 "Today, we have created history: Sachin Bansal")
Sachin Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer of e-commerce major Flipkart, slept only a couple of hours on Sunday night, preparing for the 'Big Billion Day' event. He was back at 6 am on Monday, in time to run the last checks before the sale went live at 8 am. Over 12 hours and five Red Bulls later, Bansal is ecstatic as he claims the event was "a blockbuster". In a conversation with Itika Sharma Punit, he talks of it. Edited excerpts:
How did the Big Billion Day fare vis-a-vis your expectation?
It's a historic day for online shopping. We have set a lot of records in terms of sales, traffic and deals. We were targeting sales of about $100 million in 24 hours but did that within 10 hours. We had a billion hits on the website and on our mobile application, which means we exceeded Facebook in terms of website usage and WhatsApp in mobile app usage.
There were a couple of issues we faced in the morning. One was that the traffic was 10 times of what we see during regular flash sales. Through the day today, it was 10 times of that. We were expecting a billion hits in 24 hours but we got those within 10 hours. There were some issues triggered by that.
What about consumers' claims that prices increased before the sale?
That was a mistake from our side. Last night, when we were uploading all the offers on the website to go live the next day, there were a few mistakes in a few products. We uploaded a few products with the wrong prices. In the morning, we caught the error. We have now identified those products and identified the customers who bought products at higher prices and are going to refund the excess money to them.
So, there was no increase in prices by you in the couple of days before the sale?
No. Like I said, there were a few products that got listed at wrong prices, and that is because of a manual error.
Several of your competitors also jumped in today to offer discounts.
We have seen this competition since the beginning, in 2011 to be precise, when we started running television advertisements. As a leader in the market, we are not only building Flipkart as a brand; we are also building e-commerce as a category. I am sure today's event would have benefited others, too. For example, Myntra was not running any sales today but their traffic doubled without doing any promotions. I am sure that of all the people who shopped today, more than half were new, who never even thought of shopping online earlier. Today's event has created a lot of buzz in e-commerce itself, which is going to live for a long time.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said last week that he does not watch competitors such as you.
I cannot say anything about that, except that we are very confident about our position in the market. We have constantly been growing our market share, even as our competitors are aggressive. And, today is not about what competition is doing or not. Today, we have created history.
Is the Big Billion Day going to be an annual affair?
I cannot comment on that right now. After the dust of today's event settles and we have delivered products to all our customers, we will think about that. This was an experiment we wanted to run and it has been a very successful one. In terms of execution, barring a few mistakes and issues, I would rate my teams eight or nine on 10.
I am sure we will iron out even those issues and we will do a 10 on 10 job next time. But exactly when and how, I am not sure of right now.
So, will you get enough sleep tonight?
I don't think I will be able to go home today because we have to start deliveries from tomorrow.
How did the Big Billion Day fare vis-a-vis your expectation?
It's a historic day for online shopping. We have set a lot of records in terms of sales, traffic and deals. We were targeting sales of about $100 million in 24 hours but did that within 10 hours. We had a billion hits on the website and on our mobile application, which means we exceeded Facebook in terms of website usage and WhatsApp in mobile app usage.
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Weren't there glitches through the day?
There were a couple of issues we faced in the morning. One was that the traffic was 10 times of what we see during regular flash sales. Through the day today, it was 10 times of that. We were expecting a billion hits in 24 hours but we got those within 10 hours. There were some issues triggered by that.
What about consumers' claims that prices increased before the sale?
That was a mistake from our side. Last night, when we were uploading all the offers on the website to go live the next day, there were a few mistakes in a few products. We uploaded a few products with the wrong prices. In the morning, we caught the error. We have now identified those products and identified the customers who bought products at higher prices and are going to refund the excess money to them.
So, there was no increase in prices by you in the couple of days before the sale?
No. Like I said, there were a few products that got listed at wrong prices, and that is because of a manual error.
Several of your competitors also jumped in today to offer discounts.
We have seen this competition since the beginning, in 2011 to be precise, when we started running television advertisements. As a leader in the market, we are not only building Flipkart as a brand; we are also building e-commerce as a category. I am sure today's event would have benefited others, too. For example, Myntra was not running any sales today but their traffic doubled without doing any promotions. I am sure that of all the people who shopped today, more than half were new, who never even thought of shopping online earlier. Today's event has created a lot of buzz in e-commerce itself, which is going to live for a long time.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said last week that he does not watch competitors such as you.
I cannot say anything about that, except that we are very confident about our position in the market. We have constantly been growing our market share, even as our competitors are aggressive. And, today is not about what competition is doing or not. Today, we have created history.
Is the Big Billion Day going to be an annual affair?
I cannot comment on that right now. After the dust of today's event settles and we have delivered products to all our customers, we will think about that. This was an experiment we wanted to run and it has been a very successful one. In terms of execution, barring a few mistakes and issues, I would rate my teams eight or nine on 10.
I am sure we will iron out even those issues and we will do a 10 on 10 job next time. But exactly when and how, I am not sure of right now.
So, will you get enough sleep tonight?
I don't think I will be able to go home today because we have to start deliveries from tomorrow.