GOSF 2014 – THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN

Hold your breath, the BIG sale is back! Yes, we are talking about the Great Online Shopping Festival, organized by Google. Everyone is looking forward to GOSF 2014, and hoping it to be a whopping success like its previous editions. Happening for the third consecutive year, the countdown for the festival has begun!

During the Great Online shopping festival consumers will get unbelievable discounts on apparels and accessories, electronic gadgets, property deals, insurance, beauty and wellness, tickets and travel packages, books, and the list goes on. The expected discount on these categories range from 20 – 80 percent.

Last year, GOSF was supported by various E-Commerce portals to create awareness about online shopping and drive user participation. Apart from promoting the initiative, these sites also offered huge discounts on their products.  

Speaking about the GOSF 2013, Nitin Bawankule, Industry Director E-Commerce, Google India said, "As new Internet users come aboard, we continue to see a very healthy growth in online searches for online shopping, with over 40 percent queries coming from mobile phones. We have extended the festival to three days to cater to the growing demand and hope to attract many first time buyers this year. Last year's success helped us to get onboard many partners across verticals and products, who have all lined up incredible deals for the bargain hunters and first time buyers. We are hopeful that the initiative will help our partners to set new benchmarks in daily sales and help to build consumer awareness and confidence in online shopping."

Talking about other offers that got a lot of traction, last year – hotel bookings and flight bookings boasted of making maximum sales. Electronic gadgets also saw buyers flocking to grab the best deal.

The buzz, this year, is that Google has roped in close to 300 offline and online retailers and consumer companies for  GOSF 2014. At least 100 million consumers are expected to participate in the festival this year. The online shopping frenzy is going to get crazier in the coming weeks.

The Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) 2014, to be held from December 10-12, is expected to see participation of various consumer durable, FMCG and E-Commerce portals in India. Google and various E-Commerce partners have planned aggressive online advertising, while consumer brands plan to concentrate more on offline campaigns such as hoarding and other outdoor activities.

In a season of mega online sales, Google's third edition of GOSF is expected to create a bigger hype than the last two years as it plans to line up products ranging from FMCG, consumer durables and fashion lifestyle segments to arts and collectibles, travel packages and even two-wheelers, according to some sources.

Google started GOSF in 2012. Last year it got almost 16 million hits on all partner sites on the first day, and almost 40% of the traffic came from Tier 2 and 3 cities. Many E-Commerce sites had witnesses innumerable ‘first time online buyers’ on their portals. With online shopping becoming exceedingly popular in India with each passing year, the Great Online Shopping Festival is perfectly timed! So what are you waiting for? Hurry, and join the celebrations!