Consumer companies have started taking orders via phone calls and are also pushing retailers to order through their B2B applications.
Offline retailers are feeling the Omicron January chill as consumers are apprehensive about venturing out in the midst of rising Covid cases across the country. Covid restrictions, as well as concerns over the new virus variant, are seeing shoppers pull back from the high streets and shopping malls, clearly cautious about streaming into stores and choosing to self-censor instead. Offline retailers' hopes of a bumper End-Of-Season Sale (EOSS) and Republic Day (R-Day) Sale to compensate for losses over the pandemic have been dashed. Fewer trips to malls mean lower footfall and sales, resulting in higher piling of stock - and possibly higher discounts.
Colgate-Palmolive India (Colgate India) on Wednesday met distributors' body to sort out the issue of price parity between the traditional trade and organised distributors, which are present offline as well as online. These companies include Jiomart, Booker, Udaan and Elastic Run. Colgate India's meeting with distributors comes after the traditional channel stopped supplying its Colgate MaxFresh range of products in Maharashtra.
Expect fast-moving consumer goods makers (FMCG) to raise prices again next month owing to raw materials, transport, labour and packaging material costs remaining high or becoming even costlier. Whether it is packaged wheat flour and basmati rice or biscuits and shampoos, these products will become 2-10 per cent more expensive. Adani Wilmar will hike the price of its packaged wheat flour by 5-8 per cent and of its basmati rice by 8-10 per cent next month.
The latest hike is likely to be followed by another such move next month, said industry players. Before the latest hike, companies had initiated price hikes to the tune of 12-13 per cent in 2021 but they weren't able to fully cover the increase in costs.
'We expect exports to touch Rs 1,000 crore by the end of the year.'
However, the government's draft policy on e-commerce companies has forced consumer companies to also adapt to the changes. For Dabur India, e-commerce channel continues to be a key driver of growth in urban India. The contribution of online sales to its entire portfolio is at six per cent compared to 1.5 per cent before the pandemic.
Black Friday sales in India received a good response as brands dropped their prices making customers queue up outside stores where discounts were steeper. Discounts were offered both online and offline. Most of the international brands in India offered discounts under the Black Friday Sale banner. The Black Friday Sale started in the US on the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday. The day typically marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season ahead of the festival.
'We need to encourage the next generation of farmers to continue in farming'
No longer Bengal's finance minister, Amit Mitra, Mamata's principal chief advisor, will still advise and aid the 'chief minister and finance department on all matters relating to management of state finance', represent the 'state government in national and international events/meetings/committees' and examine 'important proposals/files and policy issues relating to financial matters referred to him for advice/views'.
'The force of reforms. The force of investment. The force of formalisation. The force of digital and green technology. And the force of youth and entrepreneurship. I am convinced that these 5 forces will propel India's rise over the next several decades,' predicts Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla group.
Future Retail's (FRL's) independent directors have written a second letter to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), stating American e-commerce major Amazon never intended to invest in Future Coupons (FCPL) and the representations made by the US e-commerce player were completely opposite and contradictory to their own internal correspondences as submitted before courts. The directors also wrote to CCI that Amazon has obtained approval by making deliberate misrepresentations. By actively misleading the CCI and the regulator, it has to revoke the approval granted for Amazon's investment in FCPL.
It was a replay of the annual general meetings of the cable companies of the M P Birla group last month even as the Birla side raised "illegalities" in the latest poll results.
Naturally, the West Bengal chief minister is not leaving anything to chance, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
Last year, major tea companies performed well on the back of higher prices. However, a drop in prices over the past month and a half, is threatening to put a spanner in a repeat performance. Tea prices started on a strong note this year with prices ruling higher than last year on the back of crop loss due to adverse weather conditions. After mid-June, however, prices started dropping, though they are still higher than 2019-levels for north Indian teas (which account for more than 80 per cent of total production).
The facility, which will manufacture nicotine and nicotine salts, will conform to stringent US and EU pharmacopoeia standards that define purity levels at 99.2 per cent for nicotine meant for pharmaceutical products. ITC will leverage the institutional capabilities of its century-old leaf tobacco business for this. ITC's cigarettes business saw disruptions across the value chain with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The company mentioned in its annual report that with easing of restrictions and improvement in mobility from September 2020 onwards, the business recovered progressively over the remainder of the year to reach nearly pre-Covid levels towards the close of the year.
With the threat of a third Covid-19 wave looming large, companies are scrambling to protect employees and keep operations safe--from a no-jab-no-entry-at-workplace policy to ramping up vaccination, it's an all-out effort to prevent the scale of devastation seen in the first two waves. At least two top steel companies--Tata Steel and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India)--are pushing for vaccination certificates for entry into work premises. AM/NS India, a joint venture between world's leading steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, and Japan's Nippon Steel, is set to make vaccination the certificate a requirement from July 1.
33-year-old Abhishek Banerjee has emerged as the most visible and significant leader in the party after his pishi (aunt), Mamata Banerjee reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
Most of the changes have come about in the last four years and ITC is now reaping the dividends - standalone revenues from the non-cigarettes FMCG business have grown 40 per cent from FY17 to Rs 14,728.21 crore in FY21 and pre-tax profits 30 times to Rs 823.69 crore. The business accounted for 30.58 per cent of gross revenues and 4.85 per cent of pre-tax profits in FY21. "In the last four years, our margins in FMCG have gone up by 640 basis points (bps) and EBITDA margins have been moving up consistently. "We created levers that enabled a sustained growth trajectory," said ITC chairman and managing director Sanjiv Puri. Puri took charge as the chief executive officer in 2017; in 2018, he was redesignated managing director and effective May 2019, he became chairman.
Scanty rainfall, last year's lockdown, growing competition from Nepal and the disaster of the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation are steadily weakening exports and sales of Darjeeling tea.
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