The Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) is to the internet what flea markets are to people in general, and what Dubai Shopping Festival is to the world. When one Googles ‘biggest shopping festival India’, the first result is the GOSF page.
Back in 2012, Google India began the GOSF in an attempt to give India its own Cyber Monday (hugely popular in USA) or Singles Day (very well-received in China) with the concept of multiple e-shopping portals offering heavy discounts for one day of the year- 12th December. The response was tremendous – 350% growth in sales, and over 50% of the participants being first time internet buyers.
In 2013, which was just the second year of the festival, GOSF saw about 200 partners including e-commerce websites, classifieds companies, online travel sites, auto companies, telecom companies, fashion labels, health and well-being companies, and even banking and financial services. GOSF received almost 150% more traffic in 2013 as compared to its birth year. Initially, GOSF ’13 was scheduled for a period of 3 days, but on public demand (GOSF crossed a million users on the very first day) it was extended by another day.
To publicise the fest, Airtel, Intel and Paytm partnered with Google India to an extent that Airtel even gave 10% off, free dongles on new 4G connections and free WiFi modems on new broadband connections.
Google India said buyers availed a variety of discounts depending on the category they were purchasing for.
Buyers needn’t wait until 12th December – this year the much awaited festival kick-starts on 10th December, and would go on till 12th December. The official site also talks about a pre-party on 25th November, but mentions no further details as to what the party would be about. We would place our bets on a curtain-raiser of sorts to announce who would be partaking in the GOSF this year and what buyers can expect. Google plans to run a two-week lead up to the fest, during which each day a partnering company would be the ‘featured’ one, offering special one-day discounts. There’d be lucky draws to pick that one customer who gets to shop for free, and flat-rate discounts where branded products would be sold for a flat Rs.299 or similar. Google India also plans to install digital walls in various cities for consumers to shop using smartphones and scanning product codes.
This time the number of participating e-tailers is slated as a staggering 300! Though the previous years were full of glitches – the gosf.in site crashed on the first day last year, customers faced delivery and payment issues, dates of the fest had to be extended – this year looks promising especially because of how fast ecommerce as a trend has grown in India, and how well-received Flipkart’s Big Billion Day was.
Strategically scheduled for December, the festival neither clashes with Dussera-Diwali sales, nor with the end of season sales which offline stores usually run in monsoons. It’s also a good time for people to do some holiday shopping, with Christmas and New Year around the corner. Sellers – stock up! Buyers – up your net speeds and keep some money aside. GOSF is in less than a month!
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
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