BENGALURU: Bengaluru’s biggest electronics goods hub, S P Road has been one of the biggest crowd-pullers ever since demonetisation of old high denomination notes. Unlike other goods, commodities and durables, according to traders in the market, the sale of electronic goods seems to have surged.
From consumer electronics to industrial electronic goods, everything has seen a surge in sales. According to Jaideep Mehta who sits in an Acer shop in the area, “We have seen at least 50-60 percent jump in sales in the month of November alone and it doesn’t seem to be abating.
Right from the day after demonetisation, especially in the first two weeks, there were people who bought expensive items with cash. From mobile phones to lap tops to television sets and washing machines everything was being sold at a random spree.”
“Why people were coming and buying so many electric goods immediately after the currency ban is anybody’s guess. With excess cash in hand people could not go and buy land and gold or any other kind of property, so the next segment where you could purchase items with excess cash is electronics goods,’’ he added.
The salesboy sitting in Kaveri electronics who refused to be named said, “Mobile phones, personal computers, laptops, MP3players, audio equipment, television sets, car stereos, video game consoles and digital cameras everything saw plummeting sales by about 50 per cent. However, almost every single purchase was made in cash.”
He tells us that most shopkeepers who could evaluate the impact the note ban started giving out sales and discounts on laptops and PCs in order to attract the customers.
“There is heavy competition in this area also since every second shop is selling electronic goods in a 2 km radius. It was then that they all started having a sale of laptops and PCs which is continuing even now,” he adds.
A customer at the VIVO mobile store quipped that this may be the biggest electronics goods hub in Karnataka but transactions in non-legal tender immediately after demonetisation had deeper reasons here. “Here it doesn’t function like the petrol pumps where old notes were being given in lieu of petrol. There were so many people who didn’t know where to dump their cash post-November 8.”
Euromonitor International figures support the growth in retail volume sales in November 2016 as the sale of refrigeration appliances grew by 13 per cent and reached 13.2 million units by November. LG Electronics India led the sales with a volume share of 25 per cent followed by Samsung India Electronics at 22 per cent.
The owner of another shop claims that despite these dropping sales figures being cited by many electronic goods companies, he has seen an increase of around 20 per cent in the sale of lap tops and mobile handsets in November. Some traders, however, were still wary of cash that was being dumped as most of it could not make their way to banks.