Black Friday 2016 to bring steal-a-deal offers in India too

With festive cheer around Black Friday and Cyber Monday trickling into the 'desi' market, Indian consumers are eying great deals this year

Holiday shopping has been officially flagged off in the United States with the Veterans Day – the first peak of several peak spending days during the holiday season. The retailers and consumers are now looking forward to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending. 

Although the holiday shopping has its roots in the US and revolves around Thanksgiving, the countries that have traditionally not been known to celebrate this holiday are also gearing up to take part in the shopping fun that the holiday represents. In India, the savvy consumers are keen on loosening their purse strings and being part of the holiday rush. 

Thanks to the growing number of e-commerce websites, the popularity of Black Friday and Cyber Monday is increasing in India. The big e-commerce retailers in India are trying to emulate the concept of US shopping festivals. According to Google Trends, the interest for Black Friday is rising every year. 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Shopping festivals planned around the Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the two big shopping events that traditionally set the pace for robust sales throughout the rest of the holiday shopping season. 

While Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day, Cyber Monday is the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. This year, Black Friday will fall on November 25, 2016. Cyber Monday is a shopping festival created by marketing companies to boost online shopping in 2005. This year Cyber Monday will be observed on November 28, 2016.

Gadgets or fashion
 

In India, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are focused primarily on gadget and fashion – in that order. According to media reports, almost 50% of sale are that of gadgets. Thereby, technology companies also look forward to this day in India to launch new products and plug in splendid deals for their bestsellers. 

While Microsoft has announced discounts on Xbox One and Xbox 360 games along with exclusive offers for Xbox Live Gold members, Sony is set to compete by offering up to 60% off on PS4 digital deals on the PlayStation Store — the company’s digital games storefront.

In India, the e-commerce biggies like Amazon, Flipkart, and eBay have already started the promotions and sales. Other prominent names like Shopclues, Junglee.com, IndianRoots too have some nifty items and bargains in store for the customers. 

Cashing on the US deals 
 

With everything from Macs to TVs on sale and massive discounts on hifalutin gadgets, consumers in India too don’t want to miss the deals. Although the high Customs duty puts a damper the plans of those planning to get the products shipped, there is a way to work around this. 

Few sites like Amazon.com do offer shipping to India. If there are any brilliant deals, consumers in India can resort to using a package forwarding service.  The services gets the product shipped to a warehouse in the US and then forward the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping to practically anywhere in the world. 

Consumer has to sign up for free or pay a one-time fee and get a virtual address in the countries where they want to shop. While shopping on a website, he/she has to provide this virtual address as shipping address, and make payment as usual. The product gets shipped to this virtual address - a warehouse, and the company forwards it to India. Shop and ShipAramex's Shop and Ship, Viabox, BMTFTBMTFT - short for Bring Me That From There, FedEx Cross Border, Shipito, US Global Mail, USA2Me, MyUS, and ShopYourWorld are some of the options package forwarding services available.