As a part of festive offer, consumer durable firms are spending more on advertising and are planning to boost sales by offering interest-free loans.

For instance, Samsung India has collaborated with Bajaj finance for a zero finance scheme. The scheme offers nil initial payment, processing fee and interest, covering all products by the month's end.

R Zutshi, deputy managing director of Samsung India said "The offer will help consumers upgrade to premium products easily." As per the scheme, the manufacturer bears the interest cost on the loan; the processing fee is either passed on to the customer or is shared between the dealer and the manufacturer. This way, consumer is able to buy the product with more ease in paying instalments while the company benefits from revenues on bulk sales.

Voltas, a Tata group company, launched an interest free scheme on its mid and high end air conditioners and water coolers. This is unlike its traditional schemes in which partial payment is made at the time of purchase and the rest of the amount is financed according to the prevailing market rates.

Kamal Nandi, vice-president (marketing), Godrej & Boyce, said, "This festival season we are optimistic of a growth rate of 30 per cent over last year. There was a dip in sales last year because of a slump in the market." Godrej & Boyce, which registered a 20-25 per cent growth in sales in the first quarter, expects to earn nearly Rs 600 crore between September and December. This will be Rs 140 crore more than the corresponding period last year.

Until early last year, financed consumer durables accounted for 15-20 percent of the overall sales. The figure dipped to 8-10 percent when the banks and finance companies reduced lending during the end of last year. The festive season constitute for around 35 to 40 percent of the annual sales of the durables.

LG electronics India is expecting a sales growth of 35 percent over the corresponding period previous year. Amitabh Tiwari, business head (consumer electronics) of LG, said that the consumer sentiment previous year was bad but had improved considerably this year and that was the reason for their spending Rs 110 crore on advertising and promotions, up from 68 crore last year. He said that LG was also planning to invest more in television commercials.

Electronics and home appliances firms are increasing the amounts that they spend on marketing and advertising. The market for consumer durables is estimated at around Rs 25,000 crore.