A day after the failure of the much-touted the Big Billion Day deal from the online retailer Flipkart, founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal have apologised for the troubles the customers faced on Monday.
In an email, they said, “Yesterday (Monday) was a big day for us. And we really wanted it to be a great day for you. But at the end of the day, we know that your experience was less than pleasant. We did not live up to the promises we made and for that we are really and truly sorry.”
“Delighting you, and every single one of our customers, is absolutely the top most priority for Flipkart, and we have worked very hard over the last seven years to earn your trust. Yesterday, we failed that trust. We have learnt some valuable lessons from this, and have started working doubly hard to address all the issues that cropped up during this sale,” they further said.
On Monday, the online retailer had launched the Big Billion Day challenge to celebrate its one billion journey. The company had announced deep discounts for products in over 70 categories. Eager customers, however, found the website inaccessible and encountered glitches. Flipkart, however, said it had hit the 24-hour sales target of $100 million in gross merchandise value in just 10 hours.
In the apology mail, the founders also admitted to the lack of preparation from the company's end. “We saw unprecedented interest in our products and traffic like never before. We also realised that we were not adequately prepared for the sheer scale of the event. We didn’t source enough products and deals in advance to cater to your requirements,” they said.
The letter from the founders ended in an emotional note saying, “Everything that we have achieved at Flipkart is purely on the basis of our customer's trust and faith. This is why we come to work each day and continue to remain extremely passionate about building the best possible customer experience for Indian consumers. We failed to live up to this promise yesterday and would like to apologise once again to every single customer for our failure.”
