Flipkart, Snapdeal in friendly 'tweet' exchange ahead of festive sales

E-commerce rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal indulged in a friendly exchange on Sunday, ahead of their festive season sales starting this week.

Snapdeal's Chief Product Officer Anand Chandrasekaran tweeted a picture of Flipkart's website being temporarily unavailable on Twitter and said, "Guess this is part of the app only strategy."

A few hours later, Flipkart's Chief Product Officer Punit Soni replied to his tweet and said, "Anand, my friend :) we were testing our servers to prep for BBD (Big Billion Day). Sorry you had issues. Best of luck for the festival season!"

@anandc Anand, my friend :) we were testing our servers to prep for BBD. Sorry you had issues. Best of luck for the festival season!

- punitsoni (@punitsoni) October 11, 2015

Finally, Chandrasekaran wished his counterpart good luck for the festive season and said, "Punitsoni got it, it looked like web users were being left out in an app-only focus."

Flipkart's Big Billion Day sale, which is app-only, is scheduled from 13-17 October, while Snapdeal kick-started its festive offering today with 'Electronics Monday' sale. The e-tailer says it will bring a set of mega deals for consumers every Monday across different categories till Diwali. Amazon India, too, has a festival sale in the offing.

Speculation has been rife about Flipkart shutting down its website and going app-only in near future after Myntra, the online fashion retailer it had acquired in 2014, went app-only this year. Although Flipkart so far has not announced any such plans, it accepts that it follows a mobile-centred approach.

Last year's festive season had seen a war between the two top e-tailers of the country, with Flipkart's 'Big Billion Day' clashing with Snapdeal's 'Big Sale Day'. Both e-tailers had claimed that they had sold products worth an estimated Rs 600 crore each during these sales.