Home decor shops find difficult to sustain

Tribune News Service

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Amritsar, May 2

Except for shops selling essential items, all other traders will have to wait for some time more for normalcy to return in their business.

Parvesh Chopra, owner of ‘Hop Top Home Furnishings and Decorations’ at Nehru Shopping Complex, feels that people are avoiding buying anything except essentials. “Everybody has a feeling that things due to coronavirus may get worse and the government may again impose lockdown. So saving is a priority at this time,” said Parvesh.

Parvesh said the sales had gone down by more than 50 per cent. “In our business, women do the most shopping. Seldom does a man comes to buy home furnishings and decorations. As women are staying home, we have less customers,” he said. He said they were receiving only one or two clients a day at present.

He said they had not ordered new stocks in the last two months. “While our sales have gone down, we are not replenishing our stocks. And this sets in a chain reaction. The present condition will have a long-lasting impact on the overall economy. We do not see normalcy anytime soon,” he said.

Parvesh Chopra also feels that the government has done nothing to bail out traders and businessmen of the crisis. “The government has announced the moratorium, but it will only increase burden as the interest will pile up. The government could have at least waived electricity bills or bank interest,” he said.

Chopra said, “This Covid-19 situation has brought so much pessimism in the overall mood of the general public as well as businessmen. The government must try to build trust.”

He said the manufacturing sector should be taken care of, else the impact on the economy would stay for much longer than was being anticipated.