GST & the POP industry

Point-of-Purchase Magazine brings to you in a nutshell how the varied POP items and shopper marketing tools will be charged under GST scheme, while industry stakeholders share their views on how it has impacted the overall business.

GST or Goods and Service Tax introduced on July 1, 2017 is perhaps one of the revolutionary economic steps by the country in recent times, has replaced multiple taxes levied by the central and state governments in India.   

Since the introduction of the tax policy there has been certain revisions in the slabs regarding the various goods and services. Just like any service industry that has to streamline its working with the new tax regime, POP display manufacturing industry too has its own share of hurdles. Point-of-Purchase Magazine brings to you in a nutshell how the varied POP items and shopper marketing tools will be charged under GST scheme, while industry stakeholders share their views on how it has impacted the overall business. 

Rates or tax Slabs as revised on 16th Nov

POP Industry’s response to GST 

• The pop industry players got a relief once the tax slabs came down from 28% (1st July to Nov15th) to 18% (at present)
• Sales dropped temporarily since last 5 months and projects were put on hold but the industry is seeing that go up gradually
• Industry believes that market will get steady by beginning of next financial year
• POP industry is welcoming the change as there will be level playing with respect to the standards of the services and operations
• The industry is speculating that the growth may be sluggish by 10-15%  by the end of this financial year
• Presently, the pop agencies feel that there will be fierce competition to recover the losses and the players will try to grab volumes as much as possible
• GST is a positive step for the overall benefit of the industry and the players are welcoming it to counter corruption and malpractices
• All types of services are coming under the common Sac Code (or Service code)
• The trading activities are part of HSN Code (applicable to all types of material trading and its bifurcation)

 Industry Speaks

Ragesh Bhatia, Co-Founder and Director of Renam shares, “GST is a boon to us. It is surely going to give us a level playing field in this pop and retail solution industry which previously was getting diluted with several cost related issues, but now it seems that there will be a benchmark. We are welcoming this policy in spite of all initial challenges which are common to any service sector.”

Rahul Ghosh, Co-owner of Klik Advertising opines, “We believe that as the operational costs were majorly on hold since last 5 months there will be a better volume and growth in the next financial year for our industry once these budgets get released from the brands and corporates by January.”

Kaushik Bhattacharjee, Founder & Managing Director of Brand Evoke Systems & Creative  Solutions Pvt. Ltd. shares, “It is anticipated that from the last quarter we will start reviving the business and the things are already on roll from first week of December. This is silver lining for us.”