[Updated: November 29th 2013]
Google’s Great Online Shopping festival site is now up and running at Gosf.in – And like we mentioned previously, unlike last time, it will not be 1 day, but a 3 day shopping extravaganza (hopefully). In addition to this, the site has been made multilingual, with addition of Hindi language.
The number of vendors participating in this year’s event has risen drastically. Last year, GOSF had around 50 retailers participating, however, the number has ballooned to over 250 this time around.
It seems that nearly every Indian retailer who has some kind of online presence is participating. The list of vendors has been alphanumerically categorized and linked to their individual landing pages.
GOSF has 3 official partners who seem to have offered support for this shopping festival – Airtel, Intel and Paytm
Unlike last time, GOSF may themselves not list the deals, but rather link to retailers’ landing pages where users can go and take benefit of the deals.
I am really hoping that this year deals will mean “actual” deals, and not for namesake!
Earlier…[divider]
Last year when Google first announced it’s Shopping festival called GOSF or the “Great Online Shopping Festival”, there was nothing great about it. Infact, I came to a conclusion in the end that it was merely a farce, something that is rare when it comes to Google doing it!
Last year’s GOSF event happened on 12/12/12.
If you are not aware of GOSF; It is a single day event, in which various Indian ecommerce sites participate and offer some very attractive discounts on single or multiple products. Very similar to what “Black Friday” deals are in the US.
When Google originally announced it last year, there was a huge buzz created and many consumers thought that Google was trying to create a day in India, just like what Black Friday is in US. Unfortunately, the deals were no-deals at all. Infact, out of over 100 sites that participated, not a single one had deals where one could say “WoW”.
Now, coming to this year – Google has not made any official announcements as yet. If you visit GOSF.in, you will be greeted with simple text message stating “GOSF is coming soon”.
Interestingly though, many Indian ecommerce sites have already started setting up their GOSF pages. Flipkart has it, Jabong has it, Myntra has it, Freecultr has it and smaller sites like Voylla are also showing it!
Though we are not sure, unlike last year, it seems that GOSF will run for 2 or 3 days between 11th and 13th December of this year.
While only a few sites are showing GOSF pages right now, I am sure nearly all Indian online stores will participate.
Out of curiosity, we checked if Amazon India will participate, and yes, sure enough they may also have something. They already have a placeholder page at amazon.in/gosf. Though it does not show anything right now, I am sure something will start showing up there soon enough.
Not Like Last Year
I am really hoping that GOSF this is year not a dud as it was last year. Ecommerce sites need to really offer some great deals on those 1 or 2 days of festival, so that people will wait for it every year. If the same story is repeated this year as well, I am not sure if anyone will even blink an eye, if it happens again in the future.
What do you think?
Hi Arun, we are interested to participate in the GOSF as a retailer. Please let us know how we can register as we do not have the required info on the GOSF website. Thanks. Vamsi
dogspot.in also participate in Dogspot.in is no one online pet portal GOSF 2013 http://www.dogspot.in/gosf/
How can one list ecommerce website with GOSF2013
Dear Arun Prabhudesai,
As other online shopping portals Infibeam also placed a GOSF Offers page on their site. GOSF will include all the shopping portals who are going to give a good discounts so not only Flipkart and Amazon there but others will be included as the festival comes near by. Reference Link: http://www.infibeam.com/best-offers.html
Like Amazon, Jabong.com has also made their placeholder page live and even started sharing it .. http://www.jabong.com/gosf/
Nikita, I have already mentioned that Jabong has its GOSF page up!
Jacking up prices and offer some discount, basically sell product at the same price.
This is the typical thinking of Indian E-tailers. Flipkart a month back Did that in the name of Diwali Festival Sale Interestingly for even more.. It’s time for others to fool customers. #GOSF #FAIL
Last year, on many sites, many discounted items were showed just as showcase. In real, the offer was not applicable. Hope, this year that will be big successful one. Thanks for the information.