So Amazon India ended its Great Indian Festival (GIF) yesterday and launched GIF Happiness Upgrades starting today. In contrast, Flipkart ended its Big Billion Days yesterday to start the Diwali sale next week.
Apart from similar sale time periods, another interestingly comparable feature was that Amazon offered a 10% instant discount on HDFC Bank credit and debit cards and later shifted to a 10% instant discount on Axis Bank, Citi India and ICICI Bank credit and debit cards.Similarly, Flipkart worked with a 10% instant discount on State Bank of India credit and debit cards and later expanded with a 10% Instant Discount on Kotak Mahindra Bank and SBI credit and debit cards.(Repeated every detail to clear off biases, if any)
Observing these, my mind was swamped with many questions.
- What are the deciding factors which determine offers that are based on Instant Discount? How is cashback different, i.e. for the websites and the banks? How does a combination of both work?
- Differential discount amounts were capping on credit and debit cards. What factors influence these?
- How do banks & eCommerce sites decide on the percentage number 10? Why or why not can it be anything more or less?
- Which products do not qualify under certain bank offers but are available for website discounts and why? How does the bank differentiate in these cases?
- Both the sites liaised with competing banks on what all goes in deciding these partnerships, which make to the final stages. How are banking partners chosen for flagship sales and/or general ones?
Answers to these questions will be very intriguing to know!
Image courtesy: Coupon Hippo
