An empirical study of customer confidence after big billion day sale 2014

Online shopping is becoming popular day by day in India but the concept of e-commerce was introduced in the late 20th century. Acceptance of e-commerce on a large scale by Indian people influenced other business players to launch shopping portals in India. Flipkart launched its online service in the year 2007 and soon many websites were launched like Jabong, Myntra, Amazon, Snapdeal etc.

E-commerce is a service-oriented business. In India, poor infrastructure leads to poor service quality. Online retailers do not need physical stores or staff to manage them. They invest primarily in technology and inventory. Features like ‘cash on delivery’ appeal to consumers. Companies like Flipkart focus on delivery and prompt service. The company reported a strong growth in revenue over the past three years. It said it made Rs 6,000 crore or $1 billion in revenue in 2013–14.

Flipkart celebrates its big billion day on Oct 6 every year. In 2014 also Flipkart provided offers on around 70 categories including mobiles, laptops, books, appliances, toys, clothes etc. Flipkart offered deals of the hour, flash sales, lucky draws and many exciting offers. Company was able to create a buzz about the event by continuously advertising on all leading TV channels, sending mails to all its registered customers and a Full page Ad in leading dailies of country. Customers were so excited that they logged-in much before the sale time i.e. 8.00 AM. As a result most of the products on offer went out of stock in few minutes. Site was also not able to handle the unexpected heavy customer traffic. This resulted in many error messages and customer dissatisfaction. This also created panic in off-line retailers as the volume of sale was very high. Present study tries to measure the customer confidence shattered due to stock-outs on Big day sale and its status after three months.