Monday 6 October 2014

Flipkart fumbles with 'Big Billion Day' sale, website crashes

An internet retail website’s ambitious day-long sale that promised unprecedented discounts brought with it a public relations nightmare when disgruntled shoppers took to social media to complain about server crashes and misleading pricing.
Flipkart’s ‘The Big Billion Day’ overburdened its servers within two hours of the sale being opened and many users complained of landing on error pages and seeing their sale process being interrupted.
“The traffic was heavy but server did not crash,” a Flipkart spokesperson said, but refused to give any details.

A statement by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, founders of Flipkart, said: “Our technology team has been dedicated towards addressing errors and providing constant support to accommodate the largest scale of traffic and customer visits e-commerce has witnessed across the country.”
Flipkart had run massive marketing campaigns with advertisements being splashed across newspapers and outdoor media.
Users also took Twitter, Facebook and blogging to attack the company’s pricing.
In some instances, the supposedly discounted offerings were priced higher than rival e-tailer Amazon and Snapdeal. For instance, a MacBookAir 13" was priced at Rs. 56,490 on Flipkart but Snapdeal sold it for Rs. 49,999.
In many other cases, mark-up prices were seen to have been raised, only to be ‘discounted’ to a price close to market rates.
A Twitter user, @Surnell, posted screenshots of what purported to show Flipkart raising prices of a product in the run-up to the sale only to slap a discount on Monday.

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