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Sale gets a new bargain

Two days back, on a lazy weekday standing in a queue outside a well-known mall in Chandigarh, 21 year Anita Rajput from GCG College couldn’t understand what was the occasion.

Sale gets a new bargain


Jasmine Singh

Two days back, on a lazy weekday standing in a queue outside a well-known mall in Chandigarh, 21 year Anita Rajput from GCG College couldn’t understand what was the occasion. It was only 11am in the morning and people had already flooded the place. Diwali is really far, Valentine is well behind, and Father’s Day...well, so many people for Father’s Day, it couldn’t be this.

After a quick, unmindful frisk when she got inside the mall, she was surprised to see the word sales generously spread across all the stores. Stock clearance sale in the middle of summer... It was then that it struck, it was the GST bug that has affected all and sundry..

GST council, increasing the service tax on financial and telecom services to 18 per cent from 15 per cent, was likely to disturb the price and the demand has already affected the consumers, who are unmindfully grabbing the sales, and the sellers who want to clear their old stock before June 30. But whatever the outcome might be, the one best thing for the consumer is sales. 

Apparel & more 

Sale on clothes, just about everywhere in the Tricity is being welcomed by the consumers. And why not? If you get to pick a branded pair of jeans for Rs 1,800, which were ideally available for Rs 4,359, who wouldn’t be happy. Umang Kumar, sales manager with Hi-Five is feeling the heat of GST. “We are under tremendous pressure to clear the stock before new tax rates come in. This means we have to sell almost every single piece of apparel that you see in this store,” he adds. Someone’s momentary problem can be someone’s grab-the-opportunity moment. Neha Janjua, 24, and her friends have shopped from every possible store. “We were waiting for the summer end sale, but this out of the blue stock clearance sale is the best thing we could ask for.” Neha however, is clueless about what GST will bring forth, or what it stands for, she only carries the information that clothes, cars and gadgets will be more expensive. 

Car(o)baar 

Coming to the automobile sector, the price of small and mid-sized cars may see a small hike after the Goods Services, which will be rolled from July 1 as different goods are fitted into four-slab rate structure. Even this bit of information hasn’t affected the sale of cars. “Although people hear about small cars getting expensive with GST, they are still not sure about the fall and rise of rates. Also, you can think of buying clothes without much thinking, but cars is an all together different thing,” shares Kirpal Soni, executive sales with a leading SUV brand. Even though there are massive discounts in the automobile sector, consumers are taking it slow. On the other hand, the prices of luxury or premium cars are likely to go down. The taxes will be about four to 12 percentage points lower. 

Call me 

The new GST is going to affect the mobile market or so it appears. 

Tax rates on mobile, DTH, Internet are likely to go up. Phones in general are likely to get more expensive. Says Harpreet Singh from Harry Electronics, “I don’t know about other sectors but people are buying mobile phones like crazy. No one has a picture about GST, but from whatever they have heard about smartphones getting expensive, people are even buying 2-3 smart phones in a day.” Whether GST will bring relief or affect the consumers is still to be seen, till then picking a branded dress at 60 per cent is a good idea. What say!

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