Google scraps online shopping festival

'Users don't have to wait for 12 months to get the best deals online,' Google India said in an official blog post

After three years, Google is shutting down its Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF).

According to Google officials, with online marketplaces such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal and scores of smaller players offering big-bang sales throughout the year, there is no need for the online search engine to have yearly sales.

“Today, India has many flourishing e-commerce companies and there are multiple deals. Users don’t have to wait for 12 months to get the best deals online, small and medium businesses no longer have to wait for www.gosf.in to find customers from across India,” Nitin Bawankule, industry director (eCommerce, local & classified), Google India, said in a blog post.

According to a Google official, the global giant is working on a slew of new ideas that would help small and medium enterprises make it big.

During the first year, the GOSF sites went down as soon as it went live. People were not happy with the deals. In 2013, the event was much more smooth and the sale was converted into a three-day event. Last year, around 15 million people visited the GOSF site.

According to Google, in 2012, there were only 130 million internet users with only eight million Indians shopping online, and the total online shopping industry was approximately $2 billion.

“Fast forward to 2015, India has over 350 million internet users and over 50 million online shoppers projected to reach 100 million by 2016 and the industry is already over $10 billion,” Bawankule wrote.

According to a Google official, the global giant is working on something new that would revolutionise the Indian market again. “We have always been the trendsetters in the industry and will keep on innovating. We are working on a slew of new ideas that would help small and medium enterprises make it big.”