcome customers, shoppers are wary. A few neighbourhood malls are witnessing a slow but steady rise in footfall on weekends, but huge, destination malls are struggling to attract customers.
T.G. Vinod, CEO of Elements Mall, said that neighbourhood malls would have increased footfalls around any festival season. “However, this year there has been no festival crowd so to speak. We are noticing a very slow but steady increase in weekend footfalls from the past couple of days,” he said.
An office-bearer at Garuda Mall said that once cinema halls open, they were expecting to draw some more crowds. “However, till a vaccine is is ready, returning to normalcy remains a distant dream,” he said.
