Update: The newer import records state that they imported 13000 more phones on 13th and not selling them seems like a stupid thing. So, there can be a possibility that they did sell 10,000 pieces on the sale day and the below analysis was wrong.
Yu, the wholly owned subsidiary of Micromax is under some severe criticism after the first flash sale of its Yureka smartphone. The company claimed that it sold 10,000 Yureka smartphones in the flash sale that lasted for 3 seconds, whereas facts and figures are proving it wrong. While others were trying to grab a Yureka, some eagle-eyed users managed to look at the code that was running behind the scenes to keep the lightening deal live on Amazon. The response clearly shows that only 3000 units were added in the lightening deal and it was halted mid way after 3 seconds by the time 2657 units were claimed by the buyers. That coupled with the import stats is enough to a judgement which should hold true unless Micromax/Yu or Amazon have a way to prove the claims wrong.
Apparently, during lightening deals, Amazon’s website constantly pings the backed servers to update the status of the deal in real time so that the deal can be halted as and when its target is accomplished. The response which can be viewed in the developer console (which is accessible on most modern browsers by press F12) not just includes the basic details like Available/SoldOut, but much more than that. The response for the Yureka lightening deal included the following:
- totalCouponCount: 3000
- claimedCouponCount: 2657
- percentClaimed: 88
- type:
LIGHTNING_DEAL - title: Yureka
- dealPrice: 8999
- currentPrice: 12999
As can be seen, the sale sale was halted after 3 seconds when not even 100% of the 3000 units were sold. You can read more about this response on Abhay Rana’s blog post titled “Yu were mislead”) here. He is the one who unfolded this foul play.
Besides this, the records on website Zauba.com which keeps a record of the Indian imports and exports show that only 7200 Yu AO5510 devices were imported in the Indian shores with the last lot of 1800 pieces being imported on 9th of January. Clearly, how can they sell 10,000 of them when only 7200 were imported? The data from Zauba cannot be taken as a solid proof, but still, it does help.
Why was this done?
The simple and clear answer is “for marketing and publicity”. Selling 10,000 smartphones in 3 seconds is such a lovely stats number which can easily go viral in the online media. The more time a flash sale takes, the less attractive it gets and the lesser media attention it gets. So, it was clearly a planned affair that Amazon will put up only 3000 units for sale and the sale should not last any longer than 3 tick-tocks of the clock.
As to why they only put up 3000 units for sale is something that cannot be said. Maybe they want to use the same stock for the next sale?