BHOPAL: Purchase and sale of election campaign materials for the ensuing assembly election has gone hi-tech. The political parties and their members don’t have go to shops to get promotion materials rather they are spoilt with choices which includes online shopping outlets like Amazon, Flipkart and WhatsAap.
The shoppers do not get discounts but do get the facility of getting their purchased material delivered at their doorsteps. The cost of the materials such as party flags, banners, caps, posters, scarves, saris, t-shirts, badges, mobile sticker, general and computerised voter slips etc. may be 20% higher than the ones the political parties usually buy from the market. Owner of Sheela Ad-makers Ajay Agrawal said, “All election campaign materials are available on Amazon and FlipKarts now with price and size tag.
We have been selling it for last four years. But we will sell it online for the first time in MP Assembly election. We also have our website for this.” He further said,“We also get orders from Bhopal because most of the people are still not aware from the fact that where these materials are being sold in the city. So, they visit search on the net and order it online. In this way, they save time and energy both. Its payment facility is very good.We deliver the materials after getting payment in our account.” He said that he sell these materials across the country. “Our head office is in Lucknow and Mumbai,” he said. About its response, Agrawal said, “It is good. The share of online sale is about 20%.
The customers who purchase these materials in bulk, they prefer to buy it from shop because it is a cheaper than online shopping. In online purchasing, we have to pay shipping charge as well as commission to the online shopping portals. The price of these materials is 20% higher than offline.” “Another reason may be that most of the people still don’t believe in online shopping. But I think, online sale will be increased in coming time,” he added.
Owner of Zain Enterprise, Malviya Nagar, Fazil Bhai said, “We are associated with the business for 20 years, but for past 4 years, we have been providing the facility of home delivery through WhatsApp.We do WhatsApp the photographs of these materials to our clients. After getting their approval, we dispatch the materials to their homes
