[shankar.balan]

For the first time I went to PepperFry and bought a lovely looking, generously sized, slatted wooden chair. Ordered this sometime around 25Jan or so.
Got a really nice price including some hefty discounts.
Was given a Shipping Estimate of 24Feb and a Delivery Estimate ten days after that because all products are "made to order".
No problem.

Got SMS, Calls and Email and they appointed a "relationship manager" to handle me. He sent an email and gave me a contact number.

Fantastic, I thought. In Retail, in today's world, I believe this is an excellent initiative indeed.

Suddenly got an email stating that my product is getting shipped! I was skeptical, thinking that they under promised in order to over deliver. Typical cynical view. However, I was happy to get it fast.

Then I got SMS updates the whole of last week and again yesterday and day before, that the chair was on its way. Movement of the chair to Mumbai Hub, then from Mumbai to Bangalore Hub and then to the delivery van, was recorded and informed, blow by blow through SMS and Email.

The delivery person rang me twice yesterday to get last minute directions. Very polite. Spoke in English.

Totally Cool, I thought!

The chair was delivered yesterday by three people according to my attendant at home.

Upon unpacking it in their presence, he discovered a broken jagged edge with an exposed nail on the top slat on the back rest. Clearly this was a "transportation damage" - However, the delivery fellows apparently said "No, it is like that only" though my Attendant protested. I was not there at the time.

Returning home, I saw this, took a couple of pics of the damage and called their relationship manager. Here is a pic attached.

The Relationship Manager asked for the photographs which I mailed to him immediately.
He was very polite and accepted that this was a "delivery fault" and promised quick internal consultation and resolution.
He called back in around 20 minutes saying that he could offer the following, depending on my choice;
1. Full refund.
2. Send a carpenter home to solve the problem
3. Full replacement

Given the type of damage and the fact that I want this chair because it is very nice indeed, I opted for No 3.

Now, apparently they will pick up the damaged item today from the house.

And he says that I will receive a replacement in 20 days, since these chairs are indeed, made to order. They are trying however, to expedite all orders as best as possible.


I have no problem at all. I like the chair.

I also like their service so far.

Depending on the replacement and the delivery handling process, I will decide whether to stay with PepperFry for my needs as an occasional consumer of furniture items...

[shankar.balan]

So the update now is that the PepperFry pickup service bloke called me twice over the last hour for directions and now he has arrived at the house and picked up the defective Chair.

I guess I will now simply wait until the replacement piece reaches me in the next twenty odd days.

So far, I would classify this as a very good service recovery attempt.

I hope that the replacement reaches us in clean unbroken condition and we can start using the chair!

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

So here’s the thing - if you intend to purchase anything from AliExpress, insist the dealer to send the shipment via DHL, UPS or FedEx. They charge a nominal amount as customs duties and in most cases, when the shipment is marked as a gift, they will not slap any duties over it. Unlike Post Offices, which do not have an idea of the items in the consignments and the value of it. I did a big mistake and asked the dealer to declare the proper value of the armrest which was 64 USD. The post office might have charged the duties on the basis of weight which was close to 2.5 kg.

The deal with post office is that if your item is valued more than Rs. 2000, you need to have an import license. If you do not have it, then you have to pay a penalty. And that adds up to the total bill that you had to cough up.

If you do not have an import license, just like most of us, then you are supposed to bring in items via a courier company. Seems they have different rules for them. That company will ask for handling charges (minimum Rs. 300 or so) over and above the customs duty.
It does not matter what value is mentioned (or if you mark it as gift). The customs guys have their own way of evaluating the price.

I was lucky when I got a car part from UAE via EMS, without paying a single rupee as duty. The part was small, made of plastic and no one could figure out what it was.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by hrman

Ok. Then you would be amongst the lucky ones. My own personal experience and that of 3-4 friends speaks otherwise. We have all faced shortage of delivery everytime from BB. But then we are all from Bangalore. maybe they are able to service the full order in Mumbai.

Updating an old topic on the thread.

It started off well, first few months, bigbasket's stocking was good & they also delivered whatever you ordered.

But for last 6 months, it's been bad. First of all, their inventory management is not very good. There are basic stuff which show "out of stock". Even worse some items show as in stock & you can add it to the cart, but when you check out, it becomes out of stock. And even even worse, some items you are able successfully order, but after a few hours you get a mail saying it's out of stock & that your order was modified. I can't imagine how someone have can have all these systems and still be so bad at inventory control.

I tried localbanya.com also - they have other issues - their delivery people occasionally bring a few wrong items. Sometimes they stock the right stuff in the delivery van, but when bringing it up to the flat they forget a few things. There is always some issue or the other with the delivery - you have carefully countercheck each item against the list - either something is missing because they left it down, or something is delivered double or wrong item is delivered. If you call them later, they rectify it - their customer service is good, but overall the hassle is not worth it.

