The Retailers Association of India (RAI) in its latest survey report has showed that retail sales in December last year grew by 7 per cent over the pre-pandemic levels of the same period in 2019 but the pace dropped towards the last week of the month under review due to the third COVID wave.
According to the report, the impact can be seen at category level with the beauty, wellness and personal care dipping 7 per cent, as compared to the pre-pandemic sales in December 2019. Furniture and furnishings also slipped into the red once again with a decline of 5 per cent.
The report further noted that sales across consumer durables and IT products, sports goods, jewellery, footwear, and apparel and clothing too started to lose steam although these were still in positive territory.
RAI said it has appealed to the central government to instruct state governments to refrain from imposing restrictions based on positivity rate and consider hospitalisations as the criteria to determine the severity of restrictions instead as most of the country's population is vaccinated.
