Companies, e-tailers experiment with exclusive product launches

A look at products that rode e-commerce frenzy in India through particular online launches

Under an exclusive tie-up between publisher Rupa and Amazon.in, President Pranab Mukherjee’s much awaited book ‘The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years’ will be available to buyers only on the e-commerce major’s website for the first 21 days after its launch on December 11.

This has upset several consumers and offline bookstores who, according to a report in The Times of India, are considering boycotting Rupa.

Amid this uproar here’s a list of things that were launched ‘exclusively online’, many of which caught attention only due to this exclusivity.

Biscuit: In a first of its kind moves, bakery and dairy major Britannia Industries last month launched an exclusive tie up with e-tailer Amazon India for a pilot launch of a new chocolate chip cookie, Good Day Chunkies. The 15-day offer is currently on and closes on December 5, after which the product goes to offline retail stores.

Beverage: In September this year, Coca-Cola launched its sugar-free soft drink Coca-Cola Zero in India exclusively on Amazon.in for two weeks. The product got 1,700 online bookings within four hours of the launch. The brand was available in US, Mexico, China, Brazil and Japan before its India launch.

Gadgets: Exclusive online sale of mobile phones first caught attention when Motorola Mobility’s Moto series of phones (which included MotoG, MotoE and MotoX) were offered to buyers exclusively on Flipkart. Even as Indian users had no experience of using these phones, the sale triggered an overwhelming response with over 20,000 units of MotoG (which was the first launch in the series) getting sold within hours.

This was not the first exclusive mobile phone launch on Flipkart, as the e-commerce major’s website crashed for the first time since inception in July 2014 when it offered high-end smartphone Xiaomi Mi3 exclusively. The first batch of these phones was sold within 39 minutes.

Books: President Mukherjee’s book is not the first one to have got an exclusive online launch. Author Chetan Bhagat’s latest release Half Girlfriend had an exclusive pre-order on Flipkart. Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography Playing It My Way was also launched for pre-orders on e-commerce websites. The book had topped 150,000 copies in orders by 11 am on November 6, a statement issued by Hachette India, publisher of the book said.

Movies & Songs: Series of several shows, like House of Cards, have been exclusively launched on NetFlix. Also, many international songs have been exclusively launched on Apple Inc’s iTunes Store.

Games: Microsoft's third generation gaming console Xbox One is till date available exclusively on Amazon in India.