For the last couple of years ‘unbelievable discounts’ has acted as the calling card for ecommerce companies. But gradually we can notice a shift. Etailers made the decision to cut down on discounts right from the end of last year. Significant drop in branded apparel discounts was noticed earlier in 2015. Next in the line is electronics as online marketplaces like Flipkart and Snapdeal are moving away from discounts and will move their focus to online-only brands.
From here on, ecommerce giants like Snapdeal and Flipkart will focus their energy on selling online-only smartphone and gadgets instead of giving away every mobile phone for a throwaway price. They have cracked a deal with various manufactures such as Motorola, Xiaomi, Onida, Huawei and Asus, wherein they will get their hands on exclusive models to sell online. These gadgets won’t be available on offline platform.
For older popular models such as Sony, Samsung, HTC and Apple, the discounts will be similar or close to the percentage being offered by offline retailers and official dealers.
Ecommerce players have been under a lot of criticism for going overboard with discounts. The chaos generated after Flipkart’s Big Billion Day sale brought many issues on surface. Customers felt cheated. Offline dealers were an unhappy lot. And big brand owners weren’t happy either about the degradation of their brand value. The whole madness of discounts also resulted in fake sellers and products infiltrating the online space.
A favourable market condition for all the parties involved was the need of the hour. And this move of slashing discounts and selling exclusive models appears to be an ideal situation.
Satish Padmanabhan, Sales Head, Sony India said, “We have entered into an agreement with Flipkart and others, whereby neither do they go overboard on pricing nor will we push sales or give any pressure to them. Customers should not feel cheated and we don’t believe in special deals as a brand.”
This would ideally reduce pressure on online sellers who were earlier forced to give high-discounts even if it meant bearing huge losses. It will also create a path for offline and online retailers to co-exist.
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.
Leave a Comment
