Flipkart's biggest ever marketing stunt 'The Big Billion Day' sprung a host of surprises for the rush of online shoppers most of whom were left disappointed as the servers crashed from the moment the sale was kicked-off early morning on Monday. There was huge disappointment and a sense of being cheated and the social media was agog with stories of dropped orders of "Flopkart".
However, Flipkart claims that the market response to this 24-hour sale was very promising thus allowing it to achieve sales target in less than half day's sale.
Calling it an unprecedented day and the biggest sale ever in India with a range of exciting offers at disruptive prices, Flipkart promoters Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal claimed to have created history in Indian e-commerce.
"Our teams and sellers worked days and nights to make this sale a success — and our efforts paid off. We got a billion hits on our site and achieved our 24-hour sales target of $100 mn in gross merchandise value (GMV) in just 10 hours," the Bansals said in a statement.
Among items that were up for grabs at discounts on Flipkart.com ranged between 25% and 55% and, in some cases up to 80%, included products across 70 categories, including SLR cameras, mobile phones, flat panel LED televisions and home entertainment products, kitchen appliances, fashion and lifestyle products, etc.
Flipkart got a taste of flash sales when it got into an exclusive tie-up with Chinese mobile handset maker Xioami to sell the Mi3 and Redmi handsets in limited numbers on its e-commerce marketplace. While the exercise certainly brought huge traction to Flipkart with Mi3 and Redmi handsets going 'out of stock' within seconds of opening the sale, the traffic also crashed the server every time the sale was announced.
As the sale progressed the Flipkart server appeared overburdened, which was evident from error messages that kept showing up time and again on various products that customers intended to purchase. Commenting on the issue, the Bansals said in the statement, "Our technology team has been dedicated towards addressing errors and providing constant support to accommodate the largest scale of traffic and customer visits e-commerce has witnessed across the country."
While the Xioami exercise was seen as a brand-building one by both parties, the Big Billion Day was exclusive to Flipkart and aimed at creating a special day for the online shopping enthusiasts to reckon with. Instead, it turned out to be a nightmare of sorts with online shopping diaspora taking potshots on e-commerce market place operator calling the sale a 'Pricing Scam', 'Big Billion Fool's Day', 'Flopkart' and so on.
Countrywide customers got error report suggesting crash of the Flipkart server. Kushal Ray of Navi Mumbai ordered a Rs23, 000 LED TV which was up for Rs16, 230. The order could not be placed as a server error notice appeared. At 4pm he got a message from Flipkart saying: "Did you face any hiccups while trying to place an order? Don't worry we have saved the details you filled in — you're just a couple of clicks away! Click on the button below to review and confirm the order..."
Kaushik Poddar of Mumbai bought a 40 inch Samsung LED TV for Rs43,500. Hours later the same product appeared on the site for about Rs73,500. However, just hours after making the purchase he received a cancellation email from Flipkart.com. Poddar had placed his order at noon and received the cancellation email from Flipkart at 4pm and that he will receive a refund in 10 days.
Poddar told dna: "It is understandable if I order five products and they cancel a few, but this was the only one I ordered. What is more surprising is that the same product was seen on sale at a higher price hours later. This basically means that my money will be with them for 10 days interest free, similarly if there are others facing a similar situation then there could be crores lying with Flipkart for the next 9 days."
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