Technical snags and a backlash from the social media marked Snapdeal’s Savings Day sale on Tuesday, which incidentally coincided with Chinese e-commerce major’s Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sale.
While Alibaba recorded sales of over $6 billion on Tuesday, Snapdeal’s extravaganza, which kickstarted at 7 am promising hourly offers, suffered a few jolts. While some customers complained they could not access the website, possibly due to heavy traffic, others grudged that products expected to go on sale could not be found on the online marketplace.
Snapdeal promised hefty discounts, selling a 16GB Apple iPhone 5s, costing R53,500, at R31,499 and a Canon DSLR camera worth R31,995 at half the price. An Apple MacBook Pro, worth R99,900, was available for R54,499. It offered discounts on apparel and lifestyle products as well, besides cashback on Standard Chartered and HDFC debit cards.
In a repetition of Flipkart’s Big Billion Day sale on October 6, which sparked a social media outrage over technical glitches, marked up prices and limited stocks, the Twitteratti took on Snapdeal.
“#SnapdealSavingsDay flop show again like @Flipkart. Guys pls ensure u have adequate load capacity on servers before u try these gimmicks,” read a tweet. “If Flipkart’s billion day was a flopshow, Then @snapdeal #SnapdealSavingsDay day be called as Utter Nonsense,” read another.
Another tweet, which took a dig at the huge amount of money spent by the e-tailers towards advertisement, read: “#SnapdealSavingsDay price in newspapers advt and website is not the same. #Cheating#NoUlluBanaowing.”
However, the backlash nowhere near to what was in store for Flipkart following the Big Billion Day debacle, which even prompted co-founders Sachin and Binny Bansal to issue an apology mail to disgruntled customers. Snapdeal also offered heavy discounts on October 6 and claimed to generate as much sales as Flipkart. While Flipkart claimed sales worth $100 million, Snapdeal said it had sold products worth R1 crore every minute.
Meanwhile, global major Amazon on Tuesday also launched special offers for its mobile app users, called Appiness Day. The e-tailer offered a Micromax Canvas Knight phone, worth R26,999, for R11,111 only while a Microsoft Xbox 360 was available at a 30% discount for R11,111.