“All the earlier sales were limited to one single website and were narrow in that sense. The GOSF was across websites, so there was much more range to choose from,” said Hyderabad-based Samantha Menacherry, who made several purchases during the GOSF. “There were deals across all the e-commerce websites I generally shop from, so I have in fact bought everything that I anticipated I would need in the next few weeks.”
While most e-commerce websites that participated in the event witnessed a four to five times jump in traffic, portals that offer related services such as coupons, cashbacks, price comparison and mobile wallets were also major beneficiaries of the GOSF that concluded at midnight on Friday.
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Mobile Wallet firm MobiKwik clocked a revenue of Rs 5 crore during the three days in 105,000 transactions it facilitated. Almost half of these transactions were for shopping, followed by food and entertainment, travel and fashion, and cosmetics. The top three e-commerce merchants on MobiKwik wallet transactions were eBay, Shopclues, and Snapdeal. “Traffic grew by five times during the three days. Mobile shopping has really taken off at this GOSF,” MobiKwik co-founder Upasana Taku told Business Standard.
With sales running across hundreds of e-commerce portals, buyers took to comparison portals for making purchases. Price comparison portal iSpyPrice.com saw an 80 per cent rise in traffic during each of the three days of the GOSF as against usual days.
Comparison shopping platform MySmartPrice called this year's GOSF “bigger and better” than last year, as the company saw a 35 per cent increase in its gross merchandise value (GMV) and received over 800,000 visitors per day. “Consistent growth in traffic is one thing to notice this year, as we saw the growth sustain throughout three days, despite early fear that the excitement may wear out in a day,” the company said.
The absence of Indian e-commerce poster boy Flipkart, which gave the GOSF a miss this year because the dates of the event clashed with its Big App Sale (where the company is offering discounts to buyers who make purchases through its mobile application), helped several competitors and smaller players. According to various data analytics firms, Amazon, Snapdeal, ebay, and ShopClues were among the most visited websites in the general e-tail segment.
Several niche segments such as automobiles, jewellery, travel and real estate remained the highlights of the sale as buyers flocked to these websites.
During Thursday and Friday, online travel aggregator Goibibo saw a 40 per cent jump in total transactions with the hotels segment receiving the highest traffic. “There has been an increase in traffic by over 100 per cent as compared to last year,” the company said in a statement.
Having learnt a lesson from earlier online sales that were widely criticised for technical glitches and stocks running out too soon, e-tailers appeared more prepared during the GOSF with no major technical snags being flagged at any of the portals. Also, most offers and stocks lasted long enough for consumers to make purchases.
“This time the GOSF was better known and very well marketed. We think compared to last year, this year customers know what to expect from the GOSF,” said Arun Sirdeshmuk, co-founder and chief executive officer of premium fashion retail portal Fashionara.com. “Our sales during this year’s GOSF are 500 per cent more compared to last year’s GOSF.”
- Top retailers: Amazon, Snapdeal, Shopclues, ebay
- Top categories: Electronics, fashion, travel, food
- Top cities: Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad
- Average 300% rise in traffic across websites
- 10 am–12 pm saw peak traffic across portals
- 65% of participants are males