[ajayc123]

Note: You need not poll if you were not in the Scorpio-N booking process, but you can definitely comment

30-Jul-2022 was supposed to be a big day for a lot of people, who were waiting in anticipation of the booking their Mahindra Scorpio-N at introductory prices. The models were researched in the prior few weeks, decisions reached, choices finalized and added to the cart in anticipation of the big moment.

Bookings were supposed to open at 11 am sharp on the 30th of Jul, 2022. People had devised their own unique strategies and tactics to take a chance to grab the introductory pricing with the hope for an early enough delivery.

A headline moment for Mahindra
Mahindra Scorpio-N sets a new record – Clocks 25,000 bookings within 1 minute; Over 1,00,000 bookings in under 30 minutes. A press release was issued, by Mahindra pretty soon claiming the achievement of bookings translating to Rs 18,000 crore / US$ 2.3 billion.

On the Ground
It all looks a hunky dory story till some unexpected things start to surface. Some of the stories from the team-bhp thread are quoted here. Emotions flowing like a hurricane & shattered like a cloud burst.

Link (Mahindra Scorpio-N Review)

“So I clicked Book Now at exactly 11am and reached the Payment Gateway where after entering my Visa card details, the Proceed Now button stayed greyed out. Went back and tried Net Banking which was also down. Then the gateway stayed down for the next 12 minutes by when Mahindra declared that the first 25k bookings were done.

"At 11:15, payment gateway finally went online again and as expected Visa payment gateway was down. Amex not supported but luckily Net Banking ICICI went through. Booked the vehicle at non-introductory prices.”

“Dashed in exactly at 11:00 am, entered the payment gateway filled in card details but checkout button stuck since then”

“I have done the booking through the dealer. I got the confirmation sms at 11:06. It is mentioned that price at delivery will be applicable in both sms and email. I am not sure if my booking is within the first 25K.”

“Google-Cloud took 10-12 seconds to respond and threw up a "502 Bad Gateway"

“My SA told me each dealership had Some quota in first 25k and he was quite confident all along about my punching within first 25000”

“Well, here in Gurgaon dealerships were not even accepting bookings prior to today and recommending that we book ourselves. Perhaps just took bookings from friends and family to push into the first 25k!”

“Honestly, all this gives an impression that dealers got all 25k bookings allocated in the system much before 11 am.”

“The process is not transparent. Its all shady.”

“I had not added in my cart, nor did I ask the dealer to book. Still I got this message from Mahindra at 11:12 am: Congratulations on booking your Big Daddy of SUVs, All-New Scorpio-N
”
“I never booked anything but got a message that the dealer had booked in my name with introductory pricing applicable. This means that dealers always had upper hand on this and such kind of “flash sale” was never going for customers”

So What ? Lets understand this better from our BHPains
So I thought, let’s try to understand this a bit better by setting up a poll for those who had expressed interest in the booking. If you were in the booking game, tell us what happened by choosing the poll option and your story as comments. You may want to also call out what as per you would be a nice booking process that works well for you. Hope that it provides some valuable inputs to the car companies for shaping up future booking mechanisms.

[rooster.ram]

Originally Posted by nerd1200

Needless to say, if I'm asked to pay more than a lakh over the introductory price at the time of delivery, I'll cancel my booking happily. This is just too much drama for a car, however good it may be.

Additionally someone like me who is looking to purchase a vehicle in next six months, will not be holding the booking for a year as it is the case with xuv. I purposely did not go for xuv due to waiting period. With no price protection the prices after a year are going to be higher by more than a lakh on road. Even competition (in my choice safari) who is ready with a car right now is going to be expensive.

Originally Posted by mahesh_sn

All this hullabaloo is because of the game of introductory pricing that OEMs have mastered in the recent past and unethically so.

It is not only introductory pricing but also production capacity/waiting period. Those not getting 25k, will have to wait for a year. if they are commanding a wait period of more than 6 months, we are going back in time where one has to hold the booking for years like chetak scooter.

