The Indian Online Buzz!! OCT 21 OMG!! Its a Sale!! Online 10 days ago.. before Diwali 2014 I open my newspaper today in the morning. Oh My God !! Its a big billion dollar sale today online!! was my friends reaction to it after he saw the ad. The timing of the whatsapp message and me browsing through the first page TOI paper ad coincided so well. I dint know how to react to him. But he was all set to buy something for Re.1/- and come out and tell the whole world ( for him its whatsapp & facebook ) that some joker out there sold me a product worth Rs.10,000/- for just One Rupee. End of the day, the Online retailer produced atleast 1 million jokers in a span of 1 hour. I know it could be one of you out there who is reading this will relate to it and by heart know you were made the joker but tell the world outside that one of your friends got a bulb. I felt, people out there need to know what happened since I watch all formats of retailers ( be it brick & mortar store or online store) very closely for the last 7~8 years. To vouch for what I say, I m a retailer myself. I would like you to analyse certain questions even before you could become defensive. Why will anybody sell products for One rupee and create a dent in his pocket for which will run into millions of rupees?? Why do you suddenly feel the urgency to buy even without analyzing whether its true or not? Why do people actually dont notice the symbol * in the ads given by the seller? Whats happens in my mind when I notice the word FREE and nothing else? The list can go on and on like a wild dream. If I have to start answering these questions, then I need to publish a book on Online Dynamics or How to BUY online ? or How to Sell online? Even this list of book titles becomes endless. Who knows even it can turn out to be a rage among readers and go on to become the Best sellers Online. But let me give you my thought process about the whole thing happened on that day. Online retailer said Sorry for cancellation of so many orders. But in the first case no one is going to sell their products for one rupee or for free without any benefits. Yes, Online retailers dont cheat you but they do fantasy marketing for a normal human being to feel fantasized about it. But youll tell me you were not able to get those products and they cheated you. I wont agree to it. There is a * symbol which means Terms & Conditions Apply. Which means you can buy products mentioned in the Ad for Re.1 but that does not guarantee you that there are unlimited number of stocks available for supply at that price. The next blunder is when I give you an option of Flat 50% OFF and Buy 1 Get 1 FREE most of them would choose the latter knowingly that its still the same offer but you get so attracted to the term FREE. Actually as a seller if I say 50% OFF I sell only a few units. But if its Buy 1 GET 1 i still get to sell at 50% but double the units which you may not really need it. Technically the online retailer would have had only 5~10 no.s of stock in each SKU in the deep discount category. But the traffic for buying that ran in millions which jammed their servers. So hardly 10 products which were on paper multiplied by 10 no.s of stock in each, he had only 100 no.s in deep discount as stock. After that it was sold in a regular discount pricing. This 100 no.s in Re.1 pricing would have been costing him only around 8~10 lacs which is not even equal to one full page ad in the front page of the newspaper across Pan-India which will run into crores. So by now you know who had had the last laugh and who became the joker. Finally the Online retailer achieved 1 billion dollar sales and you achieved wasting your time on his site for 2~3 hours doing nothing but feeling may be you should have logged in little earlier than other folks out there on the world wide web. This goes to prove that no one cheated no body. Retailer had everything protected under the * if anybody takes legal action. Finally he said naam ke wase SORRY.. we dint even get a Poori... Nobody is to be blamed for this act or Everybody are to be blamed for this act. They are not bad nor good but grey. It stands the same with us too, we are also grey in nature. The marketer uses our grey nature to sell through their grey methods. So Nobody is at fault. But atleast be careful that it doesnt happen to you next time. Signing off with a food for thought.. 20 years back if something was given free, people were conscious that it is a clearance product, so they dint even touch it. Now where do we stand??
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:58:33 +0000
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