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Originally Posted by Saanil I know as a consumer, getting low prices is good for me but selling stuff worth Rs100 for Rs80 is not good in the long term - this is just my opinion. |
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Originally Posted by Saanil What I intend to say is that prices of all quantities should not keep on decreasing.
During the sale I saw a very frightening side of consumerism - buying stuff which one does not need. |
Why should prices
not keep on decreasing .. or have we become so cynical that we resist such a thing? There are so scores of sectors / products that have become consistently cheaper over the years (in inflation adjusted terms) and both buyers and sellers are doing just fine. Stuff worth Rs 100 cannot be indefinitely sold at Rs 80 - in which case the pricing was wrong to start with or the seller is not interested in making a profit; as long as no coercion or fraud is involved I don't believe its anyone's business to mind market pricing (with a small exception of predatory pricing that I'll write a few words on later below).
Consumerism may be frightening, I agree (that's the basis for my Rs 1 lakh T-72 joke which I'm sure many will want to buy) - but living responsibly means doing everything in moderation and knowing one's limits, be it alcohol or spending.
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Originally Posted by GrammarNazi IMO this should seriously be considered and Competition Commission of India should prevent this.
Why? Just because you have a fat VC funding doesn't mean you follow such practices to kill competition and capture the market. |
Predatory pricing in India by definition applies only to firms in a dominant position and in addition requires the presence of an intention to kill competition. As such there is no way CCI can investigate this (flipkart sale). As a strategy it is very difficult to implement (
even for dominant players, leave aside new entrants) and leaving aside niche products or goods where entry barriers are high, predatory pricing has never been successful so as to warrant regulatory intervention. On the contrary history is actually replete with examples of firms who attempted lower-than-cost pricing to gain market share but failed (PCL Computers, Air Deccan, etc.) Competition law generally favours concrete short term benefits to consumers over uncertain long term pitfalls and therefore takes a lenient view on circumstances where pricing is predatory. In the USA, there has not been a
single case where regulatory prosecution for predatory pricing has succeeded in a court
in over 20 years!!
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Originally Posted by GrammarNazi Even as a customer the FK sale made me feel horrible, I was really just looking for some good deals, not a charity where people grabbed whatever they got (for unreasonably cheap prices) and ran away. |
Why feel horrible? FK is not into charity, they are sellers for profit; if they succeeded (without coercion or fraud) in influencing responsible adult men and women sitting on computer terminals thousands of km away to buy all kinds of rubbish that they don't need, kudos to them. Personally I did not find Flipkart offering much of a discount on the stuff I wanted and in any event we all know the steal deals were more of a marketing gimmick so even the bogey of mobs of buyers going insane and buying Rs 10k phones and tablets for Rs 1k did not materialise.
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Originally Posted by GrammarNazi IMO Chances of such stuff happening at a brick & mortar store are MUCH lower (and even they'd cater to customers - not resellers). |
Speaking from my own experience I believe the chances of being cheated, hustled or missold at a Brick and Mortar shop are
much higher than online. Such shops thrive on limited access to information, feeling of an obligation to buy something once you enter, no access to comparison of products and narrow range of inventory. For all its faults I am more comfortable shopping online, especially now that the product delivery of online portals is more mature and options like COD are available. Frankly if there was some way to order perishables and food online I'd go for it.
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Originally Posted by GrammarNazi Shopping is alot about the experience and the sense of occasion, online shopping needs to be more 'humanized', failing which I doubt it'd take off like people make it out. |
Perhaps you are referring to luxury goods, or very close trusted physical shops but for most other items, online retailing (and wholesaling) has
already changed the way we shop... in the overwhelming majority of cases, for the better. For the most part, it is permits easy comparison of prices (air tickets, phones, shoes), allows us to buy hard-to-get products (like a size 11 shoe), shop from international sources (Aliexpress, newegg), shop at leisure (at 11 pm), avoid annoyances like parking, rude staff and checkout queues. It has already taken off in a big way. If physical shopowners cannot presently compete with flipkart or amazon they should find some business where they can.