Demonetisation Triggers Shift from Unorganised to Organised Retail, Card Transactions rise upto 90% of Total Sales in Q3FY17

Demonetisation has catapulted the shift from unorganised to organised retail sector in the light of the cash crunch, says India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra). While the market expected the sector to witness contraction in Q3FY17 post demonetisation, Ind-Ra expects most companies in the organised retail sector to post low single digit growth with varying impact across different sub-sectors. Ind-Ra expects organised retailers in the food, grocery and fashion retail segments to be unaffected, high value items namely jewellery, luxury items (watches), consumer durables to show contraction in topline in 3QFY17.

Ind-Ra has been assessing the situation post 8 November 2016 and based on our interaction with the management of companies in the retail segment, Ind-Ra believes the impact of demonetisation across retail segments will vary, depending on the nature of consumption (discretionary/non-discretionary), ticket size and ease of adoption of alternate modes of payment.

Organised Retailers Insulated, High Value Items Feel Pain: Organised retailers in the food, grocery and value to premium fashion retail segments have been insulated from the influence of demonetisation in 3QFY17, given the relatively low average ticket size of transactions (around INR2,000) and the willingness of consumers to switch to cashless transactions. However for segments of high value, namely jewellery, luxury items (watches), consumer durables where the transaction value is high and the purchases are more discretionary in nature and presumably the use of unaccounted for money is higher, even organised retail is likely to report de-growth in 3QFY17.

Organised Food and Grocery Retailers Win: Organised food and grocery retailers are the biggest beneficiaries of demonetisation and are expected to post a healthy double digit growth and even like to like sales growth in 3QFY17. The cash crunch impaired the traditional wholesale and retail channels and led to a shift in consumers from local grocery stores/neighborhood stores to supermarkets/hypermarkets. Additionally, footfalls were also driven by the availability of cash withdrawal facility from the POS machines installed at some of these stores supported by the discount and promotional offers. The consumers were quick in adopting the digital mode of payment and the share of cash transactions declined to about 20% from about 50%-60% earlier. Companies in the segment will however face the challenge of building customer stickiness and retaining the growth momentum witnessed in the last two months as the traditional channel emerges from the disruption in Q4.

Organized Fashion Retailers Recover from Knee Jerk Reaction: Contrary to the popular belief, organised fashion retailers (departmental stores) have bucked the impact of demonetisation. After the sharp decline in footfalls as well as volumes in the first week post demonetisation, revenue growth recovered and is likely to be in high single digit to double digits in 3QFY17 on the back of festive season and early commencement of end of season sale in December 2016. Most of these departmental stores are located in Metros and Tier I and II cities where consumers were readily shifting to card payments; resulting in the share of cards as a percentage of revenue increasing to 80%-90% in the last quarter (averages around 40%-50%). Additionally, the impact on margins due to the end of season sale was largely counterbalanced by the waiver of fee on POS transactions through debit cards which were earlier in the range of 0.75%-1%. Further, companies in this segment continue to be on track with their store opening plans for 2HFY17.

Share of digital wallets is still below 5-10% in the both these segments and the industry is gearing towards increasing the share of digital wallets and launching their own wallets as well.

Organized Retail Jewelers to De-grow: Organised retail jewelers is likely to report minimal growth to de-growth year on year in Q3 revenues as consumer demand remained muted in the aftermath of demonetisation. Margins are also likely to be impacted given the high operational leverage in the segment; albeit supported by higher gold prices for most part of the demonetisation period. Companies are cautious on restocking to reduce any liquidity pressure which may arise due to reduced offtake.

It remains to be seen whether organised retail will continue to gain market share at the cost of unorganised retail post re-monetisation or the customers will go back to their preferred mode of transaction once the currency notes are replaced completely.

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