A CORNER OF BHARAT CRAVES A DIWALI SHIMMER

It's forenoon Saturday in Rajgarh, a rural town in Churu district of Rajasthan.

- Sayantan Bera

With a week to go before Diwali, the festival of lights that marks the peak of the festive season in India, one would expect a rush of shoppers. But the local market, which caters to more than 150 villages in its vicinity, wears a deserted look.

Pawan Bindal, who has been running a cosmetics and undergarments store for 27 years, complained that his business has been severely impacted as customers switched to e-commerce platforms. Another reason why sales are tepid this year is a poor Kharif harvest. Crops of pulses and cereals—pearl millet, green gram and cluster beans—were hit due to below normal rains and a prolonged dry spell in August.

Post pandemic, the growth in sales was led by prices and not higher volumes, Bindal said, while attending to a middle-aged customer who had walked in to exchange a vest. Before leaving, the customer asked for a perfume. He inspected the bottle closely and felt it wasn’t full to the brim. It looked a few millilitres short. An exasperated Bindal handed him another bottle.

In recent years, an aspirational and wealthier set of customers have taken to premium brands, Bindal continued. For instance, his sales of premium undergarments are brisk—around ₹5,000 daily. But cheaper variants are seeing a slower uptake. The reason? A likely K-shaped recovery in consumption after the pandemic.

Revenue from cosmetics and undergarments have grown because of higher prices and not higher volumes—Pawan Bindal.
Revenue from cosmetics and undergarments have grown because of higher prices and not higher volumes—Pawan Bindal.
Those with stable and growing income—such as government employees or people working in the armed forces—can afford to spend on non-essentials. The rest, dependent on farm and wage earnings, are more cautious. This new reality has played out across commodities, including high-ticket purchases like cars and bikes.