Why are there so many nail shops?
A new wave of high-end nail shops are cropping up in India.
Photo: AP.
The nail industry in India is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the country, with the number of nail shops increasing from 1.2 million in 2013 to 1.4 million in 2020.
The demand for nail polishes is increasing fast, and there are now more than 3,000 nail shops in the country.
However, the industry is also plagued with corruption and a lack of transparency.
Nail shop owners say they can’t keep track of the sales, and that they’re forced to make payments out of pocket because they cannot keep track.
According to The Times Of India, a nail shop owner, who did not want to be named, said he had to pay out of his own pocket for two months in order to make up for lost sales.
“We were forced to pay for nail polish in the shop as we were not able to keep track,” he said.
“I was forced to sell the polish out of my own pocket because I was not able at that time to track the sales.
This is what I’ve lost out on because I don’t have the financial resources to do it myself.”
Another nail shop seller, who does not want his name published, said his shop was also forced to write checks to make back the money they had collected from the customer.
“The nail shop was forced by us to pay a sum of Rs 2,000 to the bank to get back the amount we had collected,” he added.
“It’s not a small amount but we were forced into writing checks.
The amount was not even in the bank account at the time we made the payments.”
The owner of the nail shop in the northern state of Rajasthan, who is not willing to be identified, said they were forced by the government to write cash to the company for the purchase of polishes.
“After the transaction, we are forced to sign a contract which says that the nail polish is for the use of the customer,” he told NDTV.
The Indian nail industry is estimated to generate around Rs 3 trillion ($45 billion) a year, but the government has been slow to implement the regulations in an attempt to curb corruption.
