Facebook set to launch online shopping festival on 12 August in India

On the occasion of Raksha Bandhan, popular social networking giant Facebook is launching an online shopping festival named Tied Together. The company has tied up with media agency GroupM and will be reportedly setting up a website between August 12 and August 29, which is during the festival.

According to a report by Economic Times, media agencies have stated that Facebook's pitch note reads, "unlock the power of social media that can reach 10 crore potential customers through this event." Facebook will use its position as the social media giant along with subscriber base to drive traffic to the shopping site.

At the moment, Facebook is looking for a title sponsor at an asking rate of Rs 3 crore along with a principal sponsor at a similar rate besides associate sponsors for Rs 1.5 crore each.

In conversation with Economic Times, a media planner said, "Online shopping festivals have become a popular trend in India, especially with the rise in the number of e-commerce companies, which are driving the growth of online shopping in the country." He adds, "Facebook should be viewed as another media vehicle which has a huge database that can be utilised for commercial purposes."

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According to a previous report, Facebook also aims to bring .5 billion users online with Internet.org. In a blog post released to mark the first year of the initiative, Facebook said it will open a portal allowing any mobile operator to offer the service under its Internet.org platform. Facebook currently partners with specific operators to launch the service in different countries.