India to get a taste of Cyber Monday-like deals courtesy Google, Citibank

Indian consumers who envied their US counterparts looking at great deals this 'Black Friday' and 'Cyber Monday" have something to cheer about. Google and Citibank are both organising full-day online shopping festivals. Both Google and Citibank claim that this effort will help in boosting the concept of online shopping in India.

Citibank is organising what it terms as the 'OMG! Sale' on December 5, 2012. This sale is only open to Citibank customers (both credit and debit cardholders). For this sale, the bank has partnered with 17 ecommerce players like snapdeal.com,indiaplaza.com, yebhi.com etc. and will be offering deals across categories on a single platform. The discounts will range from 30 to 60 percent and one can browse these deals here.

"Volume growth on our payment gateway is strong, demonstrating the proliferation of online consumer commerce in India. Market research also indicates e-tailing in India is growing faster than any other Asia Pacific market with consumers becoming more discerning and demanding better deals. Encouraged by these early growth patterns, we believe market-first initiatives such as the 'OMG! Sale' will help promote e-tailing in India," says Muge Yuzuak, MD & Head of Payments, Citibank India.

"Citi continuously strives to provide market-first innovations to its customers and the 'OMG! Sale', which brings together leading ecommerce players on one platform, is an example of our unique program offerings. We will be leveraging micro-blogging sites, mobile advertising and driving viral content on social platforms to engage with our digitally savvy customers," says Sanjeev Kapur, Chief Marketing Officer, Citibank India.

Google on its part is trying to replicate the concept of 'Cyber Monday' and is celebrating 'Great Online Shopping Festival' on December 12, 2012. For this festival, Google has partnered with 50 eCommerce sites across the genre that includes deal sites, online travel sites and BFSI industry. The deals will be listed on www.gosf.in and will offering deals for 24 hours.

Many popular online shopping portals such as flipkart.com, snapdeal.com, makemytrip.com, myntra.com and jabong.com are participating in Google's shopping festival and will be offering deals and discounts on December 12, 2012.

Speaking about the launch of the initiative, Rajan Anandan, Managing Director & VP sales & Operations Google India said, "We're very excited to partner with all the leading eCommerce players in the Industry to bring the Great Online Shopping Festival. The online shopping industry is estimated to be already over a 1.5 $ billion and with this initiative we want to reach out and promote online shopping to the first time buyers. The Industry has done a lot to promote eCommerce adoption in India and we're partnering with them to provide the users an easy access to all the deals and we look forward to great response from buyers all across India."

Speaking about the initiative, IndiatimesShopping,COO, Subhanker Sarker, said, "This is a very exciting time for eCommerce players in India and this event highlights the potential of online commerce in our country. The shopping festival will be a gala event for shoppers and the first time buyers will have the opportunity to explore and gain from deals across a wide variety of products. We are sure that this event will be able to further popularize online shopping as a convenient, trustworthy and exciting experience, which is already making waves across the country."

Commenting on this unique initiative, Mukesh Bansal, Co-Founder & CEO, Myntra.com said, "Online shopping in India is fast catching up to western markets and with initiatives like the Great Online Shopping Festival, first time shoppers will soon discover the benefits that e-commerce platforms have on offer. For this 24 hour sale, we have lined up some really exciting offers from our portfolio of 500 brands and we're confident that shoppers will come back for more."

Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder and CEO, Snapdeal.com said, "This is a great initiative which will bring together the industry and all leading players under one 'roof' and will further boost adoption of online shopping in India. It will expand our reach beyond the 18 million Snapdeal subscribers and will help us attract and reach more buyers. As part of this initiative, we atSnapdeal.com have come up with some really exciting and exclusive offers for online shoppers across the country".

Indians are usually known to be sceptical about purchasing online but the online retail industry has seen steady growth. It will be interesting to see if great discounts will be able to lure people to dig out their cards and get shopping.