Pahela Baishakh sales lose to Eid

With only a day remaining before the celebration of Pahela Baishakh, the first day of Bangla year, sales of clothing and sweetmeat have not picked up and businesses say they are unlikely to meet their targets this year.

Fashion boutiques and sweets sellers said many customers are giving priority to shopping for Eid-ul-Fitr over Pahela Baishakh as the biggest religious festival of the Muslims is set to be celebrated just over a week later.

Businesses say people are limiting their expenses to Eid shopping because of increased prices of clothes and soaring living costs.

Khalid Mahmood Khan, co-founder of Kay Kraft, a retailer of fashionwear, accessories, home textile, handicrafts, and handloom-based products, said there were crowds of shoppers in shops more or less.

He said entrepreneurs thought that this year's sales would be better than that last year and that was how they had conducted preparations, but sales were not coming about as expected.

Fashion boutiques and sweets sellers said many customers are giving priority to shopping for Eid-ul-Fitr over Pahela Baishakh

There may be some other reasons behind such a situation, such as a decrease in the purchasing power of people and increase in prices. If people are free from worries, sales increase, Khan added.

SaRa Lifestyle Limited, a sister concern of Snowtex Group, a garment exporter, currently has 11 branches across the country.

This fashion brand says it has created clothes suitable for summer considering the current weather conditions of Pahela Baishakh.

Sk Rahat Auyon, deputy manager of media and public relations at Snowtex Group, said whenever Pahela Baishakh was not in close proximity with Ramadan, preparations were made separately.

But the situation has been different over the last couple of years, he said.

He said now there were no separate sales for Pahela Baishakh and Eid and it was a little difficult to identify the trends separately.

Last year there was a positive impact on the business as there was a large gap between Eid and Pahela Baishakh. But there is no distinct impact on sales this year, said Soumik Das, chief executive officer of Rang Bangladesh.

He said many buyers were pondering whether to buy a dress only for one day this Pahela Baishakh. At the end of April 13, it can be fully understood how the sales have been for Pahela Baishakh this year, he said.

As people will celebrate the Bangla New Year during the month of fasting, it is a bit difficult to cite the exact volume of Pahela Baishakh-centric sales from those linked to Eid-ul-Fitr.

Uzzal Das, owner of the Lanthon Fashion House at Aziz Super Market in Shahbagh, said demand from the masses who used to make purchases was now even less.

"In 2018 or 2019, I used to invest about Tk 10 lakh only on the sale of the seven days before Pahela Baishakh. This time I have invested about Tk 1.5 lakh," he said.

At one time, out of 270 showrooms in Aziz Super Market, about 200 showrooms used to stock up on products in their shops around Pahela Baishakh. "I didn't even see 20 showrooms do it this time," Das added.

According to a survey of Bangladesh Fashion Entrepreneurs Association, a platform of fashion organisations, conducted in 2012, fashion houses across the country make sales of around Tk 6,000 crore throughout the year.

More than 50 per cent of the sales come during Eid-ul-Fitr and at least another 25 per cent ahead of Pahela Baishakh, it found.

Pahela Baishakh has become one of the biggest occasions for sales of sweetmeat makers on the back of a rising trend among corporates to send gift hampers to their clients and vendors.

Mahbubur Rahman Bakul, country director of Premium Sweets, said, "If you compare this year with the sales or advance orders of Pahela Baishakh in the last 22 years to 23 years, the business situation is quite bad."

"This effect has been caused by Pahela Baishakh falling in the middle of Ramadan and a few days ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. This is the first time I have seen such a bad situation in my business life for so many years," he said.

Consuming hilsa, the national fish of Bangladesh, has become a trend in Pahela Baishakh celebrations.

Traders say the price of hilsa fish has increased due to a lack of supply in the market whereas demand was high.

Khokon Chandra Samaddar, a wholesale fish trader at Jatrabari fish market in the capital, said the price of hilsa fish has increased by Tk 200 to Tk 300 per kilogramme from yesterday on the occasion of Pahela Baishakh.

He said yesterday a hilsa fish of Myanmar weighing 800 grammes was sold at Tk 1,200 and whereas one caught locally at Tk 1,400.

Samaddar said another reason behind the increase in prices was that fish was not available as per the demand. For this reason, there is a big impact on the price.

"There is a demand for 30 maunds (one maund equals around 37 kilogrammes) of fish in my shop every day but I am getting only 5 maunds," he added.