RAI-Innoviti SANKET Records 9.6% Retail Growth in August

Retail spending across India recorded a strong recovery in August, with same-store spends rising 9.6% year-on-year. The figure compares with 7.1% growth in July.

The data comes from the second edition of SANKET (Spends & Key Emerging Trends), a quarterly like-for-like retail tracker published by the Retailers Association of India (RAI) and Innoviti. The report analyses more than 70 million transactions across over 100,000 checkout points. It covers more than 2,800 towns and 10,000-plus PIN codes.

August delivered the strongest monthly reading since April. As a result, the latest data indicates that the slowdown seen during Q1 may have been linked more to timing than to a sustained decline in consumer demand.

Retail Growth Broadens Across Categories

The recovery was visible across several major retail categories.

Grocery & General Retail recorded 9.9% growth in August, compared with 7.5% in July. Meanwhile, Fashion & Lifestyle saw one of the strongest improvements. Growth increased from 4.5% in July to 8.5% in August.

Jewellery & Accessories also strengthened, reaching 8.4%. This marked its strongest performance since the April spike linked to Akshaya Tritiya.

However, Consumer Electronics remained comparatively subdued. The category held steady at 5.0%. Import costs, affected by the weaker rupee, continue to create pressure. At the same time, festive demand is beginning to support the segment.

West and South Maintain Lead

Regional performance also remained positive.

The West recorded 10.7% growth, while the South followed at 9.7%. Both regions continued to lead the national performance.

However, the North registered the sharpest month-on-month improvement. Its growth increased by 3.0 percentage points compared with July.

“These numbers tell us business is promising right now, and the recovery is genuinely encouraging — it’s broad enough to trust, not a one-category story,” said Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India.

“August is really a precursor to the festive season, and if this pace holds, retailers have good reason to plan with confidence heading into it. At the same time, we’re keeping an eye on the global turmoil. India’s consumption story stands on its own, but no market runs in isolation, and it pays to stay cautious even while the data looks good.”

Smaller Towns Drive Consumption Growth

One of the key findings from the report is the continued strength of smaller cities and towns.

Tier 3 towns recorded 11.9% growth in August. In comparison, Tier 1 cities grew by 7.6%. This created a 4.3 percentage point gap.

The gap had narrowed briefly in July. However, it has now widened beyond the level recorded in June.

Importantly, SANKET measures like-for-like spending at the same stores year-on-year. Therefore, the growth cannot simply be attributed to retailers expanding their store networks in smaller towns.

Instead, the figures indicate higher spending at existing stores.

Tier 2 cities are also showing strong momentum in discretionary categories. Jewellery growth reached 11.6%, while Fashion recorded 13.0%.

This suggests that value-focused retail and mid-city discretionary spending are gaining traction.

UPI Gains Further Ground Against Cards

Payment behaviour is another significant trend emerging from the SANKET data.

UPI-linked same-store spending grew 22.6% year-on-year in August. By comparison, card-linked spending increased just 0.4%.

The growth in card spending was concentrated largely in Jewellery. Higher-value gold purchases continue to support card usage in the category.

Outside Jewellery, however, card spending would have contracted during the month.

“The payments data underneath these numbers tells its own story. UPI’s pulling further ahead of cards in almost every category we track, and that shift is happening at the point of sale, transaction by transaction, not in a survey. For us, that’s the value of SANKET — it turns raw payment flows into a read on where real demand is moving, month by month, well before the broader retail data catches up,” said Rajeev Agrawal, Founder and CEO, Innoviti Technologies.

Festive Season Outlook Gains Momentum

The August performance provides a stronger indication of consumer momentum heading into the festive period.

Growth was spread across categories, regions and city tiers. Moreover, the continued performance of smaller towns highlights the expanding role of non-metro consumption in India’s retail market.

At the same time, payment data points to a continued shift towards UPI at the point of sale.

Overall, the SANKET findings indicate that India’s retail recovery is becoming broader-based. Retailers now enter the festive season with stronger spending indicators across several parts of the market.