In one of the biggest sale days in Indian online retail market, Flipkart and Snapdeal on Monday sold products worth an estimated Rs. 600 crore each even as customers complained about technical glitches, while global online retailer Amazon continued its own pre-Diwali campaign.
Flipkart claimed it sold products worth $100 million (over Rs. 600 crore) within 10 hours, while Snapdeal pegged its sales at Rs. 1 crore a minute – which translates into a figure similar to Flipkart’s. Amazon which is running a 3-day discount ‘Miss to Mars’ campaign, did not disclose any sales figures.
“We got a billion hits on our site today and achieved our 24 hour sales target of $100 million in GMV (gross merchandise value) in just 10 hours,” Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal said in a joint statement. The Big Billion Day sale on Flipkart started at 8am IST and most of the products under scheme were sold by afternoon.
“The Big Billion Day is an unprecedented day for us as this is the biggest sale ever in India. With a range of exciting offers on quality products at disruptive prices available throughout the sale period, we have created history in Indian e-commerce,” the joint statement said.
Commenting on the Snapdeal Diwali Bumper Sale, Co-Founder and CEO Kunal Bahl said, “Snapdeal had a record breaking day of sales on October 6, 2014. We witnessed sales of over a crore rupees a minute, with lakhs of products being sold in a single day.”
Customers, however, complained of technical glitches and slow response on Flipkart website. They took to social media websites to express their dismay over the performance of the Flipkart website during the sale scheme. Some customers complained that they did not receive their order details despite paying for the product they bought.
“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,” the Flipkart statement said.
Meanwhile, traders’ body CAIT while expressing concerns over huge discounts being offered by e-commerce firms, asked the Commerce and Industry Ministry to take steps to monitor and regulate online businesses.
“We invoke your kind and immediate attention to ongoing sale offers conducted by various e-commerce companies since last 3 days…they are offering discounts from 20 percent to 70 percent, whereas traders are forced to the sell same products in offline markets at higher prices since their purchase price is on the higher side,” the National General Secretary of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) Praveen Khandelwal said.
Both Flipkart and Snapdeal had taken out advertisements on a large scale to publicise their campaigns. Snapdeal took a dig at Flipkart’s one day scheme with its tagline, “For others it’s a big day. For us, today is no different”.
Snapdeal claimed it sold 10 products per second across categories between October 3 and October 5 but did not disclose the total sales value.
