Till a couple of decades ago, people waited for Deepavali Bonus to do
shopping – it was mostly clothing, closer to the festival – it would be
crackers and sweets. Will modern day
youngsters ever know that people flocked some shops like NTC, Vaanavil because
they allowed instalments ! – only handful boasted of Credit cards and those who
did not possess one, used to say that having a credit card will make one do
impulsive purchases – i.e., spend when it was not needed and buy not so required
things on credit. Credit card revolution changed it al- - with people living on
credit all the time – and only those who use cards extensively being respected
by Organisations too… Some shops would announce discounts and Sales ~ the common perception was that shops would hike the price and
offer back something as discount !!
People would throng shops, feel the material, check it on hand,
compare and decide on buying (another, that women usually spent long hours in
Shops !!) …. Window shopping" is a term referring to the browsing of goods
by a consumer with no intent to purchase, either as a recreational activity or
to plan a later purchase. On the contrary, Showrooming is the practice of
examining merchandise in a traditional retail store without purchasing it, but
then shopping online to find a lower price for the same item………………, do you make Online purchases regularly ! and
were you smitten by Flipkart flopshow !!!
The social media has been
talking of it – and this morning Times of India (Chennai Edition) had 4 full
pages – the front and back wrappers fully devoted to Flipkart announcing ‘Big
Billion day’ campaign – the 2nd
firstpage was of Snapdeal which read “ ‘for others it’s a big day – for us,
today is no different’. Flipcart shouted
– Crazy Deals, Limited Time, Limited stocks ….. and more .. On crazy side it was Singer Hand blender at
Re.1; Adata 2TB Extnl Harddrive @ Rs.600; Samsung Galaxy Tub 2 P3110 at
Rs.1390/- ………….. unbeatable prices read Canon 1200D DSLR at Rs.17500/- LG 32’
LED TV at 14900 – an interesting report in Firstpost mentions that a
certain section of online buyers claimed that Flipkart
had allegedly increased the price on products and was offering discounts on
these marked up prices. According to this piece, Flipkart had suddenly
marked up the prices of certain non-tech products just today. Many said that the price in First screen and
the 2nd were different !!!!!
A more detailed thread on
Reddit India threw up a lot of instances of people, who have been regulars on
Flipkart, claiming that prices on certain products
are even higher than that seen on regular days. For instance, Reddit
user rahultheinvader claimed that this
book , which was priced at Rs 400 before Oct 6th, had suddenly shot up to Rs
599. A quick search on other e-commerce sites gives you lower prices. In
another instance, another user, claimed that the iPad Mini (16GB, Wifi) pricing
hovered around Rs 17,000 since the last month, but was showing as Rs 21,000
today. Another example showing a higher
pricing is that of the Seagate Backup Plus 1TB external drive which is shown to
be selling for Rs 7,199 and this drive is a generation older. Since the launch
price of the latest generation Seagate Backup Plus was around Rs 6,000.
TOI and Hindustan Times reports
that the site crumbled due to increased load throwing random errors. A large
number of consumers were not getting order confirmation after making payments
and some were not able to see items they added to their shopping cart. The
consumers shared their grievances on social networking website, Twitter.
In case you don't know what
the Big Billion Day Sale was all about - Flipkart aimed to do business of more
than 1 billion in one day on 6th October 2014. Some reports put it that it achieved its sale target by 2pm. It is like people saying the movie is not good – yet grossing
up rich moola in box office - Flipkart
and its Big Billion Day campaign may have had a forgettable day on Twitter but
the e-commerce site's co-founder, Sachin Bansal, claimed the day was an
unprecedented success, with the site registering a billion hits and touching
$100 million in gross merchandising value in just 10 hours. Flipkart is
an e-commerce company founded in 2007, by Sachin and Binny Bansal operating exclusively in India, headquartered in Bangalore, and registered in Singapore, owned by a
Singapore-based holding company.
The craze for buying online and pre-booking especially those of
mobiles has reached newer frenzy ……………… away from the melee - “iPhone 6 and
iPhone 6 Plus will be available in India beginning October 17th ,
from an expansive network of Apple Authorized Resellers. Customers can
pre-order iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus beginning Tuesday, October 7,” Apple India
said in a statement today.. Though the
Company has not announced the price – market sources reveal that it will from
Rs.54000/- onwards for 16GB … the larger iphone 6+ with 128GB is expected to
sell for Rs.80000/- plus
So what did
you buy today and did you make any attempt in flipkart. !!
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
6th Oct 2014.
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