Organised retail players have teamed up with banks to roll out festive offers for customers as they look to encourage spending that has taken a hit because of Covid-19.

On Saturday, Walmart-owned Flipkart said it will host its annual “The Big Billion Days” sale from October 16-21.

Its rival Amazon is expected to announce its sale dates next week. Snapdeal will hold its first sale in mid-October to coincide with Navratri festivities. Its next two sales will run in late October and early November.

JioMart is already in the midst of its “Festive Ready Sale” which it claims is the festive season’s biggest grocery sale. The sale, which will end on Sunday, offers 25-50 per cent off on various items.

While such offers are not uncommon among the e-tailers during the festive season, it remains to be seen if customers who have faced salary cuts and job losses will bite the bait this time around.

Flipkart said it has enabled new and convenient payment offerings on its platform. It will make available no-cost EMIs through offers from Bajaj Finserv EMI cards and other bank credit and debit cards, while its partnership with Paytm will offer consumers assured cashback, it added.

“In our 1,001-person survey, only 16 per cent said they saw no change in income/employment since lockdown, while 19 per cent have lost their jobs. This in turn is leading to postponement of discretionary consumption,” BofA Securities said in a recent note.

At the same time, a recent report by RedSeer says that online players will benefit as consumers as still apprehensive about visiting high human touchpoint areas such as malls and retail outlets.