Cracking GOSF 2014 – Everything You Need To Know!

Winter is here and so is the GOSF (Great Online Shopping Festival) in its third consecutive year, and this year with more exciting stuff with a special focus to first time online shoppers. With an overwhelming rise in takers year after year, GOSF is already a much awaited online sale since its inception.

GOSF is more popularly known as the Indian Black Friday with over 400 partners offering awesome deals and discounts over 3 days. This year this most foreseen festival, organized by Google India is to witness an optimistic approach to online shopping from the 10th to 12th of December 2014.

GOSF 2013 witnessed a brilliant number of 2 Mn visitors visiting the 200 participating sites, and this year the numbers have shown a double split with over 400 participating sites and millions of customers expected per day. This year, with more offers on Android and iOS apps, there is a huge number of visitors and buyers that is anticipated in these 3 days to come.

What to look for in GOSF 2014

There is never a dearth of offers and discounts available online, and it is an out of the box moment when you see all small and major brands coming together and offering you the best of the best products at unimaginably low prices. Google India’s vigorous attempt to bring about online shopping in India in a big way is the essence of GOSF and is getting better and better by the year.

GOSF has continuously been seeing tremendous energy and participation from small to major brands to be a part of one of India’s biggest shopping festival. We have the brand GOOGLE for sure, which is the biggest oomph factor for such a massive participation.

The GOSF Pre-Party

The GOSF Pre-Party from November 25- December 9 witnessed 14 shortlisted brands, at one brand a day offering day-long deals and contests for customers allowing them to participate in the 14 minutes of free shopping during the 14 days with products worth INR 2.5 Laks available for Free!

The INR 299 Corner

To give the right flavour of online shopping to first time  users, ecommerce sites this year in GOSF have introduced an exclusive section alluded as the INR 299 corner, with an additional edge of giving the users free shipping and COD for purchase above INR 500.

Exclusive Launch Corner

GOSF 2014 has an “Exclusive Launch Corner” , the ideal section to find exclusive offers from eminent brand across all categories, that is making the shopping festival a much awaited sale by the online shoppers. With Google launching its Nexus 6, the Exclusive Launch corner is all set to inspire and impress upon online shoppers in India. Other brands like HP, Lenovo, Tata Housing Development Co., Van Heusen, Karbonn Mobiles, etc will launch their products during this festival.

Set your clocks to midnight on the 10th of December to witness monstrously slashed prices from 400+ participating websites to deliver you your desired products ordered and delivered in the comfort of your homes.

Related: 10 Tips To Get The Most Out Of The ‘Google Great Online Shopping Festival’

Is it a social boon or bane for the Ecommerce sites?

With the increasing number of social media platforms to publicize your products bigger and better each day, there are also chances that it backfires on you. This has thus resulted in harming the brand value and causing a setback for the brands on the whole.

This year has witnessed time deals, flash deals, special deals during festivals, and many more, hosted individually by ecommerce sites which was by itself a festival and saw a huge amount of sales and traffic on one side. Also, the Indian Ecommerce economy is seeing a boom with such online shopping festivals.

All these on one side, the darker side of these deals and sale witnessed 1000s of consumers complaining on social media sites regarding issues in delivery, items getting cancelled in the cart, cancellation of orders after payment, and many many more.

Has the participation and non-participation of some brands in GOSF 2014 resulted from the impact of such previous mishaps? Where is the brand value going now at this rate? Is GOSF a platform of come-back for brands that lost their brand value in the rat race earlier this year? Is it a healthy competition we see among the e-tailers? Will the participating brands only look at GOSF as a launch platform or launch in traditional retailer sites also? Will this be looked up as increasing employment opportunities for supply chain experts, courier services, brand consultants etc., to ensure reliability of delivery? Will this 360 degree shopping festival that has witnessed about 70% new registrations this year be able to show the anticipated sales targets?

With the onset of the Great Online Shopping Festival a few hours back, let us sit back and see the magic happen!

Happy Shopping!

[This article is contributed by Sona Ramani, a 360 degree marketing consultant for the past 6+years  for startups with Marketing, content writing, social media marketing and campaigns, etc. She is also Principal Consultant with Cherunathury Tech Ventures, a Business Consulting organization.]

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