User Experience of Snapdeal Savings Day 11/11

Just like the Big Billion Day sale of Flipkart, Snapdeal came up with its own Snapdeal Savings Day on 11th of November, 2014. Unfortunately the benefits which Snapdeal gained from the failure of the Big Billion Day sales of Flipkart was all went into vein with the user experience of Snapdeal Savings Day 11/11.

Read on this blog post of mine to know the experience of two of my friends who purchased some items from Snapdeal on that savings day and a few other experiences of my known people.

Snapdeal Vs. Flipkart

It is undoubtedly true that a big competition is going on in between Snapdeal and Flipkart as I compared both the ecommerce giants of India in one of my last blog post on Snapdeal Vs. Flipkart. Both the companies always want to take benefits from the mistakes made by other. Snapdeal took the benefit from the technical faults which Flipkart made on Big Billion Day. Read on my blog on the war of online shopping in India to know more about it.

Was Snapdeal Savings Day a replay of Flipkart Big Billion Day Sales?

I think so. It is quite usual that anyone can think in this way. Snapdeal Savings Day was also highlighted by Snapdeal by advertising full pages ads on many newspapers like Flipkart too did the same for their Big Billion Day, while it was also promoted on social media sites with the hash tag #SnapdealSavingsDay.

Unfortunately everything went in the similar way like Flipkart website crashed on that Big Billion Day and users slammed it badly on Social Media sites. It was suppose to give heavy discounts on electronics and fashion products, but the users felt cheated when they reached to the website at 8:10 AM only and found it crashed.

What Went Wrong?

Being an Online Marketing guy I must say that both these companies utilized their respective days to gain the traffic, but since they did not take care of a few basic and technical things which hurt their reputation badly. It is also true that the gain which Snapdeal gained from the failure of Flipkart BBD sales was clearly wasted by them. They did not take many lessons from the BBD sales of Flipkart.

Ideally when you are advertising so much about some sales, you should remain prepared for a heavy load on your website. Unfortunately both Flipkart and Snapdeal missed this consideration.

When the heavy load came to their websites, it crashed their server badly, which developed the setback among their visitors. The unfortunate thing was that they offered some really great discounts, but either user gets a crashed site throughout or if they purchased something the payment page was either hanged or stuck. On the other hand if someone somehow managed to pay as well, they still did not get any confirmation weather the purchase was made successful or not.

Let me tell you the experience of one of my friend Rajiv. He was looking to purchase a front load washing machine from Snapdeal and he too experienced so many issues while purchasing a IFB washing machine. As per him “I tried purchasing the washing machine for 3-4 times and finally after fighting so much I was being able to purchase one of these energy-efficient washing machines here. I made the payment as well from my Credit Card; it got debited from my account as well, but even after 48 hours of purchasing the same it never reflected on my accounts page. I did tried calling their customer care to know more about my order, but the customer care services of Snapdeal was pathetic. They never give me a clear response about my purchase and finally today I called up my Bank and canceled the payment and purchased the same from Ebay.”

This whole experience was a nightmare for Rajiv. He did order and managed paying to them as well, but got no response from them. It really disappointed him.

Let me show you a few snaps about what people are saying about this day on Social Media:

Ultimately Snapdeal Savings Day got a huge down vote in social media. You can also check these links:

Snapdeal Savings Day Gets a Big Thumbs Down on Social Media

Was Snapdeal’s Savings Day an encore of Flipkart’s Big Billion Day sale? Twitterati seem to think so

Was it a Flop Show?

Well, yes it was indeed a flop show. But it is not the first time when a user faces issues with Snapdeal. Gaurav Sharma, one of my friends booked a few products from Snapdeal on 7th of November 2014 and he was supposed to get the delivery on 3-4 working days. But since 13th of November he doesn’t have any information about the delivery of his products.

He tried contacting their customer care for 3-4 times, but got no response. You can see his frustration in his post on Facebook in which he tagged me too.

Lessons Learnt from These Sales

One lesson is quite clear from Snapdeal Savings Day sale or Flipkart Big Billion Day sales, these sales are not meant for a general internet user. Those who have a very fast internet speed, or who can monitor these ecommerce sites for every second, those only can grab some deal from them and that too at the time of the beginning of the sale.

The other lesson is if you purchased something from these sites on any sales day, it is no guarantee that you will get the product only. Either your order will be canceled by them, since they had no product to give you on that rate which they offered, or you might not get any response from them about your purchase too.

Whatever lesson we users had from these sales days, but these ecommerce companies should learn one of the most basic lessons from these days and it is of not going for such sales if you don’t have the capability. I know it sounds a bit harsh, but it is a reality that just to gain some momentum you cannot play with the loyalty of your loyal customers.

There is no harm in purchasing discounted things, but on a day which is being advertised so badly you cannot have any guarantee of your successful purchase. Please do let me know your responses about these sales days. Please share your opinion in the form of comments below.