A silver lining for uniform manufacturers as demand skyrockets with schools returning to offline mode: JD Mart Consumer Insights

– Demand for school uniforms jump by 117% across India as more than 265 million students return to classes

– Mumbai witnesses maximum demand for school uniforms

– Uniform manufacturing hub Solapur sees maximum demand among Tier-II cities

Mumbai, February 17, 2022 (GNI): As schools across the country get back to life with students coming back for physical classes, uniform manufacturers are witnessing a significant uptick in demand for school uniforms, reports the latest JD Mart Consumer Insights. 

Demand for school uniforms on JD Mart, India’s latest B2B platform by Just Dial, saw a YOY jump of 117% signalling the return of happy days for the industry that has been struggling for survival for almost two years due to the pandemic as schools went into an online mode.

Searches in Tier-I cities were 2X of Tier-II but the demand growth rate in the latter was around 141%. Demand growth in Tier-I cities also grew at a healthy 28%. The rise in demand growth rate has been accelerated by the fact that students have outgrown their uniforms during the last two years.

Commenting on consumer trends, which indicate a silver lining for the uniform manufacturers, Mr. Prasun Kumar, CMO, Just Dial, said: “As children return to schools after a long hiatus, we are witnessing a significant demand for school uniform on JD Mart. This indicates a silver lining for the uniform manufacturing industry that according to industry estimates was an Rs.18,000 crore industry before the pandemic struck. But now with almost 1.5 million schools coming back to life with the return of students, uniform manufacturers can have something to cheer about. The school uniform manufacturing industry has been largely organised, but we have been successful in aggregating this industry online and offer everyone a level playing field to scale growth.”

Mumbai, which saw the strictest lockdown as it was the worst impacted due to COVID, saw maximum demand among Tier-I cities and a YOY growth of 40%. Delhi, also one of the worst impacted, was the second in terms of demand with a growth rate of 24% with Pune being third with a growth rate of 7%. Among Tier-I cities, Bengaluru saw the maximum demand growth rate of 58%.

Among Tier-II towns and cities, Solapur, the uniform manufacturing hub of the country, saw maximum searches followed by Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Patna, and Mysore as the top-5 cities with most of the demand. Out of these cities, Chandigarh saw the maximum YOY growth of 108%. 

T-shirt manufacturers also saw a YOY rise in demand of 7%. Tier-I cities saw a demand rise of 13% while in Tier-II it remained stable. The manufacturing hub of Ludhiana saw maximum demand in India while Delhi and Mumbai were second and third, respectively. 

About Just Dial Limited provides local search related services to users in India through multiple platforms such as Desktop/PC website (https://www.justdial.com), mobile site (https://t.justdial.com), mobile apps (Android & iOS), over the telephone (Voice, pan India number 88888-88888) and text (SMS). Justdial’s latest version of JD App, is an All-in-One App, replete with features like Map-aided Search, Live TV, Videos, Stock quotes, etc. to make the life of the consumer infinitely smoother & more engaging.

The Company has recently launched its B2B marketplace platform, JD Mart. JD Mart platform, available at https://www.jdmart.com and via apps on Play Store and App Store, is aimed at enabling millions of India’s manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers to become internet-ready in post-COVID era, get new customers and sell their products online. The platform offers digital product catalogues to businesses and aims at digitalising India’s businesses, especially MSMEs, across categories. Buyers can discover quality vendors offering a wide selection of products to choose from, spread across millions of categories to suit all B2B needs.

Justdial has also initiated transaction-oriented services for its users. These services aim at making several day-to-day tasks conveniently actionable and accessible to users from one App. With this step, Justdial is transitioning from being purely a provider of local search and related information to being a direct/ indirect enabler of such transactions. Justdial has also recently launched an end-to-end business management solution for SMEs, through which it intends to transition thousands of SMEs to efficiently run business online and have their adequate online presence via their own website, mobile site. Apart from this, Justdial has also launched JD Pay, a unique solution for quick digital payments for its users and vendors.ends