Overwhelming Response To India's First Online Shopping Fest


Bangalore: The one day online shopping festival organized in India for the first time by Google, saw an overwhelming response from the consumers with some retailers even selling out the discounted items by 3 p.m.

The online event named GOSF, which tried to recreate the famous ‘Cyber Monday’ sales in U.S., when online retailers offer big discounts and deals to boost their festive sales, seems to have attained the intended result in India. With many online retailers offering discounts as high as 60 percent, a 50-80% jump in sales was reported.

According to Mukesh Bansal, co-Founder & CEO, Myntra.com, who spoke to Economic Times, his site saw a 75% increase in traffic and over 120% jump in sales. “We are witnessing many first-time shoppers engaging in high-value transactions and warming up to the idea of online shopping." Reports from many online retailers said more than 50 percent of the transactions are made by the first time online shoppers, definitely a boost for the e-commerce market in the country.

Google has partnered with more than 50 online retailers including Flipkart, Myntra, eBay, Zovi, redBus and many others. "GOSF has proved to be quite a success for us here at Snapdeal.com. We have seen a jump of more than 50 per cent in the daily traffic and we are expecting to record a jump in our sales as well. Initiatives like GOSF act as a catalyst to further boost adoption of online shopping in India,” said Kunal Bahl, Co - Founder and CEO, Snapdeal.com to Business Line.

“Out of these unique deals crafted especially for GOSF, the top selling products were memory devices and digital cameras, followed by mobile phones and television sets,” said Deepa Thomas, Head – Partnerships, eBay India.

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