How Do Flash Sales Work?
Flash sales have become extremely popular these days. There are several websites which are dedicated to providing flash sale opportunities to their customers. Rue La La would be a great example of such a website. It exclusively sells products on flash sales and has a turnover of over $100 million.
On the other hand, there are some websites where there are intermittent flash sales. Some companies have adopted flash sales as the only method to sell their merchandise. A remarkable case of this is the company Xiaomi. This Chinese corporation is the largest seller of smartphones in India. However, these smartphones are not sold via shops or even online sales. The company opens a short window of a few minutes every week to sell these products. This company is clocking revenue worth over a billion dollars and is only following the flash sale method to generate sales.
It would, therefore, be appropriate to say that flash sales have become very important in the marketing world. Yet, very few people know how a flash sale works and what goes on behind the scenes. In this article, we will have a closer look at what flash sales are.
What is a Flash Sale?
Flash sales are meant to sell products at deep discounts. In many cases, the product may be sold at their retail price. However, due to the high demand that these products face, they may be using the flash sale route to distribute the product to customers. However, the bottom line is that customers expect superior value from a flash sale. If there is no special offer on a product, people are not going to waste their time queuing up online to buy it.
It needs to be understood that flash sales are by no means a modern invention. Many brick and mortar stores have been using this model to sell slow moving stock. Flash sale websites are just aggregating the process and making it easier for the retailers.
For instance, earlier ten different retailers had to hold ten different sales. There were promotional costs involved and also this led to the dilution of the brand image. Flash sale websites, on the other hand, buy products from all the retailers at an even more discounted price. They then sell it to customers for a profit. This saves each store the trouble of organizing its own sale.
How Do Flash Sale Websites Operate?
Challenges Facing Flash Sale Websites
To sum it up, flash sale websites had a promising business model. However, they are also facing a lot of challenges.
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