Originally Posted by atluri_rkc

I am also hoping that the window of next 2weeks will help in cleaning up of shadow bookings.

If none of the above happen and dealer network continues to call the shots, then everyone is up for a ride.

But is rural demand (specific to Scorpio N vs XUV7OO) the reason, Mahindra allowed offline bookings? There has to be some reason for the change in strategy. I am hoping that it’s not due to dealer network expressing displeasure at not being involved during XUV7OO bookings. If it’s the latter, then it’s really a knee jerk reaction by Mahindra’s leadership.

Mahindra needs to save the face now how can they call themselves ethical if the do not. If not then shame on m&m.

[naru80]

Originally Posted by dr_TJ

I strongly suspect the booking website algorithm is tuned to not give price protection to lower variant bookings

Seems unlikely since this time there is an option to modify the booking for 15 days. No guarantee that the original selection will stay.

Originally Posted by ask99

I did in fact try to make a booking, and gave up when the payU gateway failed to progress after multiple attempts. I could justify the purchase if I had been part of the first 25,000 with locked pricing and early delivery. Any delay + increase in prices + reduction in value of my trade in just makes the purchase argument weaker.

I was in two minds even with the original price. What this 1 lakh booking hype does is drive home the message that the public thinks it's great value. Before the booking started, the general view in the forum was high AT price, not VFM, poor third seat, bad boot space, and so on. That's all history in public perception now!

Originally Posted by ask99

I don't think there's some great conspiracy. I don't think they would have meticulously planned to have their systems fail in very particular ways to deny very specific customers their bookings.

Don't see anyone alleging a conspiracy here. From all indications, they gave dealers an unfair advantage. Plain and simple. They didn't need to have their tech systems fail, it's their moral system which failed.

Originally Posted by ask99

Beyond that, as I wasn't even sure if I would purchase one after booking it, and intended to use the time up to delivery to make all my detailed analysis with further longer test drives and research, I am nothing more than a little disappointed. Onwards to the next potential vehicle.

My sentiments exactly! Except that this episode has left a bad taste in the mouth. I have participated in flash sales earlier too on e-commerce sites. Got through a couple of times, failed more than that, but never got the feeling like today that i was being taken for a ride.

[luvDriving]

I think that the main grouse is that Mahindra failed to provide a level playing field wherein it would be a true first come first served system.

On top of that, there is confusion on whether there is price protection for the first 25k bookings, on what basis is a booking considered to be in the top 25k and what informs the customer that his booking made it to the introductory pricing set.

I will say that I am relieved to have opted out of the race because I would have been mighty frustrated if inspite of having a good internet connection and keeping everything ready, I did not get the promised pricing for no fault of mine and in a system favoring the dealerships.

[Varun_HexaGuy]

Having made 5 unofficial bookings with the local dealer here a day before (cheques to be encashed on the official booking date) and still sitting online to make a booking for one, couldn't manage to get one single booking under the price protection

Never imagined one would have to put in so much effort to make it to the first 25,000 bookings and still not making it. Eitherway, have booked a Scorpio Z8L D AT in Napoli Black online on my name now. Let's see when I'll get my hands on one.

[IamNikhil]

Judging by the booking fiasco observed today for Scorpio-N, a strong deja vu of what happened with the XUV 700 as well. Seems Mahindra hasn't learnt enough lessons with the way things went south for customers wanting to book the XUV 700 back in Oct '21. Also, the wild madness regarding "algorithm, price protection, dummy bookings, dealer malpractice" seems to have been carried forward from the XUV 700 to Scorpio-N as well.

Let's hope all who are interested in the Scorpio-N don't face any more hassles; least we can expect from Mahindra is that they have put in place better internal processes after the kind of vitriolic criticism they received with the XUV 700 bookings.

On a side note, really elated to see a homegrown automobile major experiencing such back-to-back jubilation and success. Congratulations to Anand Mahindra and the entire team. Do take great care in ensuring that customer experience is top-notch!

