Great discounts for Apple and Samsung products could be a thing of the past now!

In a bid to achieve greater price parity in online and offline trading of smartphones, rivals Samsung and Apple have come out with first-of-its-kind concrete steps, which will also stress on the importance of online retailing for both of them.

In the new move, Samsung has tied up with Amazon and Snapdeal to set up a ‘brand store’ on their websites. Under this, only authorised sellers would be able to offer the product at prices fixed by the Korean company. This will prevent any lucrative discounts.

As per the senior executives with the cellphone trade, now unauthorised sellers won't be able to offer Samsung products on these websites.

Snapdeal refused to comment on the association with Samsung. An Amazon India spokesperson told Economic Times the Samsung store is a brand experience page and merchandising initiative whereby it showcases the breadth of Samsung's selection. "Through such initiatives, we partner with brands to engage with their and our customers," the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, Apple has now decided to allow retailers to buy its products from any of its four distributors-Ingram Micro, Redington, Rashi Peripherals and Brightstar-which earlier was not the case.

The move came after offline retailers complained that online sellers were getting phones from Apple's designated distributors at lower prices. Now, Apple India has informed its offline retailers that they are free to negotiate margins with distributors and can sell the products at a lower price, matching online if they want.

"Even though all such communication by Apple India officials to retailers is done verbally, the big chains are already buying from distributors who offer best price," one of the executives told Economic Times.

As per market tracker Counterpoint Research senior analyst Tarun Pathak, these were the first steps initiated by Apple and Samsung to tap eCommerce market in the country by working on traditional distribution lines.

"Both the brands were losing sales to online-only smartphone brands at a time when e-Commerce already contributes 15% of smartphone sales in India and expected to double this year," Pathak told the financial daily.

As per ET, some 115 million smartphones are expected to be sold in India in 2015.

As per Chief Executive Officer of a leading mobilephone retal chain, Apple has adopted a push-back mechanism to sway offline retailers which complained about pricing disparity with ecommerce, adding that through this Apple signalled that the company was serious about not curbing online sales in any way.

"Apple is not that fussy about online discounting in India as it used to be," he said.

Coming to Samsung's initiative, another senior executive with an electronics chain said after blacklisting online sellers that were not maintaining pricing of the products, Samsung’s latest move will allow it to tap online shoppers without disturbing offline retailers and also give a legitimate stamp to handsets sold through Amazon and Snapdeal.

Industry officials informed ET that the Korean company was also in talks with Flipkart to set up a similar online brand store and may include other eCommerce firms too.

A Samsung India spokesperson said all channel partners contribute to its market share growth and the company regularly monitors developments in both the online and offline retail spaces.

(Image: Reuters)