Online goes over the line?
MONDAY saw a frenzy in the world of online shopping, with people going crazy for bargains and discounts. But by the end of the day, pop culture sites were teeming with memes and disgruntled shoppers were crying foul, as the discounts failed to materalise and the e-shops crashed due to buyer overload.

We are sure marketing mavens will hold forth on the lessons to be learned from this, and it is certainly fodder for many jokes (stand-up comedians are taking notes). But there is also a serious side to the whole brouhaha, and that is the miffed consumers. The Consumer Guidance Society of India (CGSI) has received at least one complaint, we hear, from a customer who did not get the item he had placed an order for. Besides, the CGSI is gearing up to tackle more such complaints as indications are that the much-touted discounts of up to 90 per cent are unsustainable and in many cases were not honoured.