[Rigs]

Had they really want to provide price protection, they would've devised a clear cut instructions and strategy in place for the Scorpio-N. But all this seems a repeat of XUV700 debacle, and if Mahindra didn't corrected their mistake(which I don't have any idea how they would do), this will set a bad precedent for the industry ethics and tarnish Mahindra's brand image in the long run. Visited 2 dealerships after launch, both of them told to proceed with online booking, and they won't be taking any payment, or maintain a priority list. But looking at the online fiasco, Mahindra still gives dealers an upper hand, god knows why! Now I am beginning to doubt if they had actually provided price protection on 25k XUVs or that was a hoax as well?

1. They would've distinguished the dealership and online bookings and provided clear numbers on how many bookings a dealer and online they would take(15k for online, 10k for dealer and so on)
2. Provided a separate portal to track the 25k booking numbers(using registered mobile and reference no.) and are they actually genuine person or just malpractices of dealers?
3. By promoting online booking, they should've created a dedicated database of booking based on precedence, which only took the 25k names and details as they registered and provided a separate window of payment portal to be done within next set of days(within 3-5 days) to confirm their position, just like registration done in entrance exams.

But they chose to go the XUV way with minor improvements in their site. Let's see if they actually rectify as told in their recent statements or the industry is doomed with these pseudo "introductory" flash sales!

[sulliavi]

Originally Posted by Poitive

Mate,
I was fortunate to manage a long Test Drive and had 10 odd posts on it focusing on the drive, suspension, steering, and comfort part (not features), besides ergonomics. I posted that on the thread which has all my other recent test drive reports. You might want to go through those posts.
Link: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/suvs-...ml#post5360915 (Choosing an SUV up to 22L | Seltos, Harrier / Safari, Hector Plus, Compass, XUV700, Kicks, Scorpio N)

Excellent observation and write up

Your post has greatly helped me on cancelling ScorpioN booking decision. It really doesn't serve my purpose as a daily driver.

I did not bother logging in today to auto.mahindra.com. But, found this video some time back from Arun Panwar where he is experiencing the same #502 issue while booking and blasting M&M for creating such a mess. Disturbing thing is they were taking booking even after 1lac bookings finished in first 30 mins. Things like this will make people loose trust on M&M as a brand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v0pEb1eeis

[RijuC]

Booking experience today:

Logged in at around 10:30 AM. Was expecting couple of power cuts, maid and cook ringing the bells and phone calls from other brands dealership. And by god's grace everything happened between 10:58 and 11:02

Anyway, since I was anticipating all these disturbances, kept mobile hotspot on, cut all incoming phonecalls from skoda and tata dealerships rudely and asked maid to come after one hour.

At 11:00:00 hours the booking tab appeared on screen and I clicked on it. Voila, it goes to payment page instantaneously. I remember details of one credit card. Hence the data entry just took couple of seconds. Next, press the button for OTP which never came alive. I was fearing to refresh the page which could get logout and I might have to start afresh. 10 minutes+ lapsed in that state.

Meanwhile my wife was trying from another laptop with separate mobile number and email id. And same thing happened with her. However she refreshed the page and continued to get 502 bad gateway error. Logged out and in for couple of times. However, the same 502 error continued to happen. Now, it became really exciting to have some kind of end result. Suddenly at about 11:16 she could get the payment details page and entered credit card details, the OTP tab also came alive, and she successfully booked a Z4 Diesel AT.

Then I refreshed my page and after couple of refresh pages I could finally succeed with Z4 Petrol AT with another dealership.

However, I understood from all the posts above that we are not in the 25k bracket with the introductory price protection. The introductory prices for both the petrol and diesel variants were already overstretch by 1.5-2 lakhs above my budget. However, in line with Mahindra's exorbitant price increase strategy I assume the prices will go up at the same pace or in a more optimistic way. And that will be strictly a no-go price range for the budget oriented car buyers like me.

