Buying smartphones online for special discounts might be a thing of the past

Even though reports suggested that online shoppers would still get discounts on smartphones that they buy online, but the discounts would mostly be from new players who would be willing to grab a share of the Indian market. However, industry experts are of the view that even these discounts might go for a toss because of business sustainability reasons. As brands look forward to bringing pricing parity between online and offline channels, this might cause heartache to online shoppers.

The discounts and freebies were offered to gain business volumes by ecommerce players, but the new FDI rules bar ecommerce marketplaces from directly or indirectly offering discounts. So now, if there are any discounts, they would be offered directly by brands.

"Discounting by ecommerce platforms will reduce but smartphone brands, especially new ones that want to gain market share, may begin deep discounting," Micromax's chief marketing officer Shubhajit Sen, told ET. The sentiment was shared by Atul Jain, COO at LeEco.

However, if we look at the long term prospective, such a move would not be a sustainable strategy because smartphone brands already operate on wafer thin margins and would not like additional costs to sell their phones.

"New brands coming into India will offer discounts on their own... but there won't be indefinite discounting," said Jaideep Mehta, MD, IDC South Asia.

Other than this, brands will now have better control over the positioning and promotions of their devices, said Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

"All the friction between brands and ecommerce sites has been due to differential pricing, so if the new policy is taking it away, it creates a chance for ecommerce sites and brands to collaborate through joint marketing programmes," Mehta added.

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