Several Indian brands including mobile phones and eCommerce sites have offered huge bonanza for this year’s Black Friday sale on 23 November. Flipkart has already announced that Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 6 Pro, which is being launched in India on 22 November, will go on first sale on Flipkart on Friday. The sale for this newly launched mobile phone will start from 12 noon on Friday.
Flipkart in particular has dedicated a page for Black Friday sale. The page, which is showing ‘currently unavailable’ will show all offers from late Friday morning.
Rival Amazon too has decided to make the most of this year’s Black Friday sale as it too has dedicated a page for the occasion. Its sale will last for four days. The message by the e-retailer said on its website, “Shop Black Friday deals directly from Amazon.com starting 1:30 PM, 23rd November 2018 to 1:30 PM, 27th November 2018.”
The advantage of shopping on Amazon while sitting in India is that you can take advantage of its US sale too and get your hands on lucrative deals, not meant for Indians. But not all products are eligible for international listing, so you need to be careful in picking your selection. A particular care is needed while buying smartphones from the US since offers on phones there are often linked to monthly plans and bundles and may not be relevant to Indians.
Also, if you are shopping from online stores not based in India, you will need to pay additional charge for delivery and towards custom duty. Most of these websites offer you tools to calculate your prices.
You also need to see the price difference since most of these brands also available in India. If the difference between the local price and cost of buying online with shipping and duty fees isn’t much, you will need to decide if the exercise is worth your efforts.
For example, Gap USA has decided to offer everything at half price on Black Friday. You could either get them shipped to India through third party services or have them delivered to someone you know in the US. Again, don’t forget to compare the price with how they are being sold in India, since Gap is now available in India too.
For those who are clueless about Black Friday phenomenon and how it became so popular, it’s the day after Thanksgiving in the US, where retailers have traditionally offered lucrative deals to their customers. The phenomenon has caught up with Indians too and brands like Amazon and Flipkart have been offering deals under the Black Friday tag.
The similar event in the UK takes place during Christmas and the New Year, when brands across the board offer massive discounts on products both in sores and online.