Big discounts on Flipkart and Snapdeal? Why you should not fall for the deal

Leading e-commerce sites like Flipkart and Snapdeal may claim to be offering huge discounts but a closer look at the discounts and it is a different story. The same e-retailers that claim to be the leading online shopping destination in India are not providing any great shopping experience by putting up fake discounts on fake MRPs.

There have been many instances in the past and the recent one came to light when a single product was put up for sale on different shopping platforms at equally different price range. On Flipkart homepage, they are running a promotion of Flat 90% off on some trimmers. Nova NHT 1060 is one of the models in “flat 90% off” sale. The MRP of this model on Flipkart is put at 1995. The same product is priced at Snapdeal for Rs 995 and at PayTm at Rs 699. Although each website cater to their own pricing as per the discount they are providing, but the retail price of the same product in retail stores is said to be close to the discounted price (Rs 220). So while the Flipkarts and Snapdeals may claim to be offering a huge 70-90 per cent discount, that is not the case. Flipkart and other e-com sites are offering these fictitious discounts and are trying to fool the customers. Even the most tech-savvy people could also fall for this fraud online. It is completely irresponsible of Flipkart and other sites to mislead customers in this manner. There should be some government authority monitoring such internet scams. Customers are easily influenced by discounts as they see a bargain opportunity. So when they come across such huge discounts, at times they end up buying the product by shelling out more money than what the actual product’s MRP.

Why does Flipkart have to mislead consumers? Is this their model of their frantic growth? This pricing scam is nothing but leading to customer dissatisfaction. This is nothing but an act of misleading the customers. This is not the first time that Flipkart has tried these cheap tactics. In the past Flipkart had a shaky experience when one of their biggest shopping sale the Big Billion Day sale backfired. Flipkart’s “Big Billion Day” on October 6, 2014 attracted a lot of online shoppers with steep discounts, crazy deals and lucky draws on a range of products. It boomeranged as website crashed and there were price manipulations which were cited by customers on social media accusing the website.But later Flipkart apologized to the consumers for the inconvenience.

The Confederation of All India Traders cried foul and urged the commerce ministry to regulate the e-retail business, look into their trade practices, which they alleged were not exactly as per rules, and create a level-playing field. But with time the matter died down. Overall e-commerce players should offer a transparent pricing in terms of MRP and discounting – otherwise customers will lose faith in buying products online.

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Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle & Spencer's planning to sell products on e-commerce sites like Amazon & Flipkart

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: Big brick-and-mortal retailers Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle International and Spencer's Retail plan to sell their products on e-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Jabong, following top retailer Future Group in embracing the reality of online shopping boom in the country. "It is clear that Indians are adopting to online space faster and this adoption will only grow in the years to come," said Govind Shrikhande, MD at India's oldest department store chain Shoppers Stop. "Also, it is becoming clearer that discounting is going to be the norm of these (e-commerce) guys because they are getting funded and you can't really face this disruptionists. So, either you join the battle or leave it. You can't be a bystander anymore."

So, in the coming weeks, Shoppers Stop will start selling its private label fashion brands including Stop and Haute Curry among other labels on the online marketplaces. In a bid to maintain different products for online and physical stores, it plans to create entirely separate products to be sold only on online.
Similarly, Lifestyle and Spencer's Retail, too, will foray into online space this calendar year and are currently finalising plans to sell on their own online shops as well as on e-commerce marketplaces.
Kabir Lumba, managing director at Lifestyle International, said the company does not plan separate entry-level product line for online or to offer much discounts, pointing out that the Dubai-based Landmark Group firm has maintained its samestore growth at double digit pace despite an economic slowdown and increased competition from online players.

Shashwat Goenka, who heads Spencer's Retail in the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, said it is flexible with its online strategy which is currently evolving. "We already have non-food merchandise such as apparel on opening price points like Rs 99 and Rs 199 which could be extended into online," he said.
E-commerce companies such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal have grown their business enormously, particularly during the festival season last year, offering huge discounts and backing it up with heavy advertising.
Kishore Biyani, whose Future Group last year announced plans to sell its private brands on Amazon, estimates that online retailers are spending about 20% of their sales on customer acquisitions and another 30% in discounting products.
"So totally whatever sales they are doing they seem to lose 40-50% to discounting and to customer acquisitions," said the Future Group CEO.
Shrikhande of Shoppers Stop estimates that ecommerce companies shelled out about $600 million, or aboutRs 3,720 crore, in discounting products to woo consumers during the crucial shopping quarter of October to December last year. He said they would have spent Rs 300 crore in advertising alone that quarter while top brick-and-mortar retailers together would have spent anywhere between Rs 15 crore and Rs 20 crore. That quarter, as a direct impact from e-commerce companies, Shoppers Stop's profits declined 20% to Rs 14 crore.
A report by Edelweiss said Shoppers Stop doubled the number of 'Sale' days to 65-70 days last year from 34 days in the year before due to early start of seasonal sales to keep up with discounts offered by online companies.
Lifestyle too, had increased the number of sale days by around seven days last year and expects it will remain same this year.
Aggressive online discounting and subdued consumer demand have forced most traditional retailers to advance their end-of-season sales from January 16 to the last week of December, while the second such sale has shifted from around mid-August to end-July. This is despite their best efforts to reduce dependence on discounts and even reducing the merchandise which goes under sale.