Hence, very soon I shall be cancelling both the bookings. I cannot perhaps wait so long for the AT which is my primary requirement. I have also done a pre-booking of Maruti Suzuki GV mild-hybrid variant. I can also consider Kushaq if the price is good and gives me a reserve for all breakdown and spare replacement prices. However these are of entirely different category altogether. I got attracted towards Scorpio N since I felt there is some value in Scorpio N if I overstretch by 1.5-2 lakhs. Now I understood it is a different ball game, entirely reserved for the fat wallet community. Today I was near a Mahindra dealership in the late evening. There were lots of hard negotiation going on between the customer parties and the dealership higher-ups. I understood the untold story. Had some casual words with the SA and her manager who asked us for a visit and then left the showroom.

Anyway, I really have enjoyed the mobile flash sale like excitement we see in Amazon and Flipkart. Never thought manufacturer of a 2 million INR car have to adapt similar sales strategies.

Someone posted that s/he couldn't get proper sleep and woke up at 5 AM etc. These are clear indications of FOMO syndrome. It's just a car. No need to take this much of stress. Then think about the professionals who fly aeroplanes, jet fighters, operate tanks and machineries in combat zone, or operate the nuke subs or nuke things which can affect 100's to crores of human lives! Buddy, those are much more exciting activities they have everyday. The clicking sound of our gears, last zipping sound, check and copy confirmations on communication devices, meters, signed permits etc etc etc. there are many more exciting things beyond this automotive industry. Here you see redlining at 7000 rpm. There some guys operate tiny little turbos at 150 thousand rpm.

[CEF_Beasts]

Can we please have a separate thread for Mahindra and Mahindra’s Bookings, because in an official review it dilutes the actual purpose of the review.

Once cars are delivered sharing experiences with the car is what matters and will in-turn help several other people as well.

Initial pages having the review and then test drive experiences by various people is very helpful but then this booking fiasco which is a given for Mahindra cars for the last 2 years becomes a dampener…

It’s an honest request, no offence to anyone.

[Pulse500]

Originally Posted by ajayc123

If we look at the press release, there is a mention about the payment gateway glitch, and that the booking timestamp prior to payment has been recorded and will be considered for introductory pricing. That's a ray of hope for some folks who clicked at 11 am sharp.

Let's see how this pans out.

Isn't that misleading?

He did not mention "timestamp before/of 'failed' payment" resulting out of the payment gateway 'glitch'.

So I dont think it would really benefit those who added the 'vehicle in the cart' earliest, nor those who genuinely made payment attempt earliest.

Originally Posted by n13tzsche

Nopes. I haven’t paid a dime. Moreover i had escalated this as soon as i received the mail and i got call from the dealer saying congratulations i got introductory price and i thanked him and literally bashed him for booking without my intimation and taking someone else’s slot.
He said i will get you long test drive and you can book it in next 5-6 days but i said no because i do not like this kind of unethical practice at all. Moreover i asked him to cancel booking and send confirmation email ASAP.

So have the dealers started impersonating individuals, making fake bookings to claim a record of 'selling' (or booking) one lakh cars in under 30 minutes? It seems so!

[vivekgk]

I had given my PDC for the booking amount to the dealer a couple of days ago. The dealer forwarded a mail from Mahindra asking them to collect booking amounts only by post dated cheques (likely to avoid any legal hassles over booking amount being collected beforehand). I was also advised by the dealer to try a booking under a different mobile number to double my chances.

Unluckily I had to attend a call at the office which meant that I was only able to login by 11:10. There was no message informing me that the 25k was sold out. I tried to book twice, but got a payment gateway error. Finally after several tries I got to the payment page and made the booking using credit card. By then I also got an email to the ID I had given to the dealer for booking, confirming my booking at "Price applicable at Delivery Time". I got in touch with the dealer and he apologised and informed me that they were able to get in just 10 bookings at the offer price.

