Flipkart the first and leading online shopping site of India which introduces the flash sale concept. Though it look little different from normal sale but it marks as one of the most successful and most marketable sale concept in India. First mobile that came in flash sale was Xiaomi.

It was a huge success to them. After this Flipkart released so many mobiles on flash sale to gain user attraction. In every flash sale day within a span of 2-3 secs more than 50,000 mobiles got sold. The registered number of people for the recent sale of Letv Le 1s was close to 1 million, have you ever wondered about

How this sale concept work?
Registration: User have to register for sale. Deadline of registration is 1 hour before sale.

On sale: check your internet connection and be ready. First come first serve is policy. As soon as sale time begin a buy now button will appear in place of countdown. Click as fast as possible.

What happens at the time of sale?
Flipkart starts showing count down 3-4 hrs. before the sale if you have registered for it. At the time of sale i.e. 12 pm (The question here is which 12 PM?) a buy now button appears and when you click on it, a request is sent to the server and it adds the mobile to your cart if all mobiles are not sold out and responds back to the browser if you got the mobile or not.

Now what is supposed to happen is that just at the time of sale Flipkart must reload sale page and add buy now button to the page. And this is exactly what Flipkart used to do in sale before Letv Le 1s sale. But now the situation is different.

What is the difference between previous flash sales and Letv Le 1s sale?
Recently, Flipkart has changed the way to appear the button. Now the code of button remain hidden in sale page itself (check image) on sale day (with class “fk-hidden” which has display=none). And coding for showing the remaining time for flash sale is done in JavaScript- Letv Le 1s Flipkart countdown and sale button.

Now if you don’t have knowledge about web design then let me tell you that JavaScript works on your device. And when time of your device reached to 12 pm, it change the visibility from hidden to visible. And “Buy Now” button will be visible to you irrespective of actual time. You can also check it buy changing your laptops time.

Why I am not able to buy Letv Le 1s?
Sale of Flipkart is running on their server and JavaScript is running in your device. So if time of these two servers is not synchronized then you won’t be able to buy mobile in any condition. Suppose your laptop clock is 10 Sec ahead than actual time then buy now button will appear before 12 PM and when you will click you will see a pop-up will appear “Sale has not been started yet”. This video about the stupidity of Flipkart uploaded by Nabeel Nawab is a perfect proof of this

And on other hand if your device time lags behind actual time even by 2-3 seconds, “BUY NOW” button will appear 2-3 seconds later than actual start time. And as you know that Letv Le 1s sale lasts for only 2-3 seconds, you will see the disabled buy now button check this video by Hinglish Reviews.

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How did we got to know about it ?
Actually we had to book one letv le 1s on 9 Feb 2016. We (Me and my friend) were checking whether our extension is working correctly or not during sale . In our extension, it has been clearly mention that just before 3 min of sale color of extension will change to green. I just ping him 3 min ago that did color of extension change? He said no it will change just 3 min ago right 1 min is still left.

We didn’t understand what going on. Here is snapshot of chat between me and my friend on sale day. Then we tried to find out the reason and got to know about Flipkart’s stupidity.

How to solve this problem?
Now comes the solution part, what can we do to solve this problem and grab a Letv Le 1s in flash sale. Well, you have to just download Flipshope extension from chrome store. You can also download it from here.

How does Flipshope solve this problem?
If you have installed Flipshope chrome extension in your device, it will auto buy Letv Le 1s for you. What it does is it takes the time from server which is synchronized with Flipkart’s time and click on buy now button exactly at 12:00 PM irrespective of that, that button is visible to you or not. Apart of it at also keep on checking the visibility of button and clicks on it as soon as it become visible.

If I use any alternative of auto buy will it work for me?
We can assure you that nothing is going to work except Flipshope extension unless you are extremely lucky. What will happen is the script (or any other alternative) keeps on clicking on buy now button irrespective of sale start time and when the button will be visible to you it will show the message the sale not yet started. Because you can click on it only once which script has already done before sale has been started.

What is Flipshope Extension?
Flipshope is a chrome add-on which is developed by a group of students of IIT Kharagpur and IIT Guwahati to solve the problems related to online shopping and make it easy and enjoyable. You can download it in your chrome browser on Laptop or desktop.

What does Flipshope extension do except auto buy and how does it help in making shopping easy?
Except of auto buy for flash sale we provide features like Coupons, Deals, Compare and Price Graph on the website page itself. For example you want to buy a Moto G from Amazon or Flipkart then when you will go to Moto G page of corresponding site, you will see a bar on right hand side which has coupons and deals of that site only. And hence you won’t have to search for best coupons and deals on google.

Apart from that you will see a compare button also which will show you the price of same product (Moto G in this case) across all other shopping sites. And at last you will see a price graph button which will show you the historic daily price of product as everyone knows that prices are very dynamic on these e-Commerce websites so from price graph you can get to know the best time to buy the product. So overall you will get all shopping related help using this one extension.

