Amritsar: Banking on the Festive Season

Amritsar is one of the most ancient and
fascinating cities of India. It is an important seat of Sikh history
and culture. Being the gateway for travelers coming to India on the
overland route from central Asia, it soon became the center of
various commercial activities. There are various historical and
religious sites, the most famous being the Golden Temple, which was
founded by the fourth Guru of Sikhs, Guru Ramdas and completed by his
successor Guru Arjan Dev. The city is also famous for its delicious
naan, chole-kulche and lassi.

According to dealers, the IT market in
the city is worth at least Rs 100 crore on an annual basis. Usually
it keeps distributors/dealers/vendors busy, but since Shraddh, the
market is down. According to Vikas Narang of NV Computers, “These
days we wait for customers to arrive. Earlier, say, some 3-4 years
back, our shops were brimmed with
customers as the market used to be at its peak. So we generated a
healthy revenue in the Navratri-Dussehra-Diwali season but that is
not the case anymore.” When asked further for the reason behind
this, Narang said, “I think that customers hold their purchase for
lucrative offers/discounts which
almost every company provides in the festive season.”

Dealers are of the opinion that sales
of the desktops and those of laptops are almost equal. HP, Dell, and
more recently, Sony are the major brands in the laptop segment which
are providing good revenue to the dealers. As far as desktops are
concerned, people usually prefer assembled products as they are much
affordable as compared to the branded ones.

Dealers rue the fact that there is no
IT association at the local level. Sanjeev Chhabra of Cyberage
Multimedia said, “Presently, I don't see any IT association
working in Amritsar. Though, earlier there were some start-ups but
they could not continue for much time.” Talking about the
vendor-dealer issues and relationship, dealers said that they solve
their problems on individual basis. When asked about any specific
problem with the vendors, Narang concluded, “We have to wait for
quite some time, sometimes even 6 months, for the back-end margin
(payments) committed.”