The flash sale business concept has worked for the Chinese smartphone manufacturer. It’s hard to put a timeline on when the term “flash sale” began to take shape, and which country it predominantly culminated from. However, since the boom of the Asian Mobile Commerce Markets in 2014, smartphone manufacturers have introduced a slew of innovative ideas to market their products.
on 6 October 2014, Xiaomi, in collaboration with e-commerce giant Flipkart, launched its first flash sale. This was at the time the biggest phenomenon hit retail e-commerce, and was even given a name: “The Big Billion Days.”
The Big Billion Days
The day saw an unprecedented $10 million worth of Redmi phone sales in a short period of time (sometimes less than 2 minutes). The Chinese smartphone manufacturer made the most of the buying frenzy while minimizing costs in part due to the flash sale logistic model that it employed.
Xiaomi has since managed to release their phones exclusively online, and they usually go out of stock within minutes or even seconds of being launched. As a result, what the manufacturer has done is completely bypass the concept of sales, advertising, and brick and mortar stores.
Xiaomi Flash Sales
The flash-sale business concept is relatively easy to understand, but highly effective nonetheless. The manufacturer introduces a limited number of a particular product at a specific day and time.
Prior to the start of the flash sales, the manufacturer promotes this day (note: not the product). Using this online flash sale model, Xiaomi has risen to become the largest smartphone manufacturer with a 6% Y-o-Y growth.
In the year 2018, the e-commerce site Flipkart crashed with the sale of Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro. The sale witnessed Xiaomi’s entire product line-up being sold-out within three minutes of commencement. After the sale ended, Flipkart announced that it had sold a record-breaking three hundred thousand smartphones within three minutes of the sale. This sale was such a big hit that there was an even larger number of customers who were not able to purchase the phone due to the limited quantity.
How does it Work?
The flash-sale phenomenon was first introduced as a strategy employed by the manufacturer to gauge which smartphone models were likely to be a success in the market. This trend gave Xiaomi a very good insight to drive future production of its smartphone models.
This is how the flash sales work:
1. Customers
first register on the e-commerce website.
2. Once
the flash sale date and time are announced, they must log in to the account.
3. At
the specific time of the sale, the customer must add the desired phone to their
shopping cart.
4. To
be one of the lucky buyers, customers must pay and checkout as soon as
possible.
Marketing Buzz
Since its inception, flash-sales have become the go-to marketing strategy for the smartphone manufacturer. Overtime, flash sales ensured that supply never outstripped demand and helped create a marketing buzz around its products. Customers were informed about the next flash sale via the Xiaomi website or on social media.
If they were unsuccessful in buying a phone this time around, they could try the next time again. This strategy worked wonders, as it gave the impression that everyone wanted a Xiaomi smartphone, and there was always a short supply of phones.
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