Monday 8 December 2014

Now, offline retailers fear mega Google fest

Google’s online shopping festival (GOSF), slated to start on December 10, might face greater resistance from traditional retailers compared to that faced by Flipkart during its recent Big Billion Day sale. While Flipkart clocked $100-million gross-merchandise-value (GMV) sale within 10 hours of the kick-off of its one-day festival, the Google event holds out a bigger threat, as not only will it be spread over three days, it will also have more sellers and categories.

Around 300 retailers and traders across categories such as real estate, consumer durables, travel, fashion and accessories are set to participate in the Google shopping festival.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a body comprising medium and small retailers, has registered a protest with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, saying the sale on Google, with larger data resources than Flipkart or Amazon, could be a disaster for brick-and-mortar retailers. Recently, the big boys of Indian retail such as Reliance Industries, ITC and Aditya Birla Group had complained to the ministries of finance and commerce about predatory pricing and lack of clarity regarding e-commerce in India.

GOSF, an annual event, comes at a time when offline and online retailers are locked in a battle for market share in the $600-billion retail segment in India. The latest trigger in the battle was the proposed launch of a book by President Pranab Mukherjee exclusively on Amazon, with offline chains threatening boycott of the publisher.

Now, telecom company Micromax is planning to launch a new Canvas phone exclusively on Flipkart.

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