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Top 10 Online Shopping Sites in India – Best Indian Online Shopping Websites

Looking for Best Online shopping sites in India or Top 10 ten 2013 shopping website in India, here in this post we going to tell you top 20 Indian online shopping sites. Online shopping has been growing very fast in India, only in 2012 online shopping e-commerce site number has crossed 600 from 100 . Online shopping offers fast, easy, money saving and interesting shopping experience, it has many advantages like 24 hours shopping, Shopping with coupon to get discount, shopping from Home, rich product availability and specifications etc. Also now many sites like Shopclues, Ebay, Tradus offers some great deals eveyday or week which you can’t resisit like Jaw Dropping Deal, Sunday Flea Deal, Tradus Mega deal, Ebay Sankalp deals, Homeshop18.com Superdeals, Flipkart offers, Amazon Happy Hours etc.


Online shopping has its drawbacks too, we cannot touch and feel the item, delay in shipping, shipping charges make product expensive specially in low cost items, risk of loosing your money, Stolen your card details etc.


Ebay and Amazon are the market leaders in online shopping in the world. However local Shopping deal site are more popular in India. Here is a list of popular websites offering Online shopping in India.

Please note our ranking of site is based on votes which we get by our viewers 


How it works:- We average votes of all online shop and shop which has lower average comes first for example if 3 peoples have given rank  Ebay and Flipkart  to 1,6,5 and 8,1,6 so we get average for ebay is 4 (1+6+5/3) and for Flipkart is 5 (8+1+6/3).  In this case Ebay comes first and Flipkart second.


Here is real average for each ranked site (last Updated  28th Oct 2014)

  Amazon- 4.75, Flipkart-4.78, Snapdeal-4.90,  Paytm-5.01 , Ebay.in- 5.02, Jabong.com- 5.11,  Myntra- 5.16, Shopclues-5.55,  Pepperfry- 5.81, Homeshop18- 5.87.

(1)Amazon.in Score (4.75)- World leader in e-commerce market recently started operation in india, Now Indians can buy Books, CDS and Electronic at cheaper price from Amzon.in. For limited time they offering free shipping.

• Amazon Coupons
• Amazon Deals & Offers

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(2) Flipkart.com – Score (4.78) – Founded in 2004 with only Rs. 400000 now in 2014 tuned over 60,000 Crore company. You can not only buy books online through Flipkart, but also mobile phones & mobile accessories, laptops, computer accessories, cameras, movies, music, televisions, refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing-machines, Clothings, Footwears, Accessories, MP3 players and products from a host of other categories. After takeover of letsbuy.com now flipkart is largest  player of e-commerce of India.

• Flipkart Coupons
• Flipkart Deals & Offers

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(3) Snapdeal.com -Score (4.90)  SnapDeal offers everything from local daily deals on restaurants, spas, travel to online products deals. They offer you best price with free shipping.

• Snapdeal Coupons
• Snapdeal Deals & Offers

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(4) Paytm.com- Score (5.01) – Started with Mobile Recharge and Bill Payment website now Paytm selling everything from Home Decor, Clothing, Laptops to Mobile at killer price. In very short time period Paytm has grown very fastly and able to place under our Top 10 Indian Shopping Website list.

• Paytm Coupons
• Paytm Deals & Offers

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(5) ebay.in  -Score (5.02) After almost 6month of dominating at number 1 ebay has come down at number two on indiafreestuff.in list.  eBay.in is the Indian version of the popular online shopping portal eBay.com – world’s online marketplace. Ebay has a diverse and passionate community of individuals and small businesses. Ebay offers used and fresh items with a wide network of international shipping. http://www.ebay.in

• Ebay Coupons
• Ebay Deals & Offers

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(6) Jabong.com:- score (5.11) Jabong Fashion & Lifestyle Store offers you great discount on all listed product.They offers wide range of products from Apparel to Home needs.

• Jabong Coupons
• Jabong Deals & Offers

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( 7) Myntra.com :- score (5.16) Myntra.com is leading online retailer of lifestyle and fashion products. Myntra offers T-shirts, Shoes, watches and more at discounted price.

• Myntra Coupons
• Myntra Deals & Offers

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(8) Shopclues.com:- score (5.55)- Shopclues is famous for their heavily discounted Jaw Dropping deals. Shopclues is one of the best online stores that offers a wide variety of cameras, Computer accessories, Mobile, Gift, Jewellery, Cosmetics, toys, clothes, books and bag. Their Jaw Dropping deal has become most liked deal of 2012.

• Shopclues Coupons
• Shopclues Deals & Offers

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(9) Pepperfry.com :- score (5.81)-Pepperfry is one of leading Indian website in selling lifestyle products ranging from men and womens clothing, home decor, jewellery, perfumes and cosmetics, furnitures, bags and accessories.

