Most likely in the next few days, you will buy some item on the ‘AMAZON GREAT INDIAN FESTIVAL SALE’ or the ‘FLIPKART BILLION DAYS SALE’. One of them at the end of will claim some astronomical figure of realised sales.
AMAZON and FLIPKART, through years, have successfully redefined the expectations from e-commerce platforms and the biggest sale in Indian festival calendar. It is now nearer to Dussehra than Diwali, an attempt to sweep the market before traditional sale period.
Indian sale on a single day is nowhere close to the eye-popping record $30.8 Billion ‘Single’s day’ sale of Alibaba, which was more than the ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ sales combined. But, we are getting there with growing e-commerce, better logistics, infrastructure and some help the banks and payment gateways.
STRAIGHT FIGHT BETWEEN AMAZON AND FLIPKART.
Ladies and gentleman, the man with high-end mobile and slow connection and the laptop babu with a fast connection. The fight is opening soon. Guaranteed you will benefit in this ‘diwalia hone ko tayyar‘ ( Ready to get bankrupt) sentiment associated with such sales.
In the red corner of this ring of festival annual sale fight is AMAZON GREAT INDIAN FESTIVAL SALE with its very cultural centric motif is scheduled for 29th September to 4th October 2019. The Amazon Prime members can try it out from 28th September itself.
In the blue corner is FLIPKART, who has mastered the art of sale throughout the year. 2019, FLIPKART Big Billion Days Sale will start on 29th September and end on 4th October.
This is a straight fight no consumer worth his or last spending INR wants to miss.
The banks are joining the fun with further cash backs and easy EMI. Somewhere there is a hint of cash-back within 72 hours of sale! Additionally, to keep the excitement, there is a promise of new additions on hourly sale, which is expected to boost repeat logins. And well the exchange-offers are not missing from the sale. Don’t have money, well there is some 1,00,000 credit possibility with Flipkart.
Both AMAZON and FLIPKART want you to keep your wish list ready. No doubt this is the best sale one can aim at. But as per the earlier pattern, one can see additional Dussehra sale, Electronic sales, Diwali sale online and offline. Maybe the only issue is too much option for the consumer that may delay decision-making.
CONNECTING WITH THE CONSUMERS.
Now both the e-commerce sites have upgraded their systems and made arrangement to smoothen the consumer experience. But the campaigns by FLIPKART seem heavy and lacking conviction. There has been a BILLION DAY SALE for production and media. It is overloaded.
Deviating from ‘children acting like adults ( ADULT KID)’ theme that predominates FLIPKART as a brand, it seems to have gone back to the safety of celebrity advertising. FLIPKART has cornered and employed every possible top celebrity interested in selling the idea of getting ready for the sale. Virat as a Cop and Deepika as a Lawyer, Amitabh as a Godown owner and Alia as a newsreader. Regional skew and for every region worth as a priority market, they have a regional star selling FLIPKART BIG BILLION DAY sale. Don’t know if the celebrities came in some sale.
Meanwhile, Flipkart continued with the strongly associated ADULT KID format borrowing the characters of Circuit and Munnabhai for its Rewards Programme.
Amazon is playing on the brand pull and the past experience of the family as the purchasing unit. And whoever I have spoken with, seems to have a strong perception that the discounts- delivery- experience at Amazon I far better than at Flipkart.
This, in fact, will be a more significant factor in deciding which way the match swings. Because, people know in India that sale and discount is one thing, delivery, service and protection is something totally different.
THE FIGHTERS HAVE DIFFERENT STYLE OF COMMUNICATION.
AMAZON GREAT INDIAN FESTIVAL SALE
FLIPKART BIG BILLION DAY SALE.
In past, FLIPKART ahs used their strong ADULT KID format for BIG BILLION DAY SALE. But for some reason, most likely it not giving then enough ROI, they have opted for the celebrity safety net.
BLOG/52/2019 First published at mxmindia.com under weekly column- Kotmartial
