Google’s Great Online Shopping Festival: What’s the reason behind it?

Google has launched a new online deal destination called the “Great Online Shopping Festival”. I learned about the site earlier in the day and browsed through what it had to offer. Even after thinking about it for sometime now, I am unable to understand the reason behind this new initiative by Google.

Generally, whatever Google does, there is a specific purpose behind it, but in case of GOSF, I could not come up with any particular reason or may be there are multiple reasons. But first lets look at what GOSF is all about.

What is Great Online Shopping Festival?

GOSF could be termed as a deal aggregator of sorts, but with a slight difference. Unlike other deal sites, it will not be continuously showing deals through the year, but on one specific day, and the day happens to be 12^th December 2012.

At the time of writing this, 58 sites have been listed on GOSF and interestingly, they are not only E-Commerce sites. They include property sites, Job sites, healthcare and others. All of the participating sites will be offering presumably great deals on that one single day – 12th December 2012.

What’s the reason behind launching GOSF?

Like I said previously, I could not come up with one single reason, but there may be many reasons why Google may have launched GOSF. It does not have any similar sites for any other country across the world, so why India? Lets look at some of the reasons that I could think of…

Single Day Deals Craze:

I am sure by now you are familiar with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other such days when products / services are sold at heavily discounted prices. Online as well as offline retail stores witness unbelievable rush during such deal days. Infact, some sites witness more sale on that single day, than in an entire month.

In India, as yet, we do not have any such days. Google understands how popular these kind of single deal days can get and want to probably bring that concept in India. However, I am not sure how it benefits Google in anyway.

Online Shopping Popularity:

We all know how popular online shopping is getting in India. in last 3 years, over 50 new E-Commerce sites have launched. It may be possible that Google may be indirectly entering into this space with some product or service and is probably testing the waters with GOSF. It is interesting to note that GOSF site has specifically listed down 10 Tips on why consumers should buy online.

Indirect Advertising Benefit:

Although, hoardes of E-Commerce sites have launched in India online over past couple of years, only a handful are doing well. Infact, many experts are already talking about consolidation in Indian E-Commerce Market. Now, Google’s main revenue source is obviously advertising, and E-Commerce sites are the biggest spenders on advertising.

If, with this initiative, Google can promote these sites, it will surely act as a fillip to some of the struggling sites and indirectly benefit Google in restoring their main advertisers. Although, most of you may think that this may not be the reason, I believe that this probably is the biggest reason behind Google launching this online shopping festival.

No reason at all:

It is also very much possible that Google may really not have any specific reason behind this. It may be one of the side projects done by one of their engineers…that’s all. It does not really take much to put together a site like GOSF.in.

Whatever said and done, I have marked my calendar for 12^th December and I will be watching closely as to the kind of deals offered on GOSF.  We will also try and dig  the reason behind Google launching it.

Would love to hear your thoughts about GOSF…

What do you think? Why has Google launched GOSF in India.