Festive Season Starts.....

The month from September onwards marks the start of festival season in most of the states across the country, starting with Onam and Ganesha Festival running up to Christmas in December. This is one part of year which many companies look forward to with a lot of interest, TV, Automobile, Real Estate.....Actually not just interest for many of these companies their overall sales growth is dependant of their performance in these crucial months..

Last year the outlook was less complicated, with a very positive growth forecast for the economy and the stock market not yo-yoing as it is doing this year( though even with the lowered growth expectations this year, we would be among the fastest growing economies in the world).

On the positive side we have all the major festivals falling in the same month of October, Dusherra, Diwali, Id..... and then with the pay commission arrears being given government employees would mean increased disposable income. Many companies like Maruti Suzuki have developed specific promotions to attract these 5.5 million government employees,link. But this all is happening at the back drop of US financial market crisis and the fear of a global slowdown and consumer durable companies facing raising input costs and pressure on margins......

From a observer's perspective it becomes a good time to watch and look for the promotional strategies that various companies come up with to woo the consumers. Though really good innovative promotions have been missing and all one sees is companies beating the 'old dead horse' of scratch card in one form or the other,

hopefully this festival season we might see some change ....

Checking the net on festivals in India I came across a site which has made a list of festivals in India http://www.festivalsofindia.in/

The site has made a month wise list and three months have 16 festivals a month, more than one every alternate day.. obviously the site mentions only the major festivals , because if one were to make an attempt to list out all festivals in India, I don't know how long the list would go.