Online marketers bet big on 'Great Online Shopping Festival'

December 11, 2013 08:36 pm | Updated 08:36 pm IST - NEW DELHI

Google’s 'Great Online Shopping Festival', which began on Wednesday, is good news for shoppers, especially those who missed out on the Diwali sales, with e-retailers promising discounts of up to 80 per cent across categories, including apparels and accessories, electronics and jewellery.

Moreover, as customers make merry, the sellers too are hoping to cash-in on the online frenzy. E-tailers (or online retailers), including Snapdeal, Jabong, Flipkart, Fashion and You and Lenskart, an increase of up to 4 times in sales during the three-day shopping carnival. Additionally, with many first time online shoppers expected to log on, the companies are aiming acquire more and more new customers.

Even though the main ‘gosf’ site was down for the major part of the inaugural day of the three-day fest due to “technical issues”, industry is still upbeat about the festival. “We do not see sales being much affected as individual sub-sites for the festivals are up and running,” an e-tailer said. However, it added that the sales could have been even better if the site was functioning.

Manu Kumar Jain, Co-founder, Jabong said, "On the first day itself, we have seen a phenomenal increase in the traffic and sales right from midnight. What is more interesting is that customers had their baskets/cart full & ready before midnight and they transacted as soon as the hands of the clock hit 12. Revenue has increased 4-5 times more than a usual day."

Yatra.com said since internet drives business for online travel agents, participating in this event will help them gain better brand visibility, traffic and ROI.

"Even though last year’s GOSF was a single day event, we recorded an incremental traffic of about 12 per cent coupled with 6-7 per cent incremental bookings. This edition of GOSF will last for three days and we are already witnessing a 25 per cent incremental traffic on day one itself," Sharat Dhall, President, Yatra.com said.

Peyush Bansal, CEO & Founder, Lenskart.com said during the first edition of GOSF last year, the portal saw 100 per cent jump in the number of visits on the website, leading to 120-150 per cent increase in revenue.

“This year we are very well placed and due to the TV advertising, our brand awareness index has also improved… Since Google has made this a three-day long event, we are hoping to break past years’ record by 200 per cent with our offers,” he added.

On the other hand, Fashionandyou.com, which did not see great traction last year, expects this year to be better. The company will be offering additional flat 25 per cent discount to customers on top of the existing discounts.

“…we are very hopeful of achieving huge sales and traffic. We are expecting 3-4 times increase in sales during GOSF and similar rise in customer traffic,” company’s GM- Sales and Sourcing Sumider Pal said.

Narasimha Jayakumar, COO and Business Head, HomeShop18 said, “Such shopping festivals add credibility to e-retail and spread awareness…the sales will grow, traffic will increase and number of first time shoppers will see a considerable rise. It’s a win-win situation for all as both small and big online businesses will see heightened virtual footfall.”

The company, which recorded 150 per cent increase in traffic and 200 per cent increase in sales during the last year’s GOSF, is hopeful of about 25 per cent new user acquisition in these three days.

Likewise, Shopclues too is hopeful of attracting new shoppers with deep discounts across categories and is running aggressive promotions to attract maximum customers to the site, its CEO & Co-Founder Sanjay Sethi said.

Kashyap Vadapalli, Chief Marketing Officer-Pepperfry.com said, “The most important aspect of GOSF is the coming together of the industry ecosystem, the merchants and the channel partners... These concerted efforts definitely have a multiplier effect of customer’s awareness and action increasing.”

Stating that the company expects to more than double their daily sales rate on each of the three days, Vadapalli said, “We expect GOSF to drive an increased interest in online shopping among Indian Internet consumers. The large-scale awareness coupled with the steps that all participants are taking to drive traffic will definitely result in doubling of the top-of-the funnel.”

Another player, Snapdeal said it will be offering discounts ranging upto 75 per cent across categories.

Sandeep Komaravelly, VP - Marketing, Snapdeal said, “Last year we saw an increase of more than 50 per cent in our sales during GOSF. This year we have grown by 500 in sales and have expanded the product assortment on the site to over 4 million products. We expect to double our sales compared to average daily sales seen on the site.”

Sandip Shah, MD & Co-founder, ShopYourWorld opined, “GOSF is a splendid platform for retailers to come together and give the Indian consumer a sort of an online trade fair.”

Anurag Rajpal, Director and CEO of AmericanSwan said the portal expects to do about 3-4 times the daily sales during GOSF this year.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.