Fake discount trick may happen again in Single Day sales promotions

Lazada is the most highlighted platform resorting to fake discounts, which are a concern during Single Day sales

To boost shopping demand during big sales promotion seasons like Black Friday, Christmas, and Single Day, e-commerce firms have been regularly resorting to tricks, making people think that they bought goods at discount prices.

Along with trading in fake goods, Lazada, Southeast Asia's leading e-commerce platform has been constantly accused of using fake discount tricks.

During Black Friday two years ago (November 25, 2016), Lazada advertised selling iPhone 7 devices with a 42 per cent discount for VND15.2 million ($660). However, some experienced consumers stated that this price was higher than the market price at the time and the discount was referring to the introductory price of iPhone 7, which was VND25.99 million ($1,130).

In fact, a significant number of consumers regularly fall into the discount traps of e-commerce platforms, which target buyers with a strong preference for discounts to boost earnings during sales seasons.

This year, e-commerce platforms were keen to repeat last year's Single Day success, where on November 11 they achieved triple-digit revenue growth due to the largest sales promotion season of the year.

91 per cent discounts and delivery within two hours, 95 per cent discounts and free delivery, and Top 200 crazy deals are the slogans of e-commerce platforms’ biggest sales promotion event, November 11 – Single Day.

To kick off the programmes, Lazada, Tiki, Shopee, and Sendo, have entered into co-operation with retailers and brands to run month-long sales and discount programmes from November 9 to the middle of December.

Specifically, Lazada has issued 110,000 coupons with more than 1.1 million promotions. Tiki will stage lucky rounds, electronics promotions, and distribute discount codes worth VND10 billion ($43,478).

The e-commerce platforms began sales programmes one week before November 11 to learn more about the shopping behaviour of customers at this occasion to extend the customer base and the effectiveness of this year’s campaign.

The majority of promotions work with discount codes and offer enticing prices, but are only available for 1-2 hours, prompting customers to make fast decisions. In addition, the platforms keep customers up to speed via emails and smartphone notifications, keeping purse strings loose throughout the day.

“First, I intended to only buy a pair of shoes for half their original price. However, since the discount programmes started, I placed a total of six orders,” Nhu Uyen (Danang city) told VIR.

Three-digit growth?

According to online marketing platform Criteo, on November 11 last year e-commerce players’ sale turnovers grew by 238 per cent against the previous days and total visitor numbers increased by 78 per cent.

The results were based on a survey of 71 million transactions from computers, smartphones, and laptops. Accordingly, all platforms received the most shopping transactions between 10 AM and 9 PM, the time of promotions which drew in millions of people.

zing.vn quoted Silvia Slow, Criteo’s customer experience strategy director, as saying that advertisements based on customers’ hobbies and shopping behaviour sharply increased e-commerce platforms’ revenue.

In addition to growing sales revenues, the promotion programmes also helped to increase brands’ customer recognition.

With last year’s success, e-commerce players are pegging great expectations on this year’s promotions.

Single Day sales promotion campaigns were first launched nine years ago by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, the establisher of Alibaba Group. In addition to Black Friday, Single Day has quickly garnered huge interest among consumers across the globe.