The overall consumer sentiments for buying clothes during the upcoming festive season continues to remain weak, according to the annual pre-festive season survey conducted by the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) among its members. 

As per the findings, as many as 63% of the respondents were expecting to see the same or lower sales of clothing and apparel compared with the last year. Of them, almost 25% were expecting the sales to be as low as 75% of the previous year.

The biggest factor impacting the subdued sentiments appeared to be the significant shift in larger wallet share of the consumer spending moving towards other avenues of lifestyle – with 35% of the respondents attributing low expectations to this factor, CMAI said in a statement.

Another 24% respondents attributed a slowing economy and inflation to be the top challenges, it added.

Amongst the apparel categories, men’s wear seems to have been the worst affected, with a 75% of the respondents expecting women’s wear and kid’s wear to perform better in terms of demand during this festive season.

As many as 75% of the respondents felt that the mid-priced brands would do the best during the season, whilst only 18% felt that low-priced brands would do better.

As many as 52% of the respondents anticipate demand for Indian wear to perform well followed by casual wear whereas formal wear seems to be out of favour.

As per the survey findings 75.5% of respondents preferred offline retail against 24.5% for online retail.

Rajesh Masand, President, CMAI, said, “Considering the sluggish business environment that our industry has experienced in the past six months, the trends are not surprising.”

“Yet, we are hopeful of not missing out on the festive spending and expect demand to gradually surge considering the wedding season later in the year,” he added.