The ecommerce giant recently hosted its biggest sale of the year, also known as the Big Billion Days recently and their biggest highlight of this sale had to be the iPhone 13 discount. Yes, the base 128GB variant was discounted to ₹49,990 for the first few minutes of the Big Billion Days sale and people pounced on it!
The Big Billion Days Sale and its iPhone 13 saga
Last year we remember Flipkart slashed the price of the iPhone 12 to the same ₹49,990 and iPhone 12 Mini for ₹34,990, however, it lasted only for an hour or so. This time, with enormous advertisements and people having trust in Flipkart, pounced on the sale with everything they had.
I could imagine millions of people ordering a pricey phone like iPhone 13 without any difficulty and longing to finally upgrade to one of the best iPhones Apple has ever made. I am sure a lot of people might have thought we will easily get iPhones and upgrade finally, which is a fair thought in a developing country like India.
That made things crazy and mean obviously, a lot of people like me who wanted this iPhone 13 made angry on Flipkart, who was shamelessly showing “Rush Hour” and we are experiencing huge traffic which is why they weren’t able to load even the product page sometimes. Now, lucky people actually could see the Payment options for the first few minutes and after that, the sale turned out to be a nightmare for many.
People like me who were confused to see no discounts even on the Payment page using the Flipkart Axis Bank credit card did pause a bit and of course, the payment gateway of Axis bank crashed to make things even worse. So, only had-selected people got this iPhone 13 for ₹49,990 which could reduce further to around Rs.45.5k with Flipkart Axis Bank Credit card discounts.
The Time game
Now, within 10 minutes of tremendous struggles and hardships, it felt like iPhone 13 was gone, yes, I am not joking. Flipkart quickly was transitioning its prices and that’s why the price was reflected at the original ₹69,990 price, however, after a lot of despair, when I was just going to give up, Flipkart changed the base variant price from ₹49,990 to ₹51,990 and the time was around 12:30 AM.
Without having a second thought again I pounced to grab hold of the Starlight color of the iPhone 13, which turned out to be in most demand. Seeing this one price increase I already knew, Flipkart will play the time game yet again much like it did last year with the iPhone 12s. As the demand was insane, getting one for me was very difficult, however, my colleague @anupammodak02 did help to get the variant which I wanted badly.
It cost me an effective ₹47.5k after the bank discounts, which to be fair was not bad at all and I knew if I didn’t react then Flipkart will not be shy to further increase prices. And it happened, the commerce giant again increased the pricing to ₹53,990, yes, it was Rs.4k more expensive within an hour of Big Billion Day‘s opening night sale that was limited to Plus members only.
A lot of friends or known members actually bought it at Rs.54k and were able to order this iPhone 13 at night, however, Flipkart had no intention this time to stable its prices. As time crossed, Flipkart increased pricing by Rs.1k and by the morning of the 22nd the price went to a rock-solid ₹54,990. Now, as of 23rd, the pricing of this same iPhone 13 base variant touched a whopping ₹58,990, yes, this could be called a scam by many.
This type of shady sales needs to be stopped
The fact that Flipkart had advertised and made ventures to let everyone know one can get an iPhone 13 for ₹49,990 only was valid only for the first 10 minutes of the Big Billion Days sale. A lot of people who dreamt of getting one will not be able to pay the humongous increased pricing and a suggestion to Flipkart will be to put a big asterisk beside the pricing next time.
Instead of calling these to be “Sales” actually, this should be called Time Game – Get iPhone 13 at this ₹4X,990 pricing for a limited time only. Considering I was lucky enough to get it at still a good price makes me guilty of the fact that Twitter is bursting out of anger, calling this sale as the “Biggest Scam” on the shady sales of iPhones on Flipkart, especially for the iPhone 13.
Well, this time Flipkart was not the only culprit out there because Amazon India also followed a similar pattern increasing the prices of the iPhone 12 with time and other Apple products like iPads or even Apple Watch as well. A lot of Non-Prime members or Plus members skipped on this, which is fair for both e-commerce giants as they are prioritizing their privileged members.
However, fake advertisements and telling prices which won’t exist after some time is shady behaviour I would say and both Flipkart as well as Amazon India should work on this in future.