• Pepperfry Coupons
• Pepperfry Deals & Offers

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(10) Homeshop18.com -Score (5.87) here you find large range appliances, kitchen, cameras, mobiles, laptops, site, indian, gifts, apparel, buy, online, gifts. and more, HomeShop18 is a venture of theNetwork18 Group, India’s fastest growing media and entertainment Group. Network18 operates India’s leading business news television channels – CNBC TV18 and CNBC Awaaz. HomeShop18 has also launched India’s first 24 hour Home Shopping TV channel. The company has its headquarters in Noida, UP. The website has received the ‘Best shopping site” award from PC World Magazine in 2008

• Homeshop18 Coupons
• Homeshop18 Deals & Offers

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Apart from Top 10 Indian e-commerce sites here we have listed 10 more sites based on suggestion of our readers which can make place in top 10 lists.

(11) Groupon :- Groupon India launched in 2011 offers Products and Service deals at good discount.

• Groupon Coupons
• Groupon Deals & Offers

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(12) Zovi.com :- Zovi is one stop destination for all shopping needs from Clothing to Accessories at very reasonable price.

• Zovi Coupons
• Zovi Deals & Offers

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(13) Infibeam.com – India’s Online Shopping Platform offers Buy Mobile Phones, Books, Apparel, Jewellery, Cameras, Watches, Send Gifts to India, New/ Used Cars & Bikes in India a report says 40 lakh visits per month by Indians on this site
.

• Infibeam Coupons
• Infibeam  Deals & Offers

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 (14) Firstcry.com :-  Firstcry.com India’s largest store for Kids selling 70000+ items from 400+ top International and Indian brands.

• Firstcry Coupons
• Firstcry Deals & Offers

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(15) Shopping.indiatimes.com :- Shopping.Indiatimes.com has a wide array of products that range from electronic items to products related to health & beauty, home appliances, fashion, music, movies and games.

• Indiatimes Coupons
• Indiatimes Deals & Offers

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(16) Tradus.com -  Tradus.in is owned by ibibo from books to clothes they sell you everything and after buying Buytheprice.com they have become more bigger. Tradus offers the Online Shopping in India to buy Books, Mobiles, Cameras, Watches, Apparel, Home Appliances, Ipods & Many More at Lowest Price & Free shipping although their refunding process takes more than expected time and they don’t ship all over India but still at no 3 on our list.

• Tradus Coupons
• Tradus Deals & Offers

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 (17) Futurebazaar.com  -FutureBazaar.com is owned and operated by Future Bazaar India Ltd futurebazaar offers you wide range with good price The people of behind this company are same from bigbazaar, pantaloon and ezone

• Futurebazaar Coupons
• Futurebazaar Deals & Offers

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(18) Koovs.com:- Koovs offers best offers in dining, luxury, technology, entertainment, utilities, health care, fashion, travel & adventure and plenty more.

• Koovs Coupons
• Koovs Deals & Offers

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(19) Bestylish.com :- Bestylish is one stop destination for all your footwear shopping, they have good range with good price.

• Bestylish Coupons
• Bestylish Deals & Offers

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(20) Zoomin.com :- Now not only Photo gifts but also you can buy Camera, Mobile, ‚ Accessories and more from zoomin with discounted rate.

•  Zoomin Coupons
•  Zoomin Deals & offers

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Snapdeal, DEN to launch TV Commerce channel

Snapdeal aims to take the DEN TV shop to 100 million households across India over the next 12 months.

New Delhi, Jan 20:  

Online market place Snapdeal.com, on Tuesday, said it has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with DEN, India's television distribution company, to launch a 'TV Commerce' channel ‘DEN Snapdeal TV shop'.

The company aims to create a multi-nodal electronic shopping avenue for customers through this joint venture, it said in a statement.

Snapdeal aims to take the DEN TV shop to 100 million households across India over the next 12 months.

The channel is currently available for viewers on channel number 132 on DEN cable network and will be extended to other cable and DTH networks in the course of the next six months, it said.

DEN Networks Ltd. reaches about 13 million households in over 200 cities across 13 states in the country.

The joint venture will benefit those customers who have limited access to internet services particularly in Tier 2 and 3 cities further hampered by lack of physical access to top retail products and brands at competitive prices, the company said.

Speaking about the partnership, Kunal Bahl, Co-founder and CEO Snapdeal.com, said, “India is a country with many heterogeneous segments of consumers, and we believe that by reaching 150 million households with 600 million people that have a TV, we can create another revolution through TV Commerce.”

“Together we aim to offer the customers a wide assortment of products and provide them with a hassle free buying experience. The response to the pilot has been extremely encouraging and we are sure DEN Snapdeal TV Shop will be well received by our viewers," Sameer Manchanda, CMD, DEN Networks, said.

http://www.wings2fashion.com/

Source : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/smartbuy/snapdeal-den-to-launch-tv-commerce-channel/article6804939.ece

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