Team-BHP - Malpractices in Flipkart's Big Billion sale

Quote:

Originally Posted by hema4saran (Post 4480922)

But this is about Flipkart's parent company shared by my friend. During 2014 Thanksgiving here in US, Walmart announced one offer on a 55 inch TV at $800 for the first 10000 people in online and the original price was around $1500. But one careless mistake in Database update and the value was set to 100,000. By the time they realized their mistake and updated Database value 14000+ orders were placed. They honored that offer and delivered to all those customers.

Three words - consumer protection laws.

Very different in the US as compared to India, and anecdotes like this just prove that difference. Consumer courts in India do a good job (compared to the situation 2-3 decades ago), but even then there is a level of difficulty involved, which means that companies are not kept on their toes by such consumer protections.

Been an Amazon US customer since 2003 and Amazon India customer since 2013-14. FKT behind them in terms of quality of service. Yes, Amazon India does screw up. They are not as well sorted out as their US counterparts but they do make amends. The only time I use FKT's site or app is when I need to compare mobile phone prices for models not available on Amazon for e.g. the Google Pixel. To me FKT, Snapdeal, Myntra, Jabong and their ilk are second or third choice online retailers when it comes to shopping.

I had ordered a router from Flipkart and it had few issues. I asked Flipkart for a replacement which they provided and that too had identical issues. So I asked for a refund. But my refund request was not accepted because I was using a Windows 8 laptop and the product details page on Flipkart only mentioned about Windows 7. :Frustrati No amount of reasoning it out with the call center helped.

After that it was bye bye Flipkart. Now I order from Flipkart only if product is available only on Flipkart or there is a significant price difference.

Apologies that I have to slightly go out of track to bring my Negative and Positive experience in Flipkart. My office Gift Card (International Prepaid Debit card) use by date(Before End of September 2018) was nearing and I had a few thousand rupees in it. It does work only in a few shops/online portals. I had earlier used in Flipkart and was confident that I can use it on Flipkart again. I had ordered around 7-8 items around 3rd week of September. Surprisingly except for one product rest all sellers did not even process it and was just lying there. Couple of the sellers cancelled with similar reasons mentioned in previous posts "Cancelled as per seller's request". My worry on refund is what if the refund comes after the Use by date. I wouldn't be able to use it. So did my first call to Flipkart Customer care and explained my problem. They mentioned I would get a call in 24 hours which I did not. Then two days later again I called and this time I had to take the call till the next escalation team. There was one person sensible here and he was able to resubmit all the orders and reset the dates to a later date and surprisingly all orders started to move towards delivery. I was a bit relieved and during the recent big billion sale, had bought a Lenovo Ideapad and felt happy for the deal and it got delivered before time and so far so good with it.

Should we just merge this into Offical Joke Thread?stupid:

I was enticed by the Flipkart Plus loyalty program. I ordered a mobile, perfumes, veggie chopper from this time's sale.
I think only the mobile has come intact, rest all have some issue or the other. The chopper had scratches all over due to pathetic packing. The perfume (Bvlgari) is a first copy.

To top all of this, I won a Reebok Mat and a Fila Bag in their quizzes. They were going to give us the option to buy these gifts at 1₹ each on 18th. Still no sign of these gifts anywhere! Hope I don't get conned even in these gifts like in real, paid orders. Though, the customer care is expert in turning the discussion elsewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pramodkumar (Post 4481082)

In the meantime they keep spamming my inbox with canned messages.

Attachment 1809430

Pramod

Extremely unfortunate that you had to go through this !

Adding my 2 cents - the seller from which you ordered the product is the real culprit, e-commerce sites should put in stringent controls over such incidents in which they rely on marketplace seller's inventory and promise orders to customers. As far as I know, a replacement is provided to customers in almost all such cases.

For the blocking part - I believe its an outcome of the algorithms that have been defined since ages to ensure a fair business practice between the service provider and the consumer. To give you an example, brick and mortar businesses remember their customers as the size of the population they cater to is not big(100s/1000s). These brick and mortar businesses do not need tech enabled algorithms. Their employees remember their customers and in particular the ones they are not comfortable with. Now lets look at service providers such as Credit card companies/NBFCs/Banks/e-commerce companies/Governments/Airports, the size of population they deal with is huge ! They cant employ enough people to remember each customer and hence need tech enabled algorithms which study the consumer behavior and take a call. Which effectively means, its not a human being sitting their who blocked you, but an ML algorithm that did it. They should however tell you why did they block you - if you ask them the correct questions. Not saying you haven't already.

My experience with online shopping has been a mixed bag. I must say that quality checks need to be more stringent since we are unable to assess the product quality physically before placing an online order.

After reading this fiasco, FK has lost one more customer. They look completely childish in their behavior! Have few observations from my end:

A) No online store including FK is giving a real discount to customers . They only hike the prices and then sell at a discount. A recent example is that I was eyeing a Smart watch and Amazon and FK were retailing the costs around 15995( original cost 21995) and if we have for respective bank cards we are eligible for another 10% discount which lands the price at 13500 INR. I had plans to buy during the last day of sale and in the interim I walked into a multi brand watch store and they were quoting the cost as 13500 without even bargaining at first place and I was shocked.

