According to a report from The Times Of India, Samsung is considering about selling 48 devices only in offline stores, including the upcoming Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Alpha. There still is no official confirmation from Samsung whether this report is correct but if it turns out to be true, it could be a major blow to Samsung.
Many smartphones and tablets were priced much lower in online stores when compared to conventional brick and mortar stores. From the past 1 year or more, I have been hearing stories about offline stores threatening Samsung that they will stop stocking their products if they were unsuccessful in closing the product pricing gap between in offline and online stores.
Amazon India had clarified earlier that the pricing of products isn't under their control as they are just a marketplace. Third-party sellers decide the pricing of the products and most of the time, these are the same sellers who have offline stores who are trying to dump their unsold products online by reducing prices drastically.
Samsung had also made a statement against Flipkart saying that they will stop billing WS Retail, which is the largest seller on Flipkart. Did Flipkart long knew that this would happen? Because in the past few months, Flipkart has been quite busy in tying up exclusively with various brands who do not have offline presence in India. Flipkart started exclusive sales by tying up with Motorola for selling the Motorola Moto G. It then extended exclusive sales by tying up with Alcatel, Xiaomi and Asus.
This move from Samsung will be drastic, though it will not affect sales of Samsung devices immediately, it will hurt Samsung in the long run. Although, a silver lining of this move could be that brands will start selling their devices in offline stores at the same price when compared to online pricing.
What do you think about this move from Samsung to sell their devices only in offline stores?
