GOSF 2014: Analyzing Google Online Festival Challenge as it happens

Google Online Shopping Festival - India's very own online shopping festival on the lines of Black Friday Shopping festival in the US will be held from 10 to 12 Dec this year. More than 450 online partners are expected to share their best deals during the 3 day hoo-haa.

Multiple campaigns have been going on at www.gosf.in in the run up to the event and companies are rolling out exciting offers to lure the customers. There has been a series of 14 minutes of free shopping offer that started on 25 Nov 2014 and ran up to 08 Dec 2014 under which each day a new brand from the total list of 14 partner brands have been offering new ways for winning 14 min of free shopping to the lucky customers. Use of Twitter in most of these contest has been notable with more of less every single one of these brands asking the consumers to follow their Twitter page to enter into the contest and then asking the consumer to share their opinion/quotes etc. with relation to the products offered by the brand.

Today I received an email from eBay saying:

GOSF comes early on eBay.in | Flat Rs.100 Off Coupon inside | Shop Now!

Folks at eBay: Great that you are starting early but seriously do you really want to classify this as a GOSF offer? I mean my inbox is almost full with brands including yours offering better offers all these while when there was no GOSF buzz. Please reconsider your decision to participate or your offers, cause if this you are spending your marketing budget on GOSF with such offers you are better off continuing with your regular promotions.

Moving onto PREFERRED PARTNER Aditya Birla Money MyUniverse - Guys, the amount of spam that you generate every single week with your 70% off on 5 year plan and Sunday is a saving day on MyUniverse is equal to the spam generated by five online shopping sites put together. We have had enough of it. Please either drop the subscription price itself or open up some new features at the same price. And please, seriously please, do not come up with a new good looking banner Ad (like you always do) with the same old bogus offer during GOSF. Yours is a good product yaar. Spend some money on educating people how to make the most of it rather than just focusing on driving the subscriptions.

We will add more stuff as the GOSF rolls out tomorrow and in coming days. Follow this blog if you find the article interesting!

Update DDA Housing Scheme 2014 Refund/Money back

As per reports DDA is expected to return the deposit amount of Rs. 100,000/- (Rupees One Lakh) by end of this month i.e. 24 Dec, 2014. Though initially DDA has said that it will return the security deposit of Rs. 100,000/- (One Lakh rupees) of unsuccessful applications within three months of holding the draw of lots, it is now aiming at returning the amount by 24th Dec 2014.

As per the information available with us people who had filled their forms using SBI have started getting their money back. We have asked HDFC bank on the status of payments and as per their response demand drafts have been sent on the residential addresses of the applicants who filed their applications through HDFC Bank. Some online forums suggest that applicants who registered using SBH too have received refund payments.

DDA generates a significant amount of interest on the registration amount it collects from the applicants. This amount is used for DDA’s housing and other projects. As per news articles it is DDA vice-chairman Balvinder Kumar's decision that DDA is aiming to return the registration amount within a month.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) had mentioned it in their brochure at annexure “B” that DDA will refund registration money through the nodal branches of bank at which applicants have submitted the form either online or offline mode

If you are one of the unsuccessful applicants, you don’t need to visit the bank branches for refund of registration money as the registration money will be credited back to your account automatically through the nodal branch of the bank through which you have submitted the application form.
However, if you do not received your money within 90 days then you are suggested to contact nodal officer of the bank as given in annexure B of the brochure. DDA or the bank will not entertain application for refund, loss/mutilation and non-encashment of refund cheque one year after the closure of this scheme.

This announcement comes as a relief for many applicants who have their money stuck with DDA as a non-performing asset cause DDA will not be paying any interest to the applicants for this period. However, there are rumors that DDA will be paying 8 percent interest if there is delay in repaying the money back to the applicants. For applicants who had availed financing schemes from participating banks it means that they will need to pay lesser interest to the bank if the terms and conditions of the concerned financing agreement allow so.

For more details you may refer:
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/your-money/article-dda-housing-scheme-unsuccessful-applicants-may-get-refund-by-december-24-714046