The festival season started on Tuesday, but apparel stores have not yet seen the usual rise in footfall as potential shoppers seem to have become housebound due to the gasoline shortage.

This season usually sees a buying spree as the markets come alive with festival shoppers, and retail and wholesale businesses post the year’s highest sales.

The crowds at Kathmandu’s traditional bazaars like Asan, Indra Chok, Wotu-Khasa Chok, Ratna Park and Bhrikuti Mandap are thinner this year. Likewise, fancy shopping malls and Durbar Marg’s swanky stores have not seen the expected rush.

Most apparel stores have put their old stocks on sale with discounts of up to 50 percent. They have no new offerings for customers as the containers carrying clothing items and footwear are stranded at the border due to blockade called by Madhes-based parties and India.

Although Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) distributed limited quantities of gasoline to private vehicle owners on Tuesday, many people had to return empty-handed due to the low supply from India. Public transportation vehicles have also been struggling to get diesel. As NOC is not sure whether it will be able to provide fuel, traders are not very hopeful of doing good business before Dashain.

“This year’s Dashain business has plunged by around 80 percent compared to last year,” said Sandip Hirachan, managing director of United World Trade Centre (UWTC), Tripureshwor. He added that they had been struggling to get fuel for their generators, so most of the shops have no power during load-shedding hours.

“Customers are not coming to the shops due to low vehicular movement and lack of fuel for their private vehicles. It seems many customers have postponed buying new clothes for Dashain,” said Kavita Chaudhary, a

member of the sales staff at Hot Station, UWTC. She added that business had dropped by 50 percent. The shop is offering discounts of up to 50 percent on clothing items it has in stock.

“Most of the shipments of new clothes are stranded at border points, and they won’t arrive in time for the festival even if they were to open now as transportation will take at least 10 days,” said Parshuram Phuyal, an

apparel trader at Ranjana Trade Centre, New Road. He added that the fuel shortage had prevented potential customers from visiting apparel stores to buy new clothes for Dashain.

Likewise, Nishi Sharma, manager of Monte Carlo showroom at Civil Mall, said, “We used to have daily sales of Rs40,000 to Rs50,000 during the Dashain festival, but these days our clothes sales barely reach Rs15,000 to Rs20,000.” Monte Carlo has put its inventory on sale by providing discounts of up to 40 percent.

Rishiraj Subedi, a vendor at Hong Kong Bazaar, Bhrikuti Mandap, said he had not seen business drop this low in the past 10 years. “I didn’t bring new clothes for this year’s Dashain festival as we still have unsold stocks,” he said.