Got the same email for the ID I had created personally, so now I have 2 bookings. As soon as I realised that both bookings were not in the 25k limit, I decided to cancel the one I'd done, but there is no option in the site. Guess I'll have to wait for the dealer confirmation letter and then put up a request to the dealer.

While I have been through enough flash sales to get how fast 25k bookings can sell out, I didn't expect it to go under 1 minute. I had a similar issue with the XUV700 booking too, with the site getting blocked up and the dealer not being able to confirm whether the booking was within the limit or not. However, on the confirmation call later, Mahindra assured me that if the dealer had given an assurance then the offer price would apply. Not so sure this time around though, with Mahindra knowing that they can price it as high as they want and still getting takers because of the high demand. That 1 lac number seems a bit ambitious though, and I'm sure a major portion of it is duplicate bookings and dummys.

For me, the pricing was one of the key factors for making the booking decision. It wasn't just that the product was good, it was that the product was good especially at the price, even with the compromises in regards to ride quality, equipment, luggage space, fuel and maintenance cost etc. I guess the one good thing is that the Z4 D AT variant that I booked is likely their lowest priority, and not likely to be delivered this year, which gives me plenty of time to wait for alternatives, or put some bucks away to account for the price difference.

[ajayc123]

Originally Posted by Pulse500

Isn't that misleading?

He did not mention "timestamp before/of 'failed' payment" resulting out of the payment gateway 'glitch'.

So I dont think it would really benefit those who added the 'vehicle in the cart' earliest, nor those who genuinely made payment attempt earliest.

Please read the attachment and reach your conclusion.

[dr_TJ]

Originally Posted by vivekgk

For me, the pricing was one of the key factors for making the booking decision. It wasn't just that the product was good, it was that the product was good especially at the price, even with the compromises in regards to ride quality, equipment, luggage space, fuel and maintenance cost etc. I guess the one good thing is that the Z4 D AT variant that I booked is likely their lowest priority, and not likely to be delivered this year, which gives me plenty of time to wait for alternatives, or put some bucks away to account for the price difference.

I am in a similar situation. I currently own a Thar Diesel AT, only car in my garage and I daily drive it. Not much of a major complain from me or my parents but yes a 4 door SUV is most welcome. The price point of the Scorpio-N Z4 D AT was good enough to switch from Thar to the ScorpioN without any financial hit.
I booked via the Dealership, sms came at 11:01 am but couldn't secure introductory pricing.

Now, I am in a catch 22 situation. Delivery date for Z4 D AT will be a big question mark. I can't list my Thar for sale without having a proper idea on the delivery date (although listed on Team-bhp Classifieds).

Before anyone says I am better off with a 2nd small car or a Monocoque SUV/Crossover, I would like to mention that, can't keep a second car because of various restrictions (financial restrictions included) and the Road situation here makes me lean towards a BOF SUV because no Duster like 4 star or more safety rated Monocoque with Torque Convertor AT at similar price point

[rooster.ram]

Originally Posted by Varun_HexaGuy

Having made 5 unofficial bookings with the local dealer here a day before (cheques to be encashed on the official booking date) and still sitting online to make a booking for one

So many confessions only on this forum abt duplicate bookings and false bookings leaves the genuine buyers number skewed and nobody but mahindra can sanitize the booking process now. Otherwise we all are left at dealers mercy.

Originally Posted by Rigs

Had they really want to provide price protection, they would've devised a clear cut instructions and strategy in place for the Scorpio-N.

A tatkal reservation/ wait list kind if transparent system was required, but mahindra despite being a tech giant themselves, chose to deliver a rather bad effort.

Originally Posted by Lightning66

If you are sure you would be going for off-roading then the Scorpio is the better of the three.

But adding to your point, one can plan doing off road only if they have such a vehicle. So, one does not plan to go off road (in absence of 4x4 capabilities) and that itch to go off road remains an itch only. I managed to drive duster for 8 years and done himachal too, but off beaten tracks were avoided, season was chosen as per what vehicle we have.