Is ‘Artificial’ Shortage the New Way To Sell Mobiles in India?

Yogesh Sapkale 27 March 2019

Consumer Interest

Indian customers have, over the years, become accustomed to the phenomenon of online flash sales, but are they now being gamed or is it turning into a con game?

Recent flash sales, especially on Flipkart, seem to indicate that the sellers are offering a tiny number of handsets during the flash scale, probably as a bait to lure people online by offering a few phones. After all, online marketplaces are constantly having to create fake hype and advertise relentlessly to ensure that people keep visiting and spending online.

Mobile makers also seem to sell only lower-end phones in these flash sales, thus creating more demand (and possibly a black market) for higher end versions. But more about the black market later.

Around two-three weeks ago, Redmi India launched its Note 7 and Note 7 Pro in the country. Among these models, there is not much demand for Note 7 and it can be bought easily during the flash sale. For the Note 7 Pro, there are two versions. One comes with 4GB random access memory (RAM) and 64 GB internal memory and costs Rs13,999. The higher-end phone comes with 6GB RAM and 128 GB memory at Rs16,999. This mobile from Redmi is available exclusively on Flipkart.

Redmi Note 7 Pro has created a buzz among users. However, there still is no sign of the higher end-version. A few days ago, it was available on Flipkart as well as the company's portal. However, Redmi Note 7 Pro 6GB/128GB has now vanished altogether. A tweet from Redmi’s official handle says the higher-end phone would be available in coming weeks. Let us see how long it will be available.

@manukumarjain Sir it is really annoying that REDMI is not launching 6gb variant of Note 7 pro....instead of anxiousness it is creating anger every sale of hearing that 6gb variant is not launched....I request you deeply sir launch it...I am waiting since 2 months ??.@RedmiIndia
— ADK (@AdityaDeepakKh1) March 23, 2019

@RedmiIndia when will Redmi note 7 pro 6gb ram variant release? 3flash sale already happened Nd it's not available yet!! It's quite frustrating now!! If it's happen like this I have to go for other opt!!!
— Rohit Dahiya (@Rohitdahiya_) March 27, 2019

Coming back to the scarcity scenario for the Redmi Note 7 Pro, here is my experience. Earlier, I have successfully used Flipkart’s flash sales to buy different items. I have even bought the Redmi Y2 on a flash sale, over a year ago. But nothing seems to work for the Redmi Note 7 Pro; and all phones seem to be 'sold' within a fraction of a second. Even using the fastest Internet connection possible, all I could do was to press the buy button, only to see that the handset is 'out of stock'! How many phones did Redmi sell, if any? Or is it only a gimmick.

As expected, both Redmi and Flipkart do not reveal the exact number of mobile handsets sold during flash sales. We emailed Redmi’s India head, Manu Jain, for details, but the email has remained unanswered at the time of writing this story.

Experts feel that when there is good demand, especially for a mobile handset, the company should be working to maximise sales. There are new handsets entering the market everyday with better features and attractive prices; why would the company not exhaust its inventory when there is a demand for the product? Selling a limited number of phones through flash sale seems like a strategy to disappoint customers and drive them away.

While the company and Flipkart insist you can buy the handsets only through online flash sales, I have spoken to several retailers, who were willing to sell Redmi Note 7 Pro (lower version) if I paid Rs1,500-Rs3,000 extra. They were also clueless about availability of higher version of this phone model.

Something similar is happening at Samsung, albeit with a small difference. The higher version of Samsung A50 is available exclusively on Flipkart but without any flash sale. The problem is that this model becomes available only for few minutes and then goes out of stock almost immediately.

@manukumarjain Hi sir, you are comparing @Samsung M30 vs @Redmi Note 7 pro and showing how Note 7 pro is better in so many areas. I totally agree with you. But we'll still going to buy M30. Do you know why because it the only one available in market, both 4GB and 6GB variant.
— manjul rajput (@mkigraj3) March 26, 2019

As I stated above, the higher-end model of Samsung A50 (6GB/64GB) is visible on Flipkart. When I asked Amazon about this model, I was told that it would be made available on 21 March 2019. Indeed, it was available on that day, but with a delivery time of 12-15 days (even for an Amazon Prime member), when Flipkart was delivering the same in two days! Unfortunately, Amazon is now selling only lower-end (4GB/64GB) model, as of now.

The 6GB variant of Samsung A50 will be available in stock on March 21, 2019. For more information regarding this product, please visit https://t.co/68WIzlbUHB. ^KM
— Amazon Help (@AmazonHelp) March 18, 2019

The only difference between Redmi and Samsung is that the latter is easily available across platforms, while Redmi Note 7 Pro is not available at all with physical retailers. Also, Samsung's A50 higher version was readily available offline.

Most importantly, instead of paying 'extra' (like in case of Redmi Note 7 Pro) for Samsung, I could successfully bargain the price with several shopkeepers that I spoke to. Many offered me the A50 (6GB/64GB) model at a discount of Rs500 to Rs700, on an already discounted price of Rs22,990. The maximum retail price of this model is Rs24,000.

So, in the end, you may ask which mobile handset did I buy? None. I am expecting easy availability and a drop in prices for both the models mentioned above. The next version of popular OnePlus is on the horizon, while Amazon is offering steep discount on Apple iPhone X, in case you are interested.

Comments

User

MIHIR AVINASH KULKARNI

7 years ago

After reading your article related to smartphone features, I bought a decent smartphone. Thank you.

Anil Kumar

7 years ago

Thanks. Insightful article.

AAR

7 years ago

Ebay was the best platform for Indian Consumers thats why competitors closed it in India using their lobbying power.
It completely blocks Indians from buying directly from China 3rd party sellers.
Ebay sale page would have count of available quantity and how many were sold so far.

Just bring back Ebay.in