[binand]

Originally Posted by binand

KL goverment has fined four e-commerce companies several crore rupees for not paying taxes [...] the companies will legally challenge the decision

Flipkart went to Kerala High Court; and the court today stayed this government decision till March 23. The judge also verbally observed that the government's action does not appear to be legal.

Flipkart's argument is that they are neither a distributor nor a manufacturer but simply a service provider for which they already pay service tax to the union government.

http://www.financialexpress.com/arti...penalty/34637/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/46305323.cms

http://www.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bi...RIAL&BV_ID=@@@ [Malayalam link]

[binand]

Yet another post comparing Flipkart and Amazon.

My son received some FK gift coupons for his birthday; and to redeem them he picked some items from their catalogue. But when it was time to make the payment, bummer - to use gift vouchers for payment, all the items in the cart have to be sold by the same vendor.

To contrast, I had a couple of gift vouchers to Amazon too. Here the process was ridiculously simple. Fill the cart, Amazon itself applies available vouchers based on heuristics that are advantageous to the customer, and pay the balance by one of the other means of payment.

At least in the Gift Vouchers match, it is Amazon 1, Flipkart 0.

[thoma]

A bad experience from Amazon. My ordered items were put up as in-transit and they cancelled my orders stating a strange reason "address could not be deliverable". This is when I bought items from them just last week. I had to contact customer support to know that the carrier has damaged my items. Strange, all items from different sellers, damaged at the same time?

[alamtiwana]

^If the orders are Amazon fulfilled, then they may have been sent from the same Amazon warehouse. That might explain the 'coincidental' damage.

But with Amazon, at least one is assured of quality after sales customer support, e.g. refunds/returns.

[drmohitg]

Can I make a payment using my regular Debit card on Amazon.com and get something delivered to an address in USA?

[binand]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Can I make a payment using my regular Debit card on Amazon.com and get something delivered to an address in USA?

Nowadays debit cards are by default blocked for international payments. You will have to get it activated first (though in many cases, this is just enabling a tick-box in the bank's netbanking interface).

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Lucky you man! My snail mail is yet to depart Hong Kong:

Update:

Looks like Hong Kong Post is a notch faster than China Post. My Aliexpress shipment ordered on Feb 5th, dispatched on the 17th has been delivered home today. Not all vendors on Ali uses Hong Kong Post though. India Post status shows as follows:

[naveenroy]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Update:

Looks like Hong Kong Post is a notch faster than China Post. My Aliexpress shipment ordered on Feb 5th, dispatched on the 17th has been delivered home today. Not all vendors on Ali uses Hong Kong Post though. India Post status shows as follows:

Attachment 1344296

That is quite fast! 12 days is great for free delivery!

[mykal shoemaker]

Originally Posted by thoma

A bad experience from Amazon. My ordered items were put up as in-transit and they cancelled my orders stating a strange reason "address could not be deliverable". This is when I bought items from them just last week. I had to contact customer support to know that the carrier has damaged my items. Strange, all items from different sellers, damaged at the same time?

That looks like a standard phrase they update ,when there are internal issues.
I too had a lengthy follow up for an item, where they marked it same way.
Instead of of finding out what is the exact issue, placing an order again for same item works faster.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Update:

Looks like Hong Kong Post is a notch faster than China Post. My Aliexpress shipment ordered on Feb 5th, dispatched on the 17th has been delivered home today. Not all vendors on Ali uses Hong Kong Post though. India Post status shows as follows:

Attachment 1344296

That has been my observation as well. Anything other than China post if faster. I keep looking for sellers who use such services and wont mind paying couple of dollars as well.

China post [as per my experience] is the slowest in Aliexpress

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

That has been my observation as well. Anything other than China post if faster. I keep looking for sellers who use such services and wont mind paying couple of dollars as well.

China post [as per my experience] is the slowest in Aliexpress

There's another service called DPEX which one dealer opted for at a slightly higher rate (3-4 USD more) and the items used to reach me within a week's time. But sometimes, the vendors don't comply with our request.

[Rosso Corsa]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Update:

Looks like Hong Kong Post is a notch faster than China Post. My Aliexpress shipment ordered on Feb 5th, dispatched on the 17th has been delivered home today. Not all vendors on Ali uses Hong Kong Post though. India Post status shows as follows:

Attachment 1344296

Yes its very fast. My experience with HK Post has been very good so far. Received an item in 6 days after placing the order. Very quick !

[Sudipto-S-Team]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Can I make a payment using my regular Debit card on Amazon.com and get something delivered to an address in USA?

No you cannot. Amazon does not allow this. I had sent them a mail asking the exact same question and they said no. You cannot pay from one country and get the delivery in some other country.

[Thad E Ginathom]

That's confusing. Had no problem with the following:

Last November, I bought a pair of c. $400 headphones*...

... My address in in India

... I used a British debit card

... I had them delivered to an address in USA.



*Sennheiser HD600, if anyone is interested in the offtopic detail

[binand]

Originally Posted by Sudipto-S-Team

No you cannot. Amazon does not allow this. I had sent them a mail asking the exact same question and they said no. You cannot pay from one country and get the delivery in some other country.

I routinely order stuff from Amazon UK and US using my Indian credit card with delivery address in UK or US, as the case is. I use the services of shopandship.com to forward those packages to me. The billing address is my Bangalore address, the delivery address is a US or UK address. There has never been a problem yet.