Winter clothes sales slump in the north

Small-scale sellers and street vendors of winter clothes in Dinajpur and Rangpur are witnessing poor sales compared to that in the same month in previous years.

Unseasonably warm temperatures in the day coupled with economic downturns due to the novel coronavirus pandemic might be behind the fall in demands for warm clothes in the region, said many vendors and locals.

Selim Islam has been vending warm clothes on the street near bus stand area in Birampur upazila town of Dinajpur for the last 4 years. He said lately his daily sales slumped to as low as Tk 200 to Tk 300. "High temperatures this winter might have caused the sales to drop at least by 70 percent."

In Dinajpur, it usually starts to feel like winter around the end of October, when the mercury starts to dip. It continues to fall sharply from November till mid-January, when the temperature starts to rise. By the end of March, winter can no longer be felt.    

Over the last seven days in Dinajpur, the lowest temperature hovered below 10 degrees Celsius, but the highest reached up to 25 degree Celsius, according to data provided by the meteorological office in Dinajpur. 

People usually tend to feel colder when the sky remains overcast and foggy conditions obstruct the sighting of the sun. But most of parts of the days this December remained sunny, officials at the Met office also said.

Winter clothes vendors said their sales usually pick up by the end of November and all sorts of warm clothes and accessories -- including socks, woollen gloves, scarves or mufflers and specialised winter caps -- sell well till December.

Though December is already over, they are yet to see their sales take flight like in other years, they lamented.

Rangpur city winter clothes seller Rafiqul Islam said the sale falls to almost zero in the daytime and it climbs up a bit after the evening. "It isn't possible to feed my family of four with this poor income."    

Subhash Chandra, another street vendor in Phulbari upazila, said he sold at least 30 winter jackets every day last year, but this year's sale so far is not even close to that. 

Unusually higher temperatures during the day and fall in people's buying capacity due to the pandemic might be a reason for the drop in demands of winter clothes this time, he also said.

Tofazzal Hossain, the Dinajpur Met office in-charge, said there is a big difference between temperatures in the day and at night because it remained sunny almost throughout the entire day. 

Besides, there has been no fog over the region either. "People feel more comfortable in such weather," he explained.