e-commerce
GOSF: Bringing out the shopping bug
MUMBAI: The e-commerce sector is booming and how. The very purple patch, every now and then, gets a boost with OTT sale bonanzas.
The addictive online shopping portals lured customers through Big Billion Sale or Diwali Dhamaka Week throughout this year, but the icing on the cake has been the Google promoted Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF).
The 72 hour shopping festival was expected to bring out the crazy shopaholic within us all, and if stats are to be believed then it has succeeded in many ways. For instance, in December LimeRoad, witnessed explosive growth that sent its implied revenue run rate shooting up to Rs 450 crore on the first day of GOSF 2014 – this despite the platform being only focused on women.
Quick deliveries, cash on delivery, and big deals have made it hard for even non-shoppers to resist the temptation to shop online.
The portals too are glad to have made the most of it.
“Successful in creating a delightful shopping frenzy, Google Online Shopping Festival this year has witnessed a great response from the consumers. Three days of this shopping carnival is not less than some annual festival that customers await around this time of the year. On the first day itself, we have observed an extraordinary leap with our revenue rising four times compared to our sales on any regular day. There has been a rise in revenue from mobile at least by six times as compared to the last GOSF. Even the traffic from GOSF on the website has significantly risen by eight times as compared to the last year. This tremendous excitement shown by our customers has made us open doors to some of the best offers from exclusive brands like River Island, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge and more. All in all, we are geared to double the excitement and make this festival bigger, better and brighter like never before,” said Jabong.com founder and MD Praveen Sinha.
Added, LimeRoad founder and CEO Suchi Mukherjee, “Whilst the growth in sales is interesting and a reflection of our non-linear growth curve throughout the rest of this year, we are super delighted both at the scale and at the trajectory of our organic traffic.”
Speaking about the response on GOSF 2014, CouponDunia.in CEO and founder Sameer Parwani said, “So far we have seen a very good response to GOSF. Our traffic increased 4X as compared to the daily traction on the website. There was a massive spike as soon as GOSF started during midnight however the traffic peaked the highest on the first day of GOSF during lunch hours.”
However, he believes that GOSF 2014 was comparatively lukewarm if 2013 edition is taken into account. One of the reasons for this is the kind and number of deals merchants provided compared to GOSF last year or even for that matter deals during Diwali, a few months back. “GOSF 2014 deals were both, less in number and not providing as deep discounts as we’d expected. Also some of the bigger players, have already exhausted their best offers due to their own festivals like Flipkart’s Big Billion Day, Amazon’s Appiness day and Snapdeal’s ongoing 9am to 9pm shopping fest. Most of them have offered almost 40-50 per cent discounts on regular days or their special days, so they do not have anything bigger than that to offer at the moment.”
He also added, “As a result of frequent online shopping festivals, these festivals are no longer a novelty factor for the consumer. They have higher expectations and expect the best from everyone and are not impressed easily now it is the e-tailer’s turn to come up with better and bigger deals every festival to meet these demands and expectations.”
e-commerce
Flipkart cuts around 300 jobs in annual performance review
E-commerce giant trims ~1.5 per cent of workforce as IPO preparations continue.
MUMBAI: Flipkart just gave performance the pink slip because when the annual review bell rings, even the biggest cart sometimes needs to lighten its load. Flipkart has let go of approximately 300 employees as part of its annual performance management cycle, Moneycontrol reported on 7 March 2026, citing people familiar with the matter. The exits represent roughly 1.5 per cent of the company’s total workforce of around 20,000 people across its businesses.
The move follows Flipkart’s standard practice of asking employees placed in lower performance bands to leave during yearly reviews, a process the company has carried out periodically in recent years. A similar exercise in early 2024 saw around 1,000 employees (nearly 5 per cent of the workforce) exit.
The latest round comes amid Flipkart’s continued push for operational efficiency and cost discipline, mirroring broader trends across the Indian startup ecosystem where funding slowdowns have shifted focus toward profitability.
The development also arrives as Flipkart advances preparations for a potential domestic IPO. The company has held early discussions with investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Kotak Mahindra Capital to explore feasibility. Industry sources indicate a possible listing timeline of late 2026 or early 2027, though the final size and schedule remain undecided.
In December 2025, Flipkart received National Company Law Tribunal approval to shift its holding company domicile from Singapore back to India. a key regulatory step that simplifies the group structure ahead of a public market debut.
Controlled by Walmart, Flipkart remains one of India’s largest e-commerce platforms, locked in fierce competition with Amazon. In a market where every rupee counts and every headcount is scrutinised, the latest cuts aren’t just housekeeping, they’re part of a bigger balancing act between growth ambitions and the road to listing.
