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For instance if I had charged the battery to 100% previous night, a couple of calls in the morning, a few whatzapp messages, face book app checks etc would drain it down to almost half. There are plenty of reviews on this topic in www.

I then took it to Istore support and they said that this is normal if you use your apps. I was then thinking to myself why would I use a smartphone if I was not to use apps or compromise on using apps when there are other antroid phones which were doing a much better job.

Multiple vernacular news sites are reporting that KL goverment has fined four e-commerce companies several crore rupees for not paying taxes for sales booked in the state. This big four are flipkart.com, jabong.com, myntra.com and zovi.com, and the reports say that several other companies are under the scanner and more fines are to follow.

Some of the sites speculate that the companies will legally challenge the decision; in which case this could lead to a defining moment for the industry.

Congrats. What was the price on the local stores ?

Thanks, mithun.

The Pongal festival offer included some freebies worth ₹ 2,500 like mixie, pans, for the MRP ₹ 7,374. As we were not interested in those items, I bought the product from Snapdeal.

Only for COD, I guess. For online transactions, they can't do anything.

COD is a grey area. Center should define it in the law to do away with the ambiguity.

I paid with credit card for an HP printer at Flipkart. The product reached Noida but the courier could not deliver due to sales tax issue. Flipkart refunded / credited the money back to my credit card account.

So it's not only COD.

That's unusual, i use an iphone5 and the battery life is definitely not as bad as u mentioned. I charge my phone at night and the battery lasts for the entire day then. And i use whatsapp, Facebook, play games, etc.

PS: I had replaced my battery 2months ago. My phone is almost 2 years old.

They have a very good policy of customer satisfaction. But one has to be careful about it. Too many returns and you account is flagged and reviewed by an internal team, whose job is to just identify customers returning frequently without valid reasons. Then the accounts are terminated and I guess the address is also flagged. So be careful with Amazon.
Check out wwwfor more examples and details on this

Edit : in the US, people had started the practice of ordering two different items of the same product eg two different Bluetooth speakers. They would use both, retain the one they like and return the other. This has led to this policy of terminating accounts.

I never could see why COD is such a grey area. The concepts behind COD (mail order, VPP etc) have been around for several decades now. The law is clear, the procedures are well-established. My personal view is that the KL government is simply bowing to pressure from local retailers and this action of theirs will not stand scrutiny in a court.

The UP case is different. The UP government's claim is that Flipkart runs fictitious vendors, forges paperwork and essentially breaks a bunch of criminal laws. It is not a purely taxation issue, unlike the KL situation. If they are guilty, then I expect them to be punished severely.

To my understanding , Online Retailers are paying Taxes in the state from where goods are shipped , now this % Tax might be different in the state where these goods are shipped. Some states which have higher rate of taxes then others are the one making the noises / imposing penalties . Only way they can discourage interstate transactions is by imposing entry taxes ( few states already add such taxes on selective products ), Imposing Fines on legally valid interstate shipments can be challenged legally easily .

The differential tax rates do not matter. In India, sales tax on inter-state sales is levied by the Union government. Same-state sales are affected by the state's VAT policy and rates.

Due to the Union government's prevalent FDI policy, almost all e-commerce sites are operating in the marketplace model.

So the KL government's position is this: Suppose a KL-based seller on such a virtual marketplace sells something to a KL-based buyer. This is a same-state sale and hence the state's VAT rules and payment schedule should apply.

The e-commerce site's position is this: It will be a body blow to their business if they have to make sure every one of their thousands/lakhs/millions of vendors comply with state-level VAT laws. So they book all sales as though happening in their own home state. For buyers who are located out of that state (KA in FK's case), they charge CST and pay the union government; for buyers who are within the state they charge VAT and pay the KA government (it is not clear to me, but I feel they always ship from warehouses outside the state of the buyer to make sure that ALL transactions are inter-state). They also charge the marketplace vendors for their platform and services and pay service tax (again, to the union government).

So all in all, the buyer's state gets nothing, and all tax revenue from e-commerce is taken by the union government.

One more thing - CST rate is 4%, in KA VAT rate is at times 14.5%. So booking all sales under inter-state and charging CST helps the e-commerce sites to keep prices down.

Get the manufacturer/supplier's point of view on selling through Amazon:

Schiit Happens: The Ongoing Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up:

2015, Chapter 1: The Trials and Tribulations of Amazon

True, it is .com and American, but one of the things that is useful to us is an insight into why so many A.com items carry the words: This item does not ship to <City in India>.

The whole thing is a great read if you are interested in audio, especially head-phone audio, and/or in the business theory and practice of a start up. Management and marketing are subjects guaranteed to put me in a coma in seconds, but the story of Schiit Audio was a gripping read that I could not put down, and am still following.

I am yet to buy any of their equipment, but one day I will.

Thanks for that, and for fuller explanation.

I tried purchasing the Micromax Yureka off the Amazon Thursday sale yesterday, and within less than a second all devices were sold out! Any idea on how many devices were sold?

A weird thing happened yesterday.

I had ordered OnePlus One phone from Amazon, and opted for COD.

When the delivery guy came to hand over the parcel yesterday, I used my Citibank card to pay the amount to the him. After swiping the card and entering the PIN, I immediately got a SMS notification confirming the payment.

But, few hours later, surprisingly, I got multiple messages from Amazon, that the payment has been reversed. No reason was provided. But, didn’t got any such notification from the bank.

So, it’s a funny situation to be in - I have the phone with me, as per Amazon the payment has been reversed. :-/

I also checked with the bank this morning, and as per the payment has been deducted, but has not been claimed by the merchant yet. What does this means?

Don’t want the courier guy to suffer because of the tech issues. He has been calling me to make the payment again.

I will be happy to make the payment, in case I get the confirmation from the bank that payment has actually been reversed. Has anybody ever gone through this kind of situation? What should be done?

It happens sometimes at Merchant Establishments also. Many times, without my follow up, the amount got reversed. In one such case at a Store, the Manager gave me a printout of all the transactions in a window of 10 mins. Although, I received message twice, the store got the credit only Once.

This is nothing but a technical glitch.

It has happened with Amazon also in respect to payments made by Debit / Credit Card. You can trust Amazon. In case, If Amazon receive excess amount, they'll reverse the transaction at the earliest.

Congrats & Enjoy your OnePlus One, and do report the user experience.