The 2016 Festive Sales- What’s Hot And Happening.

It’s Christmas for the online consumers in India which means that Festive season sales are coming around!

Online marketplaces Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal are ready for their annual festival sales starting the first week of October with Amazon. ShopClues and Paytm are also set to flag off their festive season sale around the same time.

Flipkart's Big Billion Days 2016 and Amazon Great Indian Sale will be the most anticipated, just like every year but there are some things that have changed.

• Flipkart has introduced ‘Your wish, our offer’ where products that have been ‘wish listed the most number of times will have bigger offers on them. After the 2014 technical glitches, we hope the sale-ing is smooth for this e-commerce player.

• Amazon’s Great Indian Sale is scheduled for October 1- 5 and Amazon have announced Curtain Raiser Deals, where customers can choose between two groups of products - the most voted will go on sale at 12am on October 1.

• Snapdeal’s Diwali sale is based on it’s rebranded tagline 'Unbox Zindagi' and starts from October 2nd till October 6th. Discounts up to 70 percent are promised as part of the Snapdeal Unbox Sale to the consumers.

• What will be interesting to see is the amount of discounts and cashback that are offered this year compared to last year, since as reports suggest that the GMV in e-commerce has seen a decline of 20-25% in the first six months of 2016.

• We have also seen a trend of loyalty services offerings amongst the biggest players in the form of Flipkart First, Amazon Prime and Snapdeal Gold. This ensures that the customer is given better service in terms of delivery or discounts, enabling the buyer to be loyal towards one player for all their shopping needs.

• This also means that they are likely to spend big due to hooks in the form of extended offers of warranty, extra discounts after more spending and next-day deliveries.

• So far, so good. Amazon Prime is a leader in this category as the model has been tried and tested in the US. The crème-de-la-crème of the online shopper might enjoy these subscription services, but most Indians still like their products delivered for free. It’ll be interesting to see how Amazon adapts Amazon Prime for the Indian market.

Bottom Line- This will be one heck of a season for the e-commerce giants to fight out since Indians remain discount-driven because they have been spoilt by the offers. Not only do they want the best, the want it at the best price in the shortest time possible and that is an ideal situation that many e-commerce players are trying to achieve while remaining afloat.