Google brings 'Cyber Monday' to India, partners e-commerce sites

Google India today said it has partnered with a host of e-commerce players including Flipkart, Snapdeal, Homeshop18, and makemytrip to bring to India its own version of 'Cyber Monday' on December 12.

Internet users can log on to 'www.gosf.in' and get deals for 24 hours on this day from over 50 partners across e-commerce, local and classified, online travel sites and BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) industries, Google said in a statement.

The festival will offer users an opportunity to shop for jewelry, shoes, apparel, travel packages, books, kidswear, gadgets, watches, computer accessories, health and fitness equipment, home decor products and real estate deals, it added.

First coined in 2005 as a marketing term by online retailers for the Monday coming after 'Black Friday', which itself is the name for Friday after Thanksgiving in the US, the 'Cyber Monday' has become a phenomenon over the years.

In 2010, comScore reported consumers spent USD 1.028 billion online on Cyber Monday (excluding travel) compared to USD 887 million in 2009.

With over 137 million Internet users in the country, India is witnessing a significant growth in the online activity. This is for the first time, an industry wide initiative of this scale is being attempted to offer users an incentive to gain from deals that they can find on the web on a single day, Google said.

"The initiative is aimed at encouraging shoppers to adopt online shopping with a focus to reach out to first time online buyers. The participating companies will also offer special deals for the first time buyers on their websites," it said.

"The online shopping industry is already over USD 1.5 billion and with this initiative, we want to reach out and promote online shopping to the first time buyers," Google India MD and VP Sales and Operations Rajan Anandan said.

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