Manufacturers a worried lot

Shivani Bhakoo

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 14

The local knitwear industry, which was recognised worldwide for woollens at one time, today feels that it had become difficult for the local manufacturers to survive in the present conditions.

Firstly, the winter season had squeezed to just about two months and secondly, multinational brands have started giving “lucrative” offers to customers. So, customers prefer to go for multinational brands now.

Though manufacturers had piled up winter stocks well in time, late winters have shattered their hopes.

Akash Bansal of Rage here said earlier, winters were expected to be for about eight weeks, which meant that fresh stocks were kept in retail counters for almost two months. But now, late onset of winters had squeezed the circle to just 4-5 weeks.

“Fresh sales are going down to 30 per cent, whereas discounted sales have picked up to almost 70 per cent in the past few years, which is a serious issue for the local manufacturers. We cannot make business as multinational brands start putting articles on sale around Christmas. Obviously, buyers will prefer to buy discounted item of multinational brands over fresh articles of the local industry. We, the local manufacturers, are going through a bad phase and our survival depends much on the weather pattern,” said Akash.

Another manufacturer Sudershan Jain of Oner Knitwear said the arrival of multinational brands had posed a threat to the local knitwear industry.

“Winters came late and the marriage season was also short. The entire retailing pattern has changed in the past 2-3 years. We cannot compete with multinational brands over discounts and other offers. There are about 10-15 days and sudden dip in the temperature has raised our hopes to get the returns. We hope that before discounts during Christmas and New Year, we will be able to sell our products,” said Jain.

It may be mentioned here that a sudden change in the weather has prompted buyers to purchase woollens. Markets and leading shopping malls have been witnessing buyers for the past 2-3 days as temperature has witnessed a sudden dip.