<\/a> The second edition of Google’s Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) had more than 200 retailers participating in the virtual shopping fest. India’s answer to the internationally popular Cyber Monday saw nearly 16 million people within four days (December 11 to 14 2013) buying everything from homes, to cars to apparels. The festival drew in the first time online shopper in huge numbers, 60% of the total number of buyers experienced virtual shopping for the first time.<\/p>\n E-Retailers’ response<\/strong> <\/a>Tata Housing sold more than 50 apartments with a sales value of over Rs. 25 crores across four projects during December 11-14. About 30 percent of the booking came from NRIs and 40 percent was from tier II cities.<\/p>\n Vikas Ahuja, CMO, Myntra, said, \u201cGOSF 2013 started on a great note for us and we saw positive results from day one. Our traffic grew approximately 2 times and revenue growth was 3.5 times, versus the preceding few days. We saw significant pick-up across all our core categories. This was in line with our expectations.\u201d While Mukesh Bansal, CEO & co-founder of Myntra, added, \u201cSuch customer reactions are a testament to the promise and future that online shopping holds in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Rajan Anandan, Vice-President & Managing Director, Google India, said, \u201cWith over 200 million internet users in the country, more users are opting to shop online fuelling the growth of both large multinational and home-grown companies. Industry estimates suggest that there are close to 20 million online shoppers in India and it is estimated to grow to 50 million in the next few years, making it a $16 billion industry.\u201d<\/p>\n e-Cheer<\/strong> For most participating e-tailers,\u00a0 the online festival acts as a catalyst to attracting the first time buyers. Given the dynamics of the e-commerce business where the cost of customer acquisition is high, the payoff from offering higher than normal discounts during GOSF will come about if they are able to convert first time buyers into regular customers.<\/p>\n <\/a>Snapdeal.com Vice President (Marketing) Sandeep Komaravelly says as much: “Initiatives like GOSF act as a catalyst to further boost adoption of online shopping in India. In fact, a lot of these new shoppers become repeat buyers and add up to the traffic on the website,”<\/p>\n Paying your way<\/strong> Targeting the first time buyer<\/strong> Non Metro Customers abound<\/strong>
\nThe Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) by Google, is India’s answer to Cyber Monday. GOSF is an online retail festival with about 200 participating e-tailers. In 2012, the festival saw under a million customer queries, which doubled in 2013. Most retailers and payment companies who participated saw increases in daily volumes ranging from 3x to 10x, while most of the first-time buying was from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.\u00a0 STOrai analyses.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe have seen a phenomenal increase in the traffic and sales right from the first hour of the festival –\u00a0 premium brands have seen the maximum traction.\u00a0 Revenue during the festival has increased five-six times more than a usual day,\u201d said Manu Kumar Jain, co-founder of online lifestyle store, Jabong, which was among the many e-commerce firms which hopped onto the online shopping festival platform.<\/p>\n
\nE-commerce majors, Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong and Snapdeal, were the most visited sites during the event, but brands like TATA Value Homes, Nissan, BlueStone and TATA Motors were the highlights as the Indian consumer, not only shopped for apparels but bought houses, cars and jewelry online. Tata Value Homes claimed that its GOSF initiative took off strongly. In one of the first online rea<\/a><\/strong>l estate selling initiatives, Tata Value Homes claims to have sold 22 units in just 2 hours and ended up with a tally of 55 units in the four days of GOSF ’13.<\/p>\n
\nPayment partners of GOSF 2013 included the organizations like Airtel, Intel and Paytm who not only used the platform to sell but also helped create awareness about online shopping and drove user participation. Airtel, for instance, offered flat 10% cash back on all online transactions on top of other offers by participating websites to customers who transacted using Airtel money. The company also gave away a free dongle on new 4G and a free Wi-Fi modem on new broadband connections.<\/p>\n
\nGOSF helped convert first time buyers.\u00a0 Normal per day volumes on all e-commerce portals in India is about 1.5 million, GOSF days attracted 4 million people to explore these sites. Demographic proportions remained largely unchanged with females outnumbering males and SEC B, C, D and <\/a><\/strong>E audiences leading the segments. The GOSF site got 2 million unique visitors this year with 62% of shoppers in the ages 18-34 and almost 50% being women. The most viewed categories according to the internet search giant were electronics, shoes and watches.<\/p>\n
\nOne more interesting trend observed during the event was that the non-metro residents, in large numbers, logged in to shop. Last year, according to the online marketplace, Snapdeal, a majority of sales during GOSF came from metro cities at 66% followed by tier 1 cities at 17%, tier 2 at 9% and tier 3 at 8%. This year the tier-wise sales distribution was more homogenous with metro cities at 34%, tier 1 at 22%, tier 2 at 25% and tier 3 at 19%. Studies also showed that more than 40% queries came from mobile phones.<\/p>\n