With the Google Online Shopping Festival, GOSF, approaching etailers and affiliate sites are getting ready to welcome it and reap the benefits. While online retailers are all set to reap benefits of the anticipated increase in traffic, coupon sites and price comparison sites are getting set with ‘how-to’ guides to guide consumers in making the right choices.
Small retailers also stand to gain from GOSF, considering they would offer very niche products at comparable prices and discounts. One of the main aims of the festival is to attract first time shoppers, 30% last year out of the total shoppers. “This year, we have five times the number of merchants against when we started GOSF in 2012. Though there are 250 million internet users, only 35 to 40 million users shop online. Our idea is to get more and more first-time shoppers to experience this,” says Nitin Bawankule, industry director for e-commerce, local and classifieds at Google India.
“While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not Indian phenomenon, we have created a GOSF section specifically on Desidime to help shoppers. Diwali and GOSF make up nearly 30% of our annual revenues and last year the traffic went up by 120% during GOSF. We will be adding 20 additional servers this year in anticipation of the volumes,” says Mehul Jobanputra, CEO and co-founder of Desidime.
The 14 days leading to GOSF will showcase 14 different ecommerce players with their best deals and affiliates would collate the updated deals. What remains to be witnessed is the price wars – Will the ecommerce players offer best prices on the day they are featured or when their competitors are featured?
Also, there were technical glitches and interruptions last year as well as several times this year, indicating the need for everyone to be better prepared for the anticipated four-fold increase in traffic.
Smaller players registered twice the traffic last year and the overall sales showed a three-fold increase.
Here’s what coupondunia has to tell sellers:
To start with, we really hope there will be no mishaps with prices. In an ideal world the customers should be given a clear picture of what the actual price of any item was before GOSF and how far down has discount brought the prices. So as a customer, keep an eye out for those products you’re planning on buying. Have their MRPs noted down somewhere and be on a lookout for hiked prices on the days of.
Another huge step would be to ensure same day or atleast quick delivery. Now THAT would lead to some serious customer satisfaction. We understand that it would be difficult. But if not the same day, can we expect it in the same time frame it takes for a delivery to be made during normally?
GOSF should totally be ready for some Twitter missiles thrown their way. Twitter is most likely going to be the busiest platform during the days of the festival besides the lead up to it. It will be rather interesting to see how individual brands and GOSF handle all the bricks and bats. Don’t hesitate in speaking out if you’re dissatisfied with the service, however keep in mind that glithces do happen and that not everyone will walk away from the sale with what they wanted.
One no brainer would be a good categorisation of products. There will be a bunch of aggregators who will be doing their own organisation of offers, what remains to be seen is who takes the cake in that. Couponing sites, price comparision forums, keep your eyes peeled for anything that can help you. Anyone thinking Pinterest or Instagram for that matter?
A BIG BIG factor this year is the “Never Before” products. Can we expect IKEA furniture, Doggles or Pet Rocks?
After dwindling with her family business, into travel and hospitality, for more than 3 years, Pooja Vishant found her true love in writing. Happy-go-lucky and cheerful, she loves pink; so pink is the way to go if you want to get into her good books. The Associate Editor keeps track of even a leaf that has moved in the ecommerce world!
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