B) Lot of products do not get their warranties honoured as they are not bought from authorised sellers. For any big ticket transaction, please go through the list of authorised sellers in that particular brand website and then buy from there. No online stores(FK, amazon, snap deal etc) will be responsible for brand warranty.

C) Finally if FK or any online store cancels the order due to stock not available reason and our refund takes 'X' number of days - These guys are holding interest free money (float money) from customers and using as their working capital for those number of days. I can understand if it takes one day for refund to credit back to our account. If anything more than this, it is definitely not correct and this is big money! Can someone tell me what is the turn around time for getting the refunds?

Regards

Many years ago I tried e-market with NaapTol and Snapdeal and regretted every transaction - only a couple or so (bad products, bad service).
Tried e-bay.in , Pepperfry, and Flipkart a few more times, but most transactions filled me with bitterness. Only a few went smoothly !
Am a regular customer of amazon.in and find the experience satisfying 99.99 percent of times. A few instances of bad products/bad seller etc. were generally sorted out by amazon.in Customer Service. Returns/cancellations are very easy, even for a foolish reason like 'no more need the item' !
Only recently I went back to Flipkart to get a MapMyIndia navigation system because it was not available on Amazon. I was scared of any issues, because then there would be a fight I had little chance of winning ! But the transaction went smoothly, the product is working smoothly, and for any further problems I can go to MapMyIndia directly . Later I found out that the same system was available online from the company, too, at the same price !

Anyway, my 'mantra' for online purchases in India, nothing other than AMAZON.IN ! Thank God eBay.in has shut shop ! Flipkart and others I shall avoid !

Amazon has so thoroughly spoilt me that I've stopped buying from Flipkart several years ago and never looked back. I think it was around the time they were trying to force everyone onto their mobile app. Flipkart is a lot like ola. Too much chalta hai attitude to processes.

On another note. I have another suspicion - this is an evolution of a scammy tactic a friend of mine who worked at a big retailer in the middle East told me about. At least as far as Flipkart is concerned, say it convinces a thousand people to pay 10k each for a piece of electronics and then offers a refund in 2 weeks to a month, that's a free 1crore working capital loan. Something that they need real money and effort to get from a bank. And given that they're already a negative working capital cycle business, has significant financial benefit for them

My online shopping experiences have been positive till date, be it Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm Mall or AliExpress. I used to use Flipkart extensively during 2012-15, have bought many smartphones for myself and family and also 2 LED TVs among my costlier purchases. Thankfully all of them were delivered within time and have worked without issues.

In the last 2-3 years I have found Amazon more customer friendly wrt returns/refund. I became a Prime member and been using Amazon since then. Nowadays I rarely use Flipkart anymore.

This month I bought a laptop for my wife from Flipkart from seller Retail Net. Thankfully the item was delivered before time with good packaging. I recorded a detailed unboxing video for proof if anything went wrong. The laptop is working fine and no issues as yet.

However I also wanted a DSLR whose regular online price on Amazon/Flipkart was ₹37k. I enquired at few local authorised stores and was surprised that they too were selling it at same ₹37k. The online prices later came down to ₹30k during the sale, but I still bought it from the local authorised store for ₹37k. This was my first DSLR and so it felt safer to buy it from authorised store for warranty and other technical support.

Reading through this thread, I guess I'll keep using Amazon as I have done from last 2-3 years and use Flipkart only for exclusive items. I'll also check offline stores for prices as these stores also match online prices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by baahubali (Post 4481493)

For the blocking part - I believe its an outcome of the algorithms that have been defined since ages to ensure a fair business practice between the service provider and the consumer. To give you an example, brick and mortar businesses remember their customers as the size of the population they cater to is not big(100s/1000s). These brick and mortar businesses do not need tech enabled algorithms. Their employees remember their customers and in particular the ones they are not comfortable with. Now lets look at service providers such as Credit card companies/NBFCs/Banks/e-commerce companies/Governments/Airports, the size of population they deal with is huge ! They cant employ enough people to remember each customer and hence need tech enabled algorithms which study the consumer behavior and take a call. Which effectively means, its not a human being sitting their who blocked you, but an ML

First of all my apologies for quoting the whole post, this was using a mobile.

The way you have casually put the blame on the seller is seriously unfortunate. I am buying from FK, I don’t care if they procure the stuff from 1 seller or multiple sellers. Your comments clearly shows you have not read the whole post. I have purchased multiple stuff, all got canceled.

Now regarding the ML algorithm(I am from the same domain)

Lid it can’t distinguish between the cancellation by a customer and a seller, it belongs in garbage. There are other stuff also added to my account, which dates back to 2015, I created an account with FK 5-6 months ago to order a DSLR, their systems are seriously messed up.

The problem here is they are not honoring their Gift cards, all orders are getting canceled automatically. When I questioned them the not only cancel my orders they delete my account.

While none of my frustration is towards you, I am just trying to clarify my stand so no other reader of this thread thinks in the same way like you did.

Sorry if anything was rude or harsh, not my intent.

PS: latest update, there was a call that rang for 5-7 seconds. Then I get this

Malpractices in Flipkart's Big Billion sale-9bc8ff16878347799c0d94098285e5e9.jpeg

Pramod