dealers fear that if the festive season does not turn out to be good there will be again a problem of inventory buildup new delhi automobile dealers are cautiously optimistic about the festive season though they see a rise in enquiries after having been jolted by abrupt lockdowns and macroeconomic challenges most of them expect flattish growth this festive season various dealers with which etauto spoke to informed that due to the rising importance of personal transportation there has been a rise in enquiries for cars and twowheelers most of the dealers expect singledigit or flattish growth when compared with the previous festive season in retail sales they said a tighter financing environment still acts as a dampener to growth advt passenger vehicle numbers will be similar to that of last year or maybe a tad better however twowheelers can be the same as last year but a tad lower but there is no hope for commercial vehicles and threewheelers vinkesh gulati president of federation of automobile dealers associations said some of the dealers reported that the overall sentiment is good but bookings are not on par with last year the primary reason for this is that the purchase cycle has been reduced due to lockdowns in different parts of the countrytill navratri we usually get good bookings and we prepare for the deliveries but due to the pandemic people have now started enquiring about vehicles so we are hoping to have bookings in navratri and deliveries by dhanteras and diwali said of one the dealers in the north in normal circumstances the purchase cycle of a vehicle is one or two months but due to sentimental reasons customers did not turnup in the past two months however many dealers believe that the quality of inquiries has gone up as there are serious buyers in the market conversions improveaccording to icra research nearly 53 of dealers indicate that conversion has improved as only serious buyers are stepping out during the covid19 dealers are optimistic about the festive season and expect it to be better than last year ashish modani vicepresident icra said festive season contributes 2530 of the annual auto retail sales oems being optimistic about the festive season in september 2019 recorded doubledigit growth of 2645 in passenger vehicles to 272027 units while the twowheeler segment registered 1164 growth to 1849546 units compared to 1656658 units in the same month previous year advt on the contrary dealers fear that if the festive season does not turn out to be good there will be again a problem of inventory buildup passenger vehicle sales numbers will be similar to that of last year or maybe a tad better twowheelers can be the same as last year but a bit lower however there is no hope for commercial vehicles and threewheelersvinkesh gulati fadawe are hopeful of the good festive season as people have saved money for the last six months as the overall expenditure which normally would have been incurred has gone