Mails are flying thick and fast at most luxury
stores across the country as harried sales staff face a tough time trying to
coax people to part with their permanent account number (PAN) details. By the
looks of it, they are not accomplishing much, resulting in poor sales of luxury
goods.
Furnishing of PAN details has been made mandatory by the government for any transaction above Rs 2 lakh in a bid to weed out black money .
However, the move has deterred many wealthy shoppers from spending lakhs of rupees on luxury products such as handbags, watches and writing instruments. "Our bags start at Rs 2 lakh. Sales at our store have been hit badly because our regular customers have stopped coming," said a senior executive of a French luxury brand. Earlier, most of them would pay in cash. But now, instead of giving their PAN details, they are opting to shop abroad."
Furnishing of PAN details has been made mandatory by the government for any transaction above Rs 2 lakh in a bid to weed out black money .
However, the move has deterred many wealthy shoppers from spending lakhs of rupees on luxury products such as handbags, watches and writing instruments. "Our bags start at Rs 2 lakh. Sales at our store have been hit badly because our regular customers have stopped coming," said a senior executive of a French luxury brand. Earlier, most of them would pay in cash. But now, instead of giving their PAN details, they are opting to shop abroad."
Most people in the luxury industry TOI spoke to complained about similar issues. For instance, at a store selling high fashion French leather goods in the capital, executives are tearing their well-groomed hair out to convince customers to reveal their PAN card number.
"We have taken a hit of several lakhs of rupees over the last few days but have not been able to figure out a way around the problem," said an executive at the store. The other day, a lady who had come to buy a bag said she wouldn't risk getting her husband into trouble by furnishing his PAN card details. Eventually, she walked out without buying anything."
Nikhil Mehra, CEO of Genesis Group that has
marketing and distribution arrangements for several luxury brands such as Jimmy
Choo, Giorgio Armani, Em porio Armani and Tumi among others and is the JV
partner for Canali, Burberry and Villeroy and Boch in India, said consumer
sentiment here has been affected by this ruling. "However, for most of our
brands it is not a challenge because prices are within the Rs 2 lakh
limit," he said.
The Indian luxury market has been pegged at Rs 16,300 crore in 2015 by market research firm Euromonitor and is expected to touch Rs 39,000 crore by 2020, with an annual growth rate of 19 per cent.
Representative
Image
Source: TNN
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon