The upcoming festive season comes with a hope for the retailers as they have been severely hit by the pandemic. A survey by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) and LitmusWorld shows that around 80 per cent Indian consumers are looking forward to buy products during the upcoming festive season.

The 'Festive Shopping Index 2020' shows that around 75 per cent of the consumers would be shopping online and around 66 per cent would also consider shopping at stand-alone stores and 37 per cent want to visit malls. The survey observed that the trend reflects the rise of omni-channel shopping.

"While online is the primary mode of discovery, consumers are looking forward to purchasing at physical stores," said a joint statement by RAI and LitmusWorld.

Commenting on the festive shopping sentiments, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of RAI, said: "Retailers are looking at the festive season with some amount of cautious optimism. We believe that all formats of retail will see resurgence but on an omni-channel basis."

He said that customers do feel the need to reconnect with a sense of cheer and are slowly coming out to shop.

"However, they may not shop in the same way they have been shopping all these years. There is a lot of reliance on what is being shown to them digitally," he added.

The survey found that having been confined to their homes for so long away from relatives and friends, there seems to be some excitement around gifting, highlighting the need to rekindle relationships and reconnect. About 23 per cent respondents expressed their intent to purchase gifts along with items for their personal use.

It revealed that 53 per cent of the respondents wanted to buy apparels and about 47 per cent wanted to get home appliances and electronics.

The customers would prefer paying through digital modes of payment such as credit cards, debit cards, mobile wallets and UPI.

"In spite of the pandemic, the Indian consumer is still very excited for the festive shopping season and that's a big positive for retailers. However, the industry will need to respond with interesting value propositions and superior customer experience across offline and online channels to boost festive demand and increase the wallet share of consumers," said Khushaal Talreja, Head of Marketing & Partnerships, LitmusWorld..