It began in a small way, with a few retailers offering a discount that caught the eye of an ordinary, middle-class man. Gone are the days when only a handful of retailers put up the discount sale board. Forty years ago, we were a monopolistic regime where only two or three players represented a sector. Today, we’re in the era of free enterprise, and there is no such exclusivity at play in any working sector. By the turn of this millennium, that is 2000, the concept of Aadi sale has grown into a mammoth business, with revenue running into approximately over Rs 2,000 crore, in the 30-day period. Considering that traditionally, people do not move houses, hold house-warming ceremonies or conduct marriages in that time frame, the huge sales figure is staggering. 

Today, it is not uncommon for even those in the beauty sector to come up with attractive Aadi offers. According to an industry tracker in 2014, retail sales averaged at Rs. 100 crore a day, and this excluding the mobile phones market segment, in Chennai alone. In 2015, it went up by about 10 per cent. The shopping events give rise to an expectation of bargains and hence buyers defer their purchase decision to wait for the event. It can, therefore, be argued that what is witnessed here is a pent up demand — an accumulation of deferred decisions being made.

The Aadi sale seems to have an appeal for different economic strata — going by the type of goods that are offered on discount. The reason for this spectacular change is due to marketing, and the innovations that retailers have introduced into Aadi sale. This in itself is made possible due to efficiency in business practices and greater production values at play. These have created a scenario for better and higher growth, while at the same time crowding the market place. This in turn has made our regular sales and marketing people to innovate and usher in peak sales by taking the ordinary, everyday event into an extraordinary one. 

Look at how we all celebrate Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Parents’ Day. People spend days trying to think the most novel, innovative or touching gift to give on that particular day, even if parents and children do exchange gifts on other days in a year, such as birthdays. Even though you see your friends daily it has become important to come up with the perfect gift on Friendship Day. Similar is the case with Akshaya Tritiya, the day of shopping for precious metals as a harbinger of good things. These special days may have had their origins in a marketing man’s innovative way of pushing a product during a dull season, but that small experiment has now snowballed into a huge socio-personal exercise.