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-   -   The Online Shopping Thread (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/22122-online-shopping-thread-11.html)

Rcom/icici coupon still works, however the don't give discounts like 100 off on small value order which other coupons offered earlier.

anyway I might get my camera delivered from letsbuy today, will post about it once i get it.

Seems Letsbuy.com is getting popular and their server is now having issues with keeping itself up for heavy traffic.

http://letsbuy.com Is Down -> Check if your website is up or down?

Now I would consider this would be a trend decider point, most online stores loose lot of customers when they are not able to serve the traffic, so lets wait and watch.

I hope they don't become like IRCTC !!!

As long as you check user reviews about an online site and do your homework about the goods, there is hardly a problem in shopping online.

All my bills are paid online and I shop regularly on eBay, flipkart, dealsnyou, zoomin etc..

Recently purchased a Android phone from Deals And You. The price was nearly half of the market price. The goods were delivered within 8 days, in a double secure packing. The phone was box-packed, untouched.

And to top it up, as I purchased using my credit card, I got the purchase protection as well!

I do not know where to put this. So here it goes.

I recently bought A laptop from flipkart.
And the experience was very good.

It is said that the guys behind it used to work for amazon. And surely they have brought the expertise to this company.

The order processing was very prompt. They kept me informed via sms and the mail about the shipment.

The packing was fabulous. I have bought high value items on the ebay also but somehow the fact that I was dealing with shopkeepers in Delhi and other places with ebay just acting as a middle guy did not inspire confidence.

The products on Flipkart come with a genuineness guarantee.

I am planning to get a Hard Disk from them now.

OT: The price of the Olympus camera was 2k higher on flipkart site than mentioned in the Olympus India website. Since I am registered at flipkart I left a feedback about the same. They called me up within an hour and told me that they will do what is necessary.

And today I get this mail:

Dear XXXXXX,

Greetings!

Thank you for writing in.

We are pleased to inform you that the price difference regarding the "Olympus E-PL1 SLR (Black) with 14-42-mm Kit" you had enquired about has now been corrected. However, this product is currently out of stock. You may use the "notify me" option in the following link. You will receive a mail when the product will be available.
This link will take you to the product:

Flipkart.com: Olympus E-PL1: Camera

Thank you for choosing Flipkart!
Have a nice day.


For further assistance, you can call us on 080-43526600 or write to us.

Thanks & regards,
XXXXXXX
Flipkart Customer Support
Flipkart.com: Online Shopping India: Buy Books Online: Mobiles, Cameras, Laptops, Accessories
The store at your door



Now this is a very small thing. But things like this inspire confidence in a customer. I for one will definitely buy more from flipkart.

Yesterday, was ordering a Nokia basic phone from flipkart. While paying through net banking, the amount was deducted from my acc but flipkart said 'Payment not received'.

Sent them a mail with the details. Having bought quite a few times from them, I think they'l sort it out. Hoping they do it soon!

Any similar experiences?

Happens to me regularly, not with Flipkart, but with Airtel. The transaction appears to have completed at the banking end, but does not complete on the Airtel site.

So far, I've always found it sorts itself out within a day and the payment gets acknowledged.

Issue sorted, my package is on its way now. But, not without daily followups.

At one point they confirmed they had got the payement and in the very next mail they denied receiving any money!!

I have bought phones, datacard, pen drives etc from Flipkart, Letsbuy & Infibeam. Though there had been delays, overall my experience has been good. I have also tried Phonecurry.com to get the best prices.

My experiences on various sites

The good

Flipkart: Very wow. Day before yesterday i had the issue of payment being charged on the card but not received by them. Sent them a mail(very conveniently located in the my account section) and they sorted it out. The shipment is now on the way.


Indiatimes shopping: Product was broken. They have arranged a reverse pickup. Thats fine.

Ebay: Generally good impression. Have used them for curios only.

The Bad:

Indiaplaza: Used them once. Ordered for two items and got just one. Called up their very slow call center (had to hold for ten mins) and they assured me that the other one will be shipped on monday. Two mondays later i called them again, waited for ten minute again and was that it was going to be shipped on monday, again. Another monday later, finally got a mail from indiaplaza that the item was not in stock and they would be processing the refund. Have got the refund so i guess that i can trust the site for future orders.

Fashionandyou : Wanted to order a 1:18 model. MRP 345. Their price 299. I was happy. The downer was the shipping which was 100 Rs !!! I left it there. Got a followup mail from them asking why i didn't order. Told them the reason and got a revert to read terms and conditions. How Dumb!!

20North: Ordered a helmet once. Ten days later, they inform me (after two followups on my side) that the product was not available. Second time, the product arrived on time.

The Ugly
Vicky.in : Absolutely horrible. Product came in pieces - literally. Took pics and sent it to them. No reply. Called up and was directed to another number. Finally got a reply that they will refund me for the cost of the product (rs 300 approx) and i had to ship it to them. So i was supposed to lose both sides shipping money (rs 200) so that i could get a refund of Rs 300. Told them that this wasn't fair. Their reply, read the T&C.
Avoid at all costs!

Purchased books in bulk couple of times on Indiaplaza , prices were reasonable, however the delivery was delayed on one occasion.

I have been a regular buyer from Flipkart - awesome service. Their packaging is slightly shoddy at times - but no complaints about the product.

I recently decided to give letsbuy.com a shot, mostly because I had a 10 percent off coupon. So I ordered a bunch of stuff from there -

A portable hard drive, wireless keyboard/mouse combo and an external slim DVD writer - after the discount the entire cost was about the same as I would pay for just the hard drive at Croma so I figured I would give it a shot. The service was great. To my surprise they shipped it via Fedex overnight shipping for free. Flipkart still has more stuff but I am glad I now have to websites from which I can reliably order stuff.

I ordered a pen drive from ezone which is part of futurebazaar - arrived on time but I would stick to the above 2 mentioned dealers.

Have only bought books from them, which are easy things to pack, being flat, regular-shaped, and not very fragile. Their packing has been one of the things I like. First they shrink-wrap the book; even if the package was immersed in water the book should still be ok. Then they wrap in fresh cardboard and all seams are sealed/taped. Small thing, but I like the free bookmarks, too, even thought they are actually flipkart adverts.

might i suggest a site for books?
secondhandbooksindia.com

The site is very basic, and navigation is circumspect, but you can experiment with a lot of new writers, and get some good deals on contemporary ones too.
collection is huge.
Payment ios quite simple, like a recharge account of sorts.
even a 100 bucks goes a LONG way.

delivery is within 2 days, at least in delhi.

The best site to look for out of print books and find the cheapest deal on books has to be bookfinder.com

I really wanted an out of print copy of Tagore's Flight of Swans. Some guy is Australia was selling it and at that time I was in New York.


Regarding Flipkart, they always pack their books pretty darn well. It is the other stuff - electronics. They pack it in a really safe way but the amount of scotch tape they use to make it secure could drive one up the wall. Perhaps this is because of lack of availability of good packaging material in India?

Flipkart is without a doubt the best service ever.

Excellent packaging (a pain to open though, I swear you'd need a chainsaw. Very secure, however). Exemplary customer service, prompt delivery, and very competitive pricing.

The best thing about them however has to be the Website UI. Very easy to navigate and use, and the Cash-on-Delivery payment option, which is a boon in a country like ours.

I have so far bought various books, DVD's and Blu-Ray's, a 1 TB Hard-drive and a cell phone from them.
Have had very good experiences so far.