more-in Are you bitten by the shopping bug and resigned to a lifetime of clothes-rich-cash-poor existence? Well, you can’t be blamed for that. After all, it is not often that the markets glitter with steep discounts at this time of the year. With just four days left for the rollout of Goods and Services Tax (GST), the discounts are bigger than before. Retail, textile showrooms and electronic dealers are trying their best to finish their pending stock by luring in customers with discount offers ranging from 20 % to 50 %. Retail chains such as Lifestyle, Pantaloons and Shoppers Stop have jumped on the discount bandwagon from last weekend to come out with a flat 50 % discount on majority of brands. With the awareness for GST spreading, consumers have gone on a shopping spree to make the most of what the markets are terming as ‘pre-GST offers’. Footfalls in showrooms and malls have soared particular in the past two to three days. Sonovision showroom at Diamond Park is offering discounts up to 30 % on major brands of electronics like AC, TVs, washing machines and refrigerators. According to N. Gopal, showroom manager, there was an 80% increase in footfalls in the past couple of days owing to the discount offers. Another electronic store is advertising its pre-GST sale with a statement of warning thrown in that ‘Prices for most electronic items are set to rise by 5 % after GST’’. Other major electronic showrooms have enlarged cut-outs of newspaper articles stating the effect of GST on electronic consumer goods. Under GST, electronics come under the 28 % slab. The discounts are as steep as 50% on selected electronic products at Sowndarya Shoppee. As the clock ticks closer to the midnight of June 30 when GST will be rolled out, retailers are worried that any six-months or older stock will not get the complete set-off on the tax already paid when the GST transition happens. “Currently, on stocks which are invoiced and delivered to the retailer, the VAT and excise duties have been paid. But from July 1, retailers will be stuck with two kinds of stock if the old lot is not cleared. The effective set off would be only 60% . To recover the remaining, it is a long cumbersome procedure. Hence, there is a scrambling to clear off stuff,” Mr Matrunjai, MD of Sowndarya Shoppee told The Hindu. In most cases, older models are being cleared off with more discount offer. Meanwhile, the textile trade sector has called for a nationwide three-day strike in protest against the 5% GST. Mavuri Venkata Ramana, MD of CMR Group, said the government promised to keep textile out of the GST but has now imposed 5 %, this may lead to a complete collapse of the textile trade sector, being largely a credit-oriented business. “This sector is unorganised and many small-time textile traders are from remote villages, who will be for the first time pushed into filing returns and will be affected by this move. As a result of the GST, there will be too many procedural issues in the textile trade chain,” he said.

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