Lacklustre sales dash hopes of Ludhiana jewellers on Dhanteras
The usual scenes of buyers flooding the shops for gold and silver in Ludhiana were missing on Dhanteras this time
Jewellers in Ludhiana remained a disappointed lot as they did not receive the footfall they were expecting on Dhanteras.
The usual scenes of buyers flooding the shops for gold and silver were missing on Tuesday.
Ravneet Singh, a jeweller in the Model Town market said, “Expecting a major rush, I had ordered a lot of jewellery items from Mumbai and Surat, but unfortunately not many customers turned up. In pre-Covid times, we used to get busy from the time of opening of the shop and had to request the customers to leave around 11pm. The pandemic has highly affected the spending capacity of the buyers.”
He added that most of the people came to purchase silver instead of gold. “Silver ornaments or coins were majorly in demand instead of gold this time. A customer who usually spent around ₹50,000 to buy 10gm gold on Dhanteras demanded a 2gm coin worth ₹10,000 as a shagun on the occasion. Moreover, the price of gold is also high due to less supply from Mumbai,” he said.
The gold rate on Dhanteras was recorded at ₹49,400 per 10 gram and silver price was ₹67,000 per kg.
A staffer of a renowned jewellery store in Ghumar Mandi, on the condition of anonymity, said, “We saw a good footfall of customers at our shop for gold jewellery, but we couldn’t sell as many heavy sets as we usually sold on Dhanteras before Covid.”
Meanwhile, heavy rush was seen at crockery shops where people bought copper and steel utensils on the occasion.
Ram Gopal Chaudhary, owner of one such shop at Ghumar Mandi, said people started coming in the morning to buy utensils. Items like cookers, fry pans, glasses, bowls, jugs, and plates were majorly in demand, he added.
“Unlike last year, when corona crushed the business completely, buyers reached us this time on Dhanteras. I am hopeful of doing a good business till closure of the shop,” he added.
Sushma Mittal, owner of another crockery store in the area said, “It is an auspicious day and thus buyers tend to purchase some metal on the occasion. We got more buyers on Sunday instead. This time, the footfall is much better as compared to the last Dhanteras but less number of people turned up as expected. A few customers even purchased a single bowl or a serving spoon of steel as a ritual.”