A day in the life of everyone trying to make the most of e-commerce sales

It’s that time of the year again. No, I’m not talking about Diwali, Durga Puja or even Dussehra. What I’m talking about is a much bigger festival than these three combined. It’s a festival which surprisingly makes the use of phones and laptops extremely mandatory.

Yes, I’m talking about the festival of e-commerce sales.

Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal and every other website which has managed to acquire a domain name in the big bad world of the internet have guaranteed that people look forward to these sales that happen primarily due to the festive season more than they look forward to the festive season itself.

Thus, don’t be surprised if during this sale week, you spot people walking on a busy road looking at their phones probably sorting through the heaps of products on discount irrespective of the fact that they’re about to walk right into a tree or people who refuse to eat, drink or take a shower until their shopping cart is as full as someone who's just finished eating at a buffet.

Flipkart’s Big Billion Days, Amazon’s Great Indian Festive Sale and Snapdeal’s Diwali sales reduce people to a version of themselves they wouldn’t want to curse their enemies with. This, despite the sales being similar to M. Night Shyamalan's movies- too much hype but very little matter.

Let's take you through how this farce of a sale works.

It starts out nice. You follow the aroma of discounts and end up staring at your laptop and even download the app in search of the discounted products that have been promised to you.

What follows is thus- you find something you like at a price you think your wallet likes at a size that hugs your body just right and you ask yourself, is this what heaven looks like?

But, a few minutes later calamity strikes.

And as your eyes are stuck on the checkout page, hoping against hope that this is all but a dream, you receive the saddest message one could ever recieve-

‘Sorry, the page is not responding’

Dread. Fear. Horror- these wash over you as you realize your worst nightmare has come true. You keep on refreshing the page, but the words still say the same.

But, now you have some new information to digest...

‘The product is out of stock.’

You’re gutted beyond words. But, you tell yourself that the disappointment called dating men has readied you for this very day.

And, as you dry off your tears that start resembling River Nile, you start browsing once again with your head held high.

Several thoughts run through your head-

“Oh look! This product that I’ll never use is at 70% off. My god, that’s so cheap. We never know. I might someday be in need of it.

*Add to cart*”

“Yeah, I know I’ve been ranting about how Fastrack’s sunglasses are uncool and overpriced, but hey, they’re under 499! I don’t think it’ll hurt if I buy just one of those...

*Add to cart*”

This goes on until you manage to put an enormous number of products that could sustain an entire army in your cart and just as you’re about to checkout to a world of happiness, a very crucial moment (which comes free with two messages) arrives-

Message 1: Delivery for the item(s) is not available in your pin-code.

Message 2: We regret to inform you that your size is not in stock.

You stare at the screen and decide that it’s enough.

“These sales suck”, you tell yourself and log in to Twitter to diss them and rant to the world about how wronged you feel.

And, in that moment, you realise you're not alone.

Your timeline houses umpteen tweets about these websites cheating customers by marking up proices represented through angry words, videos and imagery.

Then you chuckle to yourself – Sale or no sale, your bank balance still wouldn’t have been enough to afford even one-fourth of the items on your wishlist.

“Joke’s on you Flipkart/Amazon/Snapdeal”

And, the rest is history.


Image credit: All India Bakchod