Google’s Great Online Shopping Festival – Deals to Watch

This year, Google has teamed up with DBS and SingPost to run a 72.hour-long Great Online Shopping Festive (GOSF) in Singapore. This is the first such mega online sale event of its kind in Singapore and it will be starting at 00:00hrs on 2 Feb 2015, sharp. 

Knowing Singaporeans’ obsession with deals, let’s see if this will break the Internet in Singapore.

In approximately two hours, the online shopping festival will bring deals from over 60 brands onto a common platform to customers across the country. Shoppers can dive into discounts and offers on everything from beauty to fashion, technology and travel. Discounts include up to 90 percent off electronics, over 80 percent off fashion brands, up to 75 percent off travel deals, up to 70 percent off beauty products and many more from favorites like Courts, Zalora, Agoda and Luxola.

I hope none of the mentioned brands’ websites will crash later on due to the sudden spike in online traffic.

I took a look at the official website and here are some of the deals you can expect:

Two blanket promotions to watch so you won’t miss out:

1.

The first 2000 registered shoppers to spend over a total of SGD168 with your DBS/POSB cards will receive an additional 15 percent rebate or up to SGD100 off. The offer can be applied over multiple receipts.

2.

SingPost is offering online shoppers access to 90 POPStations — or smart locker stations — around the island, which will allow us to collect, pay or even return their purchases round-the-clock. Additionally, brands powered by SingPost’s end-to-end eCommerce service such as shop.adidas.com.sg will be offering exclusive online pre-orders for their top-selling collections during the GOSF, while cocomi.com will be giving away Pandora bracelets for a minimum spend of SGD250.

“We’re excited to be teaming up with businesses across Singapore to celebrate the best of eCommerce here, and bring great deals from around the web to shoppers in the run up to Chinese New Year. Singaporeans are sophisticated shoppers and the Internet is a key part of the shopping process for them. Nearly 70 percent of shoppers research purchases online and almost half of these go on to complete their purchases on the web. And this is a trend that holds across devices — a staggering 12 percent of Singaporean Internet users shop on mobile at least once a week; that’s more than France, Germany or Japan!” said Joanna Flint, Country Director, Singapore, Google Asia Pacific, at the media preview last Thursday.

The online shopping trend continues to grow in Singapore. According to a study conducted by TNS, 69 percent of Singaporeans research products online before purchasing — this is ahead of the US at 52 percent, Germany at 54 percent and the UK at 62 percent. Of these Singaporeans shoppers, 45 percent also go on to complete their purchase online, a trend that is on par with other advanced economies including the US at 43 percent and Australia at 46 percent.

And Singaporeans are increasingly device-agnostic as well, shopping on their mobile devices in just the same way as they do on desktop. Nearly half of Singapore’s Internet users (49 percent) look for product information on their smartphones weekly, with 12 percent completing purchases on their phones. This is ahead of such markets as the US (41 percent and 12 percent, respectively), France (22 percent and 3 percent), Germany (23 percent and 8 percent) and Japan (24 percent and 5 percent).

At the media preview, bulk of the media queries were directed at Marcelo Wesseler, SingPost’s Senior Vice President of eCommerce. It appears that logistics and shipping is still a bugbear that consumers are not confident about in Singapore. Wesseler addressed the questions in stride and shared on SingPost’s new smart locker stations initiative. He also shared that he will be looking out for a travel deal during GOSF.

For me, I am hoping to buy a new smart TV to replace the current television in my living room which is broken. I am eyeing Courts for a good offer. Wish me luck! Happy shopping! 🙂