Flipkart's Big Billion Day faces consumer backlash on social media

Buyers alleged that Flipkart raised prices in the run-up to the discount sales, server errors compounded misery

It was billed as India’s largest discount sale ever, but since e-commerce major Flipkart’s ‘Big Billion Day’ sale started at 8 a.m. Monday, it is being talked about across social media for all the wrong reasons. Several consumers claim that prices on the website were inflated over the past couple of days and therefore the discounts running today are not genuine.

Consumers have also taken to social media to vent after they were unable to make purchases despite repeated attempts due to server errors.

Additionally, consumers claim that offers advertised by Flipkart in the newspapers are not available on the website.

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Social media websites first started ticking last night as a post on Facebook alleging increase in prices by Flipkart went viral. “So they have increased the price now and tomorrow they will sell it in deals for big billion day. Dear flipkart.com, we are not stupid,” said an early post by Delhi-based Geetansh Arora. The post had a photograph appended, showing how the price of microwave oven had been increased by nearly Rs 5,000 just ahead of the Big Billion Day sale.

With #BigBillionDay trending on micro-blogging website Twitter, it is abuzz with several users sharing grievances.

“Underestimating the intelligence of the customers is perhaps the worst sin any company can commit. #BigBillionDay,” said another.

Also, several attempts to make purchases on Flipkart threw up sold-out messages or server errors , even though the website’s server has not crashed. Jokes about Flipkart’s server error have also flooded social media.

 

“Contrary to popular belief, #BigBillionDay sale by Flipkart is not to raise awareness about http error codes,” said a tweet that has gone viral.

“Flipkart to offer 10% discount on 404 (error for ‘page not found’) page. They are now calling it 363 page,” says another tweet.

A company spokesperson confirmed that the e-commerce giant’s servers have not crashed. 

“There was an error which has been corrected. Our team is prepared to check all stress points. The event is very successful and very well managed so far,” the spokesperson said.

Flipkart had launched an ad campaign for the ‘Big Billion Day’ about two weeks ago as a sale which was expected to be the equivalent of the heavily-discounted Black Friday sale in the US which is held the day after Thanksgiving. The company had said it would run deep discounts across 70 categories. The Bangalore-based company had also said that it has enhanced its technology capabilities, inventory, and supply-chain capacities.