Saturday 27 April 2013

Do you know about the Google Online Shopping Festival?


How much do we like a Sale!? A lot i am sure! We are always on the alert looking out for latest offers and price cuts! What if one day  our favorite e-commerce stores came together under one roof offering us the best deals all at a time? Would you call it a "dream-come-true" ? For all those who know about it, i am sure you love it. But for the rest, you ought to know about the   "Google Online Shopping Festival"


It is a 24 hour long fiesta that happened on 12th December 2012 (12-12-12). It had  over 90 renowned e-commerce brands participate in the biggest ever Online Shopping event. Google and a plethora of famous online shopping portals had come together to provide a single platform where “best deals” was the buzz word! With more than 90 famous sites like Flipkart, Quikr, Inkfruit, Monster.com, etc. offering the most lucrative deals on Jewellery, shoes, apparel, books, gadgets, watches and many more, shopping bags only got heavier by the day!



This event is inspired by “Cyber Monday”, a marketing term coined by Shop.org, which refers to the Monday after Black Friday, which is the Friday that follows the Thanksgiving. Putting it in simple terms, a 2004 research had unveiled that people online shop massively on the Monday after Thanksgiving (so much that many US employees have been fired for using official equipment for non official purposes like online shopping) terming it as “One of the biggest online shopping days of the year”. A 2005 research also found that 77% more customers buy stuff on a Monday after Thanksgiving. 

So, in 2005, the concept of “Cyber Monday” came into light to encourage people to shop online by providing effective deals and offers. Cyber Monday is an international marketing term used by online retailers in Canada, UK, Portugal, Japan, Germany, Chile and Columbia
Why have a Cyber Monday? Well, the answer is simple! Concepts like these help online retailers engage in new business arrangements/models through which they can gain visibility and also attract more customers. 

Unlike in India, this event goes beyond a time frame of 24 hrs internationally. New Zealand had its first ever Cyber Monday in 2010, organized by online retailer Belly Beyond that lasted for 5 days. In 2010, the customers had spent $1.028 billion making it the highest spending day.

Citibank India, had organized a similar 24 hour event on 5th December 2012 termed the   OMG! Sale which witnessed participation from close to 17 e-commerce brands. However, it was restricted only to citibank’s debit and credit card holders. Through this sale, Citibank also highlighted the strong Payment Gateway they possessed. Inspired by its success, Google was next in line implementing this model in India! 




Google made use of our favorite Social Networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. to promote their one day shopping festival. Though many called it the "biggest shopping festival before the end of the world", it was certainly the most remembered one! 

While sites like Myntra.com witnessed a 70% boost in their traffic, Pepperfry saw a 50% increase in their traffic (source: Internet) and the best part being the highly satisfied customers!

Whether it was a sales gimmick, or a genuine marketing initiative, we love shopping too much to judge it! so, if you missed it, keep waiting for the next big festival! 

Image Courtesy: Google
Information Sources: Internet



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