Google's online shopping festival attracts buyers in big numbers

Shopclues, Snapdeal, eBay among top beneficiaries

After numerous online sales through the months of October and November this year, one would have expected that buyers' apatite has been satiated for at least a few months and another such event in December might not attract an equally excited response. But, well, Google's Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) that started today has proved all such expectations wrong.

Excited over the sheer number of brands and e-commerce websites participating in GOSF, which is over 450, several buyers woke up early on Wednesday to grab deals before stocks end. According to mobile wallet MobiKwik, within the first five hours of GOSF, it clocked 10,000 transactions on different websites. By 12 noon, this number went up to 15,000 e-commerce transactions.

MobiKwik is offering buyers 20 per cent cashback on top of the GOSF discounts on several e-commerce websites such as Snapdeal, eBay, Shopclues, HomeShop18, MakeMyTrip, BookMyShow, and Pepperfry.

Like for several earlier online sales, consumers took to social media to share their experiences on GOSF and also discuss deals that attracted them. Around 3:30 PM, two tags related to GOSF--#72HoursOfCrazy and #GOSFWithSnapdeal, were trending on micro-blogging website Twitter.

According to trends drawn by online shopping community DesiDime, based on the interactions on its portal, the merchants that appear to be doing exceedingly well include Jabong and Shopclues, mainly due to their Rs 299 corner, where several products are being sold at a flat rate of Rs 299. Additionally, users have been discussing Snapdeal almost five to six times more than the average conversations on other days on DesiDime. Amazon India and PayTM are also among the top five merchants being discussed on DesiDime.

Mobikwik also said the most number of transactions from its wallet happened on Shopclues, followed by ebay and Snapdeal.

"We have seen 60,000 additional wallet deposits and 200,000 'Wallet Purchases' for mobile recharge, TV recharge and bill payments in addition to e-commerce transactions," Upasana Taku, Co-Founder, MobiKwik said.

As a category, several analytic firms said the Rs 299 corner is working "extremely well" across categories. Among the unique categories that are participating in GOSF this year, travel and food/restaurants are the ones seeing most traction.