Flipkart claims billion hits, buyers feel cheated on discounts

Bangalore Indias largest eretailer Flipkart claimed to have got a billion hits for its special sales offer Monday but millions of buyers felt cheated on its discounts as they alleged the prices quoted were higher even as its portal crashed during the dayThe prices printed in its advertisements in leading newspapers on many electronic products and consumer goods did not match with the rates mentioned on the portal when I logged to place an order complained Mahesh Inchal a registered user with Flipkart The social media was abuzz with such complaintsAnother registered user in the city who wanted to buy a colour television set told IANS here that she could not log onto the portal as she got error message and gave up after repeated attemptsI tried to log into the website But the system did not accept To my surprise I found other eportals like Snapdealcom offering the same product at a lesser price than what Flipkart quoted offering at a discount said the user who did not want to be identifiedAs the online traffic surged for the daylong special sales that began at 8 am the companys portal Flipkartcom crashed late afternoon resulting in outrage against the eretailer in the social media for the website being inaccessible for hours after 2 pm and inflating prices before offering discountsWe got a billion hits on our site today Monday and achieved our 24hour sales target of 100 million Rs615 crore in gross merchandise volume GMV in just 10 hours the citybased ecommerce major said in a statementAs customers were desperate to buy after seeing the hype Flipkart built over the days on its special offers with bumper discounts many of them logged out of its portal after feeling cheated by the difference in the prices it offered visavis offered by othersFor instance Flipkart advertised that it was offering Samsung tablet II at Rs1390 which is onetenth of its retail price of Rs13990 But when I logged in to place an order the price quoted did not match with its offer I felt cheated and logged out said Sunil Kumar a techie with a leading IT firm in the cityResponding to the complaints of the portal crashing a company spokesperson told IANS that there was an internal server issue due to which we had problem in receiving orders online for some time due to surge in trafficWe have rectified the glitch and increased the capacity The site is on and accessible the spokesperson told IANS laterAs Mondays date Oct 6 or 610 coincided with 610 the flat number from where its cofounders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal began their journey in 2007 to float the countrys first ecommerce startup Flipkart offered a host of products and gadgets on huge discounts to mark the Big Billion DayThe Big Billion Day is an unprecedented day for us as this is the biggest sale ever in India We are delighted by the overwhelming response from our customers since 8 am the Bansals said in a statementThe eretailer boasts of 22 million registered users with fourmillion daily visits and delivers five million shipments a monthWith a range of exciting offers on quality products at disruptive prices available throughout the sale period we have created history in Indian ecommerce the company assertedThe company deployed 10000 field staff to ensure all transacted orders are delivered to customers on timeAmong products on sale were mobiles laptops cameras watches large appliances clothes shoes toys and bags at heavy discounted pricesIn promos the company said it would offer multiple items at Re1 smartphones at 30 percent discount laptops from Rs15000 onwards and 50 percent discount on fashion perfumes and toys It also promised great offers on some of its exclusive brands like Xiaomi Motorola and AsusWith 15 million products across 70 categories including books media consumer electronics and lifestyle on sale Flipkart offers delivery services like inaday guarantee across 50 cities and samedayguarantee in 13 cities across the countryThe company raised 1 billion Rs6015 crore July 29 in fresh capital from global venture funds for longterm strategic investments especially in mobile technology