Shopkeepers glum with subdued Diwali sales as consumers fail to get festive

Retailers of mobile handsets have been the biggest casualty of the Indian consumer's growing love affair with online shopping

Rohit Chadha, 35, was busy convincing a small group of Punjabi housewives to buy from a stack of designer sarees at his two floor store in Lajpat Nagar market in south Delhi on the evening of Dhanteras. It took another half hour of strenuous cajolery to persuade them to buy and even then, they picked only two from the pile. 

Chadha, who has been managing the family store since 2011, was not pleased. The women were only the fifth group of customers he had managed to convert into sales since 10 am - much lower than his usual strike rate two