Sales of refrigerators marked a significant fall in city markets ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, a season when it usually rises as customers intend to collect the home appliance to preserve meat of sacrificial animals.
Executives at the outlets of different brands said they are yet to receive an expected level of customers despite offering lucrative gifts and discounts on purchases before this religious occasion as around 35 per cent of the total annual sales takes place across the country this time.
Unlike previous seasons, this time the customer turnout so far remained low, they said, attributing mainly two reasons - static earnings of fixed-income groups amid high rate of inflation and an erosion in their savings.
Amid this hardship, the price of both refrigerators and freezers (commonly known as deep fridge) went up by 7.0-8.0 per cent this time compared to the last year, according to market insiders.
During visits to several shopping malls in the city, most of the city showrooms were found largely empty on Saturday.
The executives at the outlets expressed their frustrations due to poor turnover despite increased stocks and lucrative offers like discounts, cash back, cash vouchers and gifts to attract the customers.
Widely-known refrigerator brands such as Walton, Marcel and Electra, Hitachi, Sharp, Whirlpool, Panasonic, Haier, Kelvinator, Mitsubishi, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Transtec, Vision and Jamuna have supplied the market with a huge quantity of their freezing products.
Around 2.0 million units of fridge are sold annually in the country while the industry is growing at 15-20 per cent, according to the sector insiders.
Masud, sales adviser of Best Electronics' Adabor outlet, said the sales dropped drastically this time though his outlet announced different sorts of offers to attract customers.
He claimed that the sales of refrigerators reduced to around 50 per cent this time as compared to that of last year. This year, the outlet has so far achieved only 25 per cent of its target against its achievement of 70 per cent of the last year's target.
Md Jahangir Alom, Shyamoli branch manager of Rangs eMart, said the sales of all types of refrigerators show a 25-per cent decline this time compared to the last year.
The sales witnessed a significant decline in recent times as fixed and lower- income people are in huge inflationary pressure, he said.
Md Selim, assistant manager of LG-Butterfly Mohammadpur Ring Road showroom, said the pre-Eid sales of LG refrigerators decreased by 75 per cent compared to that of the last year.
He said the desired level of customers are not coming to his outlet due to higher prices of refrigerators this time compared to the last year and a higher inflationary pressure on the people.
Our refrigerators with a capacity of 250-300 litres are the most-sold items, Selim added.
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