Xiaomi Flash Sale in UK alleged to be fake, company apologises but refutes allegations

By Digit NewsDesk | Updated on 04-Jun-2020

04-Jun-2020

HIGHLIGHTS

A Xiaomi flash sale in UK went sour after customers figured out that Xiaomi’s website was coded to display the “out-of-stock” banner at the same time the flash sale went live.

Xiaomi did in the UK, what it has been doing in India for the longest time. The Chinese smartphone-maker is readying to open doors to its first store in London in just a few days, but before that could happen, the brand has been hit by controversy as its UK customers faced what Indian buyers have been facing for years – the famous flash sale. By now, everyone in India probably knows how flash sales work, you wait and wait and by the time the sale starts, you’re already too late and everything is out of stock. This is followed by companies claiming that they sold thousands of products in a matter of seconds. Flash Sales, be that of Xiaomi or any other brand, have been dubious, to say the least.

In UK, when Xiaomi promoted a “Flash Sale”, which it had earlier named “Crazy Deals”, it managed to entice many potential buyers with its 1 Pound smartphone deals. Just as the sale went live, an "Out of Stock" banner was displayed on the website, leading to anger and outrage from customers who had been waiting to avail the deals. Buyers felt misled and even came out on social media saying that the whole exercise was a “clickbait to get people to visit the page”. What’s even more shocking is that a Twitter user discovered that Xiaomi’s website was coded to switch the "Buy Now" option straight to “Out of Stock” just as the sale went live.

This is NOT true. Your website was coded to replace the "Coming Soon" button with "Sold out" button when timer ended. There was never a purchase option. pic.twitter.com/ZDo0pSAcaP

— jt (@jptet79) November 12, 2018

Xiaomi, however, refuted these claims and said that 10 people were actually able to purchase smartphones for 1 Pound during the sale. The company did apologise for changing the name of the sale from “Crazy Deals” to “Flash Sale” at the last moment, but did not provide an explanation as to why its website was coded to display the out of stock banner at the time when the sale went live.

Thanks for your non technical explanation. Could you provide a technical explanation as to how the flash sale worked, seeing as the code behind the website suggests that there were no winners?

— Michael Warner (@mikekwarner) November 12, 2018