KOCHI: Festival seasons are not only famous for celebrations but also the time when shopkeepers dabble with discounts to lure customers. Now beating shopkeepers to the game are shopping websites such as Flipkart, Amazone, Snapdeal, Myntra, Paytm and others who are on a quest to attract customers with snappy offers.
With the onset of Diwali celebrations, these websites could be seen announcing plenty of discounts for their products- heavy reductions are being offered for mobile phones.
This move by the websites to offer heavy discounts for mobiles has miffed the retail mobile shop owners community. Irked with this, the retail shops owners at Pentamenaka in Kochi where most number of mobile shops function, have decided to introduce a new strategy to lure their customers.
The strategy
As per the new plan, the shops will purchase bulk order from websites during the festival season. These mobiles will then be sold to customers by giving a small discount from the MRP rate. “ During the first week of October the Redmi note 3 mobile was available at the market for less than Rs 10,000 which include the offers.
However, the real market price for the product is Rs 11,999. We will only get the product from the dealers for Rs 10,500-Rs 11,000 and in reality we can’t provide any additional discounts to the customers. If we are getting the product at this discount price, it is better for us to sell the product at reasonable discounts,” said a mobile retail shop owner who along with other shop owners booked the mobiles during the last festive sales on the website.
Since the websites have imposed a limit to the purchase, shop owners created several email ids to beat the restriction.
When contacted, president of Kerala Merchants Union President Ahsraf said that the online sales have completely disturbed the functioning of the retail shops as customers now prefer to purchase products which are easily available to them now.
“ Even the government does not benefit due to the presence of the online websites as they are exempt from VAT and other tax. The existence of retails shops is now a question,” he added.