Come October and Flipkart will be launching it’s third Big Billion Day sale. There were some doubts if Flipkart will go ahead with the marquee sale this year, due to Government ruling barring eCommerce sites to influence the prices. But looks like that has not deterred Flipkart.
Infact, according to various reports, Flipkart will not only go ahead with the sale, but also offer some new schemes to buyers. Flipkart will be introducing policies like “buy-now-pay-later” scheme and wants to have better control on orders and deliveries. It wants to have the Big Billion Day sale in installments through out October to make it easier to process and deliver better service to it’s millions of customers who are eagerly waiting for it.
Flipkart wants to also stock up it’s supplies and make sure the latest trending products are offered at best prices with huge discounts and also the customers can avail the best range of products. With the new credit option, customers can buy on credit and hence it is in talks with many financers. This new move is surely going to give it’s competitors like Amazon, Snapdeal, etc a run for it’s money.
One source confirmed, “BBD was earlier planned for 15-16 October but Flipkart has preponed it to the first day/week of October. What’s being discussed right now is that the first BBD will be the big one, followed by medium and small BBDs.”
And why wouldn’t they, as the founders Sachin and Binny Bansal consider October 6 (610) their lucky charm, so it’s likely the sale will kick off on October 6th.
The planning of this year’s BBD sale is under the reigns of Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the managing director of Tiger Global. Tiger Global Management is the largest shareholder of Flipkart and the CFO rejoins Flipkart to execute this sale successfully. This year’s BBD sale is a very important event for Flipkart to win back all the cosmopolitan customers they lost to rival, Amazon. Hence the sale of this year’s can’t afford any mistakes because it’s rival are just lurking in the dark to cash on Flipkart’s failures.
This time around, the discounts are big, credit option is big and the sale is longer. Flipkart’s first BBD sale in October 2014 opened to a mixed response but had more unsatisfied customers but was still able to rake Rs.100 million. The October 2015, BBD sale was $300 million wherein the technical difficulties were taken care of.
This year, the sale will be more vigorous with all the new policies in store and it is also a chance to have the lion’s share in the e-market.
Mrigank Gutgutia, engagement manager at internet consulting firm, RedSeer said, “During the festival season last year, Flipkart was the clear market leader but now Amazon has overtaken Snapdeal and is close behind Flipkart. This festive season could make it amply clear who is the market leader between Flipkart and Amazon.”
Flipkart’s rival firms are also revamping their sale promotion strategies to have a piece of the mega retail pie. Paytm is also set to revive it’s online retail business by cutting a deal with it’s Chinese shareholder, Alibaba, which owns 40% stake in Paytm. Amazon too is not behind in bringing about changes to attract customers. With all these retailors, fighting off each other to get the buyer’s attention and money, one can no doubt call this the “survival of the fittest”
