Flipkart announced its Big Billion Day sale in 2014, aiming to do $100 million in sales in 10 hours. However, the sale was plagued with issues as the website crashed due to overwhelming traffic. Many orders were cancelled or had incorrect pricing. Customers complained on social media, while competitors like Snapdeal and Amazon capitalized. Flipkart apologized and needs to improve infrastructure, inventory, and logistics to regain customer trust for future sales.

1. BIG BILLION DAY : HITS AND HICCUPS
Presented by,
SADIAH

3. CONTENT
● INTRODUCTION
● BIG BILLION DAY ANNOUNCEMENT
● ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
● D - DAY
● WHAT WENT WRONG?
● CUSTOMERS’ REACTION
● WELCOMING THE ARMS OF COMPETITION
● REACTIONS FROM OTHER RETAILERS
● APOLOGY TO THE CUSTOMERS
● DISCUSSION

4. Type of business Indian e-commerce company
Founded 2007; 13 years ago
Founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal
Headquarters Bengaluru, India
Owner Walmart (82%)
CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy
Services Online shopping
Revenue Increase ₹43,615 crore (US$6.1 billion) (FY 2019)
Subsidiaries Myntra.com ,Jabong.com,PhonePe,Ekart, Jeeves2GUD

5. History
Flipkart was founded in October 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, who were
both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and formerly worked for
Amazon.
The idea of starting such a business crossed their mind when they were
working for Amazon.
The company initially focused on book sales, before expanding into other product
categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials & groceries, and
lifestyle products
Flipkart offered easy payment options like COD, credit card and debit
card
Flipkart acquired WeRead, Mime360, Chakpak.com,Letsbuy.com and
Myntra.com

6. Big Billion day Announcement
● Flipkart announced its Big Billion Day sale in September 2014.
● October 06 2014 was announced to be the Big Day.(6-10 marks the number of the flat the
founders started out from)
● Flipkart aims to do business of more than 1 billion in one day.
● Conducted a huge flash sale and give discounts on several products under different
categories like large appliances, books, toys, mobiles, laptops, cameras, clothes, shoes,
bags and watches available at heavy discounted prices,
● Flipkart offered discounts of up to 90% on gadgets such as Nokia Lumia phones and
Samsung Galaxy tablets.
● Also expected to make an appearance during the Flipkart Big Billion Day Sale are some of
the Flipkart exclusive smartphones like the Asus ZenFone 4 A450CG, Asus Zenfone 6, and
others

7. Advertising Campaign
● Different channels were used for announcing the sale such as television,
print media, social media, youtube and more.
● The advertising campaign was planned for one week where the details
related to the sale was revealed.
● 1,000 ad spots were blocked for a day on television alone by flipkart.
● 10,000 staffs were assembled by the company to process order and make
timely delivery .
● There were two video commercials made to promote the big day,
one of them featuring stand up comedian Vir Das.

8. D-day
● The sale held just a few days ahead of the popular festival of India , Diwali.
● Flipkart witnessed a mega sale of $100 million (6 billion rupees) in just 10 hours which was
a 24 hours sales target.
● The website saw traffic like never before.
● An unprecedented 1.5 million people shopped at Flipkart on the day.
● The demand from customers was so high that more than 2 million products were sold at the
rate 60 items per second.

9. What went wrong?
● Online traffic exceeded expectation.
● The sale kicked off before the announced time .
● Stocks were out even when people logged in at 8am.
● Ratings & Reviews were hidden.
● No Cancellation, No Refunds.
● Confirmed orders got cancelled in hours.
● Discounts offered on newspaper ads proved misleading.
● Servers crashed, HTTP 404 abounded.
● Worse, prices fluctuated between MRP, discounted price, and jacked up
pre-discount rates.
● Flipkart ended up doing Amazon and Snapdeal a great favor.

10. Customers’ Reaction
● Many people got disappointed over this and took on Twitter, the hashtag #TheBigBillionDay got flooded with high
number of complaints, jokes and messages calling it Flopkart etc.
● Many people complained that the products they wanted were out of stock or were priced high. There were many other
things which went wrong according to the buyers.
● The happy customers also made sure that there good wishes are reaching the ears of Flipkart.

11. Welcoming the arms of Competition
● Snapdeal.com puts an advertisement mocking the bigbillionday
● Snapdeal also announced a sale on the same day trying to lure away the buyers by offering higher
discounts and and providing better services
● Amazon made a tricky move they bought bigbillionday.com domain, if a customer gets into that
domain it will automatically redirects the customers to amazon.in.
● Snapdeal reportedly made 600 crores on the same day.

12. Reaction From Other Retailers
● Companies considered legal action to stop the
practise of “heavy” discounts
● Consumer good makers were under serial
pressure
● Traditional retailers accused e- trailers of
“predatory pricing” and “distorting market reality”

13. Apologies to the Customers
● Flipkart sent personal letters to customers
addressing issues ranging from price change &
cancellation problems.
● Emails were sent to staff stating the to resolve
the delivery issues on priority basis.
● Complete responsibility taken by the owners

14. Discussion
What according to you were Flipkart’s mistakes?
● Advertising the sale everywhere like crazy – should have targeted existing consumers with email
marketing and earned loyalty and referrals.
● Not preparing for an unprecedented high in traffic – should have over prepared logistics, inventory
and infrastructure in keeping with the marketing reach.
● Started small – could have opened sale for specific product categories only.
● Not touted unrealistic discounts – under promise and over deliver should have been the mantra not
vice versa.

15. What Flipkart could have done right?
● Better traffic management: Flipkart should have learned how to handle huge traffic
from older experienced websites such as www.irctc.co.in.
● Greater inventory control: The logistics and operations could have been managed to
avoid misleading price tags and stockout.
● Managed sneak attempts: Flipkart team should have constantly monitored big billion
day searches happening on the day to detect directs to the Amazon page. Amazon
apparently bought the “Flipkart” keyword for the day along with the domain name
“bigbillionday.com.”

16. How can flipkart win the trust of the customers, who fled to competitors
during and after the sale?
1. Apologize to the customers for issues like network/server issues, poor product quality, price
anomalies of the products on sale and also cut down malpractices like bringing up the prices
just before the sale and then suddenly giving a hike.
1. Certified stakeholders should be involved and not just anyone should be accepted as a seller
for the company. Moreover, Seller reviews should also be added when the customer is
browsing for a product.
1. Arranging a momentary sale of a few days, just like the big billion days in the on-season could
also rebrand the image of the firm.

17. 4. Operations manpower to be increased so that the items are safely delivered on time.
5. Tremendous social media marketing to be done, along with paper print media.
6. Lastly, fair trade should be done and they should comply with government trade policies. Else, sooner or
later they might end up like Yes Bank.
Contd..

18. Conclusion
Flipkart should have waited for a year more to take such a big step like the Big Billion Day sale.
Secondly, Proper planning and execution should have been made before proceeding with sale on
such a huge scale.
Thirdly, flipkarts data analytics department should have foreseen the huge demand on the day of
sale.