Onam

For Malayalis, the Onam festival season is the time to indulge in a spending spree. As traders spare no effort to showcase their ware for the ubiquitous windowshoppers, festival fairs competewith an army of wayside vendors who descend on the State from all over the country to make the most of the seasonal spurt in demand.

And as far as customers are concerned, they are prepared to blow off their bonus and festival advance and shop till they drop, notwithstanding all the talk of recession and spiralling prices. discount meals, exchange offers, freebies, instalment schemes, margin free outlets, money back guarantee, privileged customer offers, free service businessmen are pulling out every trick in the trade to lure the consumer and keep him hooked till the purchase.

As is usual for the festival season, clothes are highest on the priority list of shoppers. For many families, this is the time when everyone from grandpa to toddler and even the domestic help gets something of his or her liking. Branded readywear which has emerged as a rage among the youth is selling like hotcakes.

Shops selling silk saris like Kancheepuram, Salem and Rasipuram are doing brisk business. As if to keep pace with the technology-driven times, intricate computerdesign is finding acceptance though traditional patterns still hold appeal. Textile traders vouch that customers are no longer put off by prices. "The middle class enjoys muchmore purchasing power than we thought", says a shopkeeper. Costly varieties are much in demand.

Branded shirts for major eompanies like Peter England, Excalibur and Live In appear to be the most sought-after readymade commodity. Dark colours such asblue, black, browns and greens are very popular, though pastel shades also command a sizeable market. Exclusive outlets for major brands like Tamarind and Live-In are doing brisk business. In the trouser market, khakis, chinos and cargos have emerged as strong contents to denim.

Huge discounts and irresistible offers of gifts and incentives tempt even the most tight-fisted customers. Excalibur is offering one shirt free for every two purchased, while Peter England has brought out four new shades for Onam. Wrangler also has an exclusive Onam offer. Several textile outlets have announced prizes on purchases above a certain limit. One particular shop is offering a two-wheeler as first prize with gold coins and gift vouchers as second and third prizes. But it is the temporary festival fairs which generate the greatest volume of business. These meals are a boon for the burgeoning middle-class customers. "At a mela, we can bargain with the sellers and bring down the price to about a third of what we have to pay at a regular shop, never mind the inferior quality of goods," says a Government employee. For the not-too-discerning customer, there are festivals of defective goods and spurious branded items which sell at heavy discounts

Dress materials apart, there is great demand for jewellery. With more and more people prefering gold as a safe investment option, jewellery. With more and more people preferring gold as a safe investment option, jewelleries are going all out to lure customers with new designs and variations on traditional patterns.

Known footwear brands are also offering festival offers. Not to be left out of the frenetic trading activity, furniture dealers have also upped the sales pitch and jumped onto the bandwagon in right ernest. The Gautier showroom in Thiruvananthapuram which stocks a range of imported French furniture has announced a 25 per cent discount on its products.

Another sector witnessing hectic activity during the Onam festival is the electronics market. Almost all the major companies have launched a slew of new models to coincide with the season. The latest fad is the five-in-one entertainment system which incorporates a cassette player, audio CD, MP3 playback, video CD and FM radio. The marvel in digital music is available in various models differentiated by design and output.

Almost every authorised outlet is offering attractive exchange schemes under which the buyer brings in his old audio system and walks out with a new one. Sales are spurred by heavy discounts and freebies which include MP3 software, video CDs and cassettes.

Other electronic goods which witness a surge in demand during Onam include TV sets and washing machines. While Philips has announced an Onam gift scheme for its range of goods, Videocon has come out with a a Mahabali offer. The new -found craze for Chinese goods which led to the burgeoning of a chain of Chinese shops all over the State has assumed a new dimension during Onam. Chinese fairs have sprouted up at several places where a customer can pick any product from floor mats, clocks and toys to artificial flowers.

The two-wheeler market which has picked up with a slew of launches is also geared up to tap into the heightened activity. Bajaj is presending an exchange offer for its Pulsar range of motorcycles targeted at the youth. Hero Honda has also announced a price cut on its popular model Passion.

With commercial activity at its peak, newspaper pages are flooded with advertisements from manufacturers and dealers. With a major portionof the local and regional pages dedicated to ads, news items have shrunk to less than a third of the page. One vernacular daily is reported to be thinking of bringing out a seperate pull-out to accomodate the pressure of advertisements.

The Onam festival season also translates into boom time for hundreds of hawkers who make a beeline to the State from various places in North India and the neighbouring States of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. With their rock bottom bargain prices, they appeal to the lower midle class segment. Readymade garments, including frocks, banians, jeans and shorts, dominate to pavement sales.

The seasonal vendors who purchase their wares in bulk form North Indian companies at throw-away prices make a killing out of the Onam sales. Many of them employ sales boys for a pittance. The usual restrictions on footpath sales are relaxed during the festival season. Apart from city dwellers, the pavement sales also attract customers from the suburban areas. Many of the buyers vouch for the quality of the goods purchased from the wayside vendors.

"Open air" fashion centres also spring up on the footpaths, offering bangles, bindis, bows, hair-pins, earnings, nail polish, ribbons and what have you. Footpath vendors crib about the volumes of vehicular smoke they are forced to inhale, and the lack of shady roadside trees.

They also complain about the police who often pester them to shift base.

As coid-economic differences are subjugated in the crowded markets, the heightened commercial activity during Onam has come to represent Kerals's status as a consumer State.

Next >>