Chennai: After Gaja cyclone, sales of gift items, journals and calendars hit

Chennai: Gift items, journals and calendar sales take a hit after Gaja cyclone wreaked havoc in the southern districts of the state on November 16.

Wholesale shops which print and sell customised calendars, journals and other gift items at this time of the year, especially for Christmas, are facing a huge setback as orders are not coming in.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Arun, Kumar, who runs a wholesale store selling gift items said that their business has taken a major hit. “Forty per cent of our annual sales have taken a hit. Majority of our orders would come from companies buying diaries and calendars for their employees or friends. They would order at least 200 units. Now, most of them are not even giving us a call, he said.

Screen and block printing companies would also be very busy at this time. “When you call us for large orders which are not time sensitive or are for later on in the year, we would ask that they contact us after January. This year, we don’t even have enough orders to keep ourselves busy,” Indiran who runs a screen-printing unit in Egmore said. The southern districts, especially places like Nagapattinam and Thoothukudi have a sizable Christian population which takes gift-giving seriously. Following Gaja, they have been reduced to a sorry state and are helpless, Anand says. “We were hit in an even worse manner in 2015 when Chennai flooded. Our storing units, machine rooms, everything flooded. It took us a long time to revive from that. Now, nature has thrown us into another hurdle.”