I have now tried ekstop.co. First order was good. Let's see how this works out. My hopes aren't very high. All these grocery companies seem to be run by incompetent people.

[Nicky]

I need suggestion here. I want to buy a Tag Heuer watch from bodying.in
I can't buy physically from any store in India as i am out of India for project.
I want to buy it online and get it delivered to my friend in India.

I checked other online retailers but nobody has these watches.
Bodying seems to be malaysia's no. 1 online watch store registered as bodying.my

any info or review would be great.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by Nicky

I need suggestion here. I want to buy a Tag Heuer watch from bodying.in
I can't buy physically from any store in India as i am out of India for project.
I want to buy it online and get it delivered to my friend in India.

I checked other online retailers but nobody has these watches.
Bodying seems to be malaysia's no. 1 online watch store registered as bodying.my

any info or review would be great.

Never heard of these guys.
If you must buy such expensive products online, please use a reputed site like Ethos or someone.

[HyperRetard]

Go for Ghadiwala or watchkart or flipkart for buying watches online.

[anand.babu]

I work as a Manager, customer support for a renowned e-commerce company in India. I've never heard of bodying.in. I suggest that you buy from a reputed online retailer. I found 2 Tag Heuer watches in Flipkart.

[Gannu_1]

Received the Osram Night Breaker Unlimited H4 halogen lamps for Rs. 1975 inclusive of shipping charges.







Sourced them from e-PitStop (Link). I was a bit skeptical about this website since I haven’t heard of it nor had read any reviews before. Moreover, the Night Breaker Plus was discontinued by Osram sometime back and the Unlimited had replaced it. But the stocks haven’t hit many stores in India as yet. Bought the lamps but chose the COD option (just in case!) but the customer service representative Mr. Raghavendra a gentleman, promptly confirmed the sale over mail, called me up to finalise the deal (being COD) and shipped it using FedEx Overnight service on Saturday. I received it today.

Packing was decent but could have been better IMO because the unit was moving inside the cardboard box, although there were bubble wraps/polystyrene foams inside the box. The box wasn't really good (compared to the ones Flipkart ships their items in which are stronger) and it had already crumpled on one corner during transit. But regardless, to this website. They deal mostly with lighting accessories other than the wiper blades and My Shaldans.

And you know the best part? The NBU H4 retail cheaper than what Powerbulbs retail them for. At 24.5£, that translates to almost 2.5k INR! I got them for 600 Rs. cheaper.

[Aksthedreamer]

I worked as a management trainee with a leading e-commerce company of India. I visited the godown as well where products are stocked and packed. Trust me on this, there are no fake products in stock, like many people think and physical shopkeepers make you believe.
I mostly shop online, I have bought expensive phones, clothes, electronic items etc and never faced any issues. There return and replacement procedure is much better than a physical shop.
I mostly shop from flipkart and jabong...

[9thsphinx]

I guess Amazon.in is doing much better than Flipkart these days. Bought a bunch of books from them and Flipkart together. The package from Amazon reached before the scheduled delivery date and the one from Flipkart was two days late.

Also, I found many regional language books that I never thought I would see online on Amazon that aren't yet available on Flipkart.

[Crow]

Amazon has better delivery these days, but that's probably due to lower volumes. They know how to please customers though, so I expect them to acquire or push out Flipkart in the next few years. Let's see.

New Yorker published an excellent piece on whether Amazon is bad for books recently. It's a great long read. I don't know if posting a link is allowed here, but I suggest that all of you read it to get an insight on what goes on behind the scenes at these companies, how they push publishers and competitors into a corner, poor working conditions at warehouses, etc. It's by George Packer. A quick web search should point you to it.

[roamer]

Originally Posted by dkaile

Yes, that's what I meant and I hope I was evidently clear. This process is for people on CDMA or wanting to shift to CDMA.

Was there any custom duty involved in ordering the phone online?

[dkaile]

Originally Posted by roamer

Was there any custom duty involved in ordering the phone online?

The global ebay price is inclusive of all delivered to your doorstep.

[arup.misra]

Originally Posted by carboy

It started off well, first few months, bigbasket's stocking was good & they also delivered whatever you ordered.But for last 6 months, it's been bad.

I agree with you. I've been a regular with big basket over 9 months but the last month onwards I've been finding even basic items out of stock. Its pretty amusing to see that you added a whole list of stuff in your basket and when you proceed to checkout voila its out of stock. Even strange was that no one picked up my call at the customer service. Wonder if they are winding up ops in Mumbai?

Local banya too has its share of problems. Ordered some stuff in Jan which didn't make it to delivery and they credited equivalent banya points. Strange part is I received an email from them stating that it'll take 24 days for the credit to happen.. Even modern cruise liners do better than that.