No.
I was not on Flipkart at 2pm today to buy the Mi 3 phone from Xiaomi.
I was just there to see what the brouhaha was about.
I was also politely told that I wasn’t registered to participate in the sale – and I had no idea what a registration meant. I’m new to this model, you see. I know only 2 models – one, buy by paying a price, or two, bid for a product. This flash sale model where you register first for a sale and then participate in the sale is clearly new to me.
But the feedback on Twitter and Facebook after the sale ended in 5 seconds (officially confirmed by Flipkart and Xiaomi) was relentless. If I were to hazard the sentiment on both the brands based on what I saw on my timeline, it is that the country hates Flipkart and Xiaomi. (It’s a different thing that Flipkart announced a US $1 billion funding after announcing the 5-second sale closure to ensure that people who were opening their mouths to complain instead found their lower jaw in the ground and that they could not think very clearly while counting the zeroes in that funding figure).
Yes, I did count about 3-4 people who actually said they were able to order the magic phone.
Now, despite all this negativity, despite BGR writing an angry open letter to both the brands with an F word in the title, despite all the angry tweets to Hugo Barra… does any of this really matter?
Do you think the same angry people would not try again on August 5th? Won’t they all try to register at 6pm today for the August 5th sale? Why won’t they? Because of their righteous anger at being not able to buy a product they were ready to pay for? Is that denial, through a stampede (online stampede) enough reason for people to control their temptation to not go for a Rs.14,000 top-of-the-line specs smartphone?
If I were to go by conventional public relations concepts, they won’t. Because negative publicity puts people off brands. They will wrap their craving and throw it deep into the crevices of their heart and move on in life.
Really? Who are we kidding?
A flash sale is precisely that. Limited numbers and a lot of people. At a great price and a product seemingly worth the low price, and more! If this happened offline – like a Big Bazaar flash sale, perhaps, where people move their butts out of their homes on a mid-week holiday, waited in the sun/rain outside the store for the gates to open, stampede amongst hundreds of people and sweat it out to fight to the billing queue – I can understand the anger and annoyance. Here, at best, a few hours of our time in front of the laptop/PC and reasonably tired fingers is the result. Yes, that is an annoyance, no doubt, but on the relative scale, it pales in comparison to the offline experience. The disappointment is palpable and comparable however – the reaction is, ‘I had my money ready and they dared not to satisfy my need?’.
In the offline world, the angry mob may vent their anger by pelting stones at the store. Online? 140 characters of anger and F words, till 6pm when the next registration opens. No, this is not about self-respect or treating customers like rabid dogs (as some tweets claimed). This is just a simple, awkward equation of limited supply and massive demand.
I was also reminded of my first violent experience while trying to buy the ticket for the Tamil film Gentleman, in Salem, in Tamil Nadu. I was new to the city and was with a new friend from college. We landed in the main theaters zone in Salem and there were a gazillion people waiting to buy tickets in all directions. It was the film’s second day (Saturday) and I witnessed police trashing random people on the queue because the overall queue was mighty unruly. I escaped getting hurt narrowly and ended up watching the film. That seems like a flash sale too, to me, though, tickets will be easily available on day 10 – for Xiaomi and Flipkart, it concerns manufacturing and production, so no such luck 🙂
So, the honest question – how many people who are dissing both the brands today will not try again? Does anybody care beyond creating noise about their disappointment beyond today? That too, in 140 characters?
If the perceived value of the product is so great, would this angry mob stay away when sale opens again?
I recall some people taking the example of Bajaj Scooters waiting time way back in time. On how we waited for a long time to get the scooter. Word did not spread this fast back then, but if the example of Bajaj Scooter (or a new car with a lot of perceived value and killer price in more recent times) is anything to go by, these things wouldn’t really matter to either Flipkart or Xiaomi.
Flipkart would obviously take it as a lesson to scale up their servers and anticipate loads better in the future. But is there any long term impact at all to either brand? Would people trust Flipkart less in the future with their money? Would people not trust Xiaomi’s future products?
Conventional wisdom says that if you disappoint prospective customers, they would not like your brand. But I wager that such conventional wisdom would not apply to these two brands, at least in this instance of social media outrage.
Or, they would apply only till the next registration opens, an hour later.
PS: I can hear some tell me that the least Flipkart and Xiaomi do is be honest about the number of phones they have, to sell. My counter question – what will happen if they say they have 5,000 phone to sell? Would it change any of the reaction? If there are more than 5,000 people interested in the phone (as per the BGR write-up), nothing would ever change in the sequence of trying to buy and outrage. So, why bother? For just the facade of transparency? I’m not so sure, but yes, that attempt at transparency may help to assuage the negativity to some extent. But if I’m arguing that the negativity itself is pointless, then – again – why bother? 🙂