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What are flash sales?
A flash sale is a discount or promotion offered by an ecommerce store for a short period of time. The quantity is limited, which often means the discounts are higher or more significant than run-of-the-mill promotions. The time limit and limited availability entice consumers to buy on the spot – aka impulse buying.

While any ecommerce store can use flash sales as a valuable promotional marketing tactic, some companies’ entire business models leverage flash sales. Zulily, for example, is a flash sales site that targets busy moms, offering items like baby clothes and baby accessories at significantly reduced prices for a limited period of time.

How flash sales can help grow your business
Flash sales can be an extremely effective method for quickly unloading excess inventory, turning a negative into a positive in a matter of hours. While it’s ideal to sell products on a consistent basis, planning your inventory to perfectly match upcoming customer needs is nearly impossible. In fact, Reuters reported during the 2012 holiday shopping season that ecommerce retailers that utilized flash sales grew twice as fast as online retailers that did not use this tactic.

Flash sales are also a great way to sell items that are either out of season or have been sitting in catalogs for some time. This leads to lower operating and inventory costs on the back end: if a company can sell products that have been sitting in a warehouse for a short or even long period of time, they make room for newer inventory that’s selling quickly.

Lastly, flash sales present a great opportunity to increase brand awareness. Flash sales can put your store on the radar of deal sites and blogs all over the Web, vastly expanding your visibility in the process. While flash sales can be nothing more than a short-term stimulus, they offer the chance to tell customers about your other products and value proposition.

How to run a successful flash sale
When executed properly, ecommerce sites can leverage the benefits of running a flash sale. There are a handful of guardrails business owners should keep in mind:

  • – Determine the goal of your flash sale, which, for instance, could be clearing out excess inventory or raising awareness.
  • – Keep the sale simple. Don’t make customers jump through hoops to take advantage of the sale.
  • – Choose a target group and tailor the flash sale to that market.
  • – Be timely. Different target markets spend money at different times. Make sure your flash sale is as relevant as possible.
  • – Once you’ve determined when to offer the sale, keep the time frame short. This will inspire urgency.
  • – Make your discount stand out. A flash sale should offer significant savings compared to what customers could find elsewhere.
  • – Promote the flash sale using marketing, social media and SEO.
  • – Monitor the sale and provide excellent customer service throughout the duration of the sale. Flash sales are only meaningful if they leave customers with a positive perception of your company.
  • – Make sure your terms of service are clear.
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I’ll explain the concept of flash sales and you’ll know why many companies are using it and how it actually works.

Let’s say that you’re hungry and you’re going to a restaurant. You’ll look at the menu and will order only the things you know mostly and will have.

Then one day, the restaurant is advertising that there is going to be “Chef’s spl food” for the season. Some xyz will be food prepared and served only between 7-10pm, on a specific date. They’ll tell it’s surprising, delicious, organic etc characteristics..

It will have limited slots and hence, advance booking will be required and it might open in couple of days from the day it is advertised.

By seeing the advertisement, you’ll be tempted to know what’s so spl in it and why is it available only in limited quantities and only at a specific time alone.

You’ll get the urge that you should definitely know why and want to try out somehow. You’ll try to go but it would have got over or you couldn’t get it reserved. The curiosity and urge will increase.

They’ll again do for the next season. This time you’ll be determined to somehow try it out. Then there are chances where you could have missed it again. The cycle will continue and by chance, somehow you manage to get booked and taste it..

When it happens, you’ll be like you got something which others tried and couldn’t get it.. So you’ll be proud and happy about it. You’ll start boasting about it and this acts as word of mouth publicity for them. Its very powerful and nothing can beat it.

Now let’s consider the current situation. E-Commerce business is booming, Traffic is increasing day by day.. Who are these buyers? Tech savvy and educated customers..

When they publish flash sales with good specifications etc, at lower price (Chinese products). That too advanced registration and limited stock, you’ll try to get it.. But wantedly they won’t sell more units.

From the registrations, they’ll try to estimate the demand for their products and ship but less than that. They artificially create a hype that so many products sold in a minute or so and stocks are no longer available.

Those who didn’t get will be disappointed and will try to buy from next flash sales. Word of mouth will spread.. Newspapers will advertise.. Create a greater hype..

These products are mostly targeted at the youths.. Particularly college students.. They need cheap and good specs.. They create this irresistible feeling and subliminal perception towards their products.. They’ll create an artificial necessity for it..

Thus ppl fall for it and the company gets good publicity while making huge profits. It’s latest marketing gimmicks played by their Marketing department!!!

Some are lucky and some are wantedly made to feel missing out something which others get. Nobody likes that feel and people keep trying for it. This is being exploited by the firms through flash sales. #KhabarLive

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