[meerkat]

Originally Posted by Sebring

Sold by Cloudtail and fulfilled by Amazon, unfortunately

That perhaps explains the refund of your money, perhaps with relatively minor pain. That's the whole idea behind my exclusive choice of "Fulfilled by Amazon" or "fAssured", -- an expectation of relatively painless resolution of any issues that might inevitably arise. Some such, of course, have happened to me too over the years, but nothing so extreme as yours yet, thankfully!

Have placed orders for a bunch of things from Amazon during the Great Indian Sale that ended last night. Waiting for the deliveries now with fingers crossed! Declined to fall to temptation for something very enticing only because it wasn't "Fulfilled by Amazon", although it wasn't available elsewhere.
.

[WorkingGuru]

On 19th I placed a Pre-Paid order (firestick) on Amazon. On 20th, I placed a PoD order (Echo Dot). On d-day when I decided not to buy the Echo Dot yet & sent it back, somehow both orders got cancelled!

Actually, going by the tight package size, delivery agent hadn't brought the FireStick at all, so I was waiting for the FireStick delivery. Its only when I checked the App notifications, that I came to realise that Amazon bundled & shipped the FireStick with the Echo Dot together.

Sad, since I was really looking forward to the firestick, its available now but deliverable only after a month.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by anoop.u

https://infinity.icicibank.com : Uses OV

Don't confuse the landing page with the actual main banking section of the ICICI bank. The main banking section is protected by EV certificate.
Bank sites DO use EV certificates as far as I know. Others here may know more. After all my knowledge is limited to just 23 years as a SysAdmin.

[car_addict]

Originally Posted by dmplog

Ordered ASUS Laptop (ASUS VivoBook 14 M409DA-EK147T) which was needed for general usage (no gaming or heavy graphics work involved). It was ordered on 17th through Amazon.

Is anyone else experiencing similar slippages in deliver timelines?

I also ordered Asus Vivobook 14 on Flipkart in Bangalore. I got it the next day itself. Same with my mobile phone on Amazon also.

[SS80]

Originally Posted by meerkat

Was instead of the expected 14) ?! -- Again, was it an "fAssured" order?
.

I had ordered from Amazon.in yet to hear from them about battery update. Also had ordered a few Stanley deep sockets, they were delivered this morning and are original ones. Love the quality.

[mukeshgoel]

I bought a computer case from Amazon (Sold by Appario Retail Private Ltd and Fulfilled by Amazon). It got delivered next day but it turned out be defective.

Raised a replacement request (no refund allowed) but it is showing estimated delivery by 22nd November (almost one month) whereas it is showing delivery by 27th October if I buy it again (Sold by Appario Retail Private Ltd and Fulfilled by Amazon).

Called Amazon and requested either an early delivery or refund but no solution even after talking to 2-3 people in a 20 minutes call.

[HTC]

Slowly, I am losing faith in the quality of goods from major e-tailers.

- Doing search like the good old days are gone. It is very difficult to drill down to a product category and list all the brands and pick what you want on Amazon. Hell, even Craigslist is better in that regard. For example, try searching for 'baby car seat', on Amazon. No matter what you do, you end up seeing only a handful of brands.

- The discount is a sham. For example, at first, a grey baby car seat was listed with a 52% discount. MRP was close to 11k. But there was not a single review on the internet and no pic from actual buyers. I let go of it. The Billion sale ended and that listing was no longer available. But the very next day, the same seat was available at 40% off

- They deploy AI to monitor your search pattern and frequency. Out of the blue, a product which is not available appears with a good discount saying only 1 left in stock. I have fallen for this trick. The seat has been already delivered, but I'm outstation. As soon as I get back, I will check serial number, manufacturing date etc and also record a video of the unboxing for proof.

- Most of the foot wear I have purchased from Flipkart/Amazon has turned out to be fake. From personal experience, I have been able to deduce that my Hush Puppies formal shoes and Lee Cooper were fakes. Lee Cooper had cardboard-based heel and a low quality sole, which wore out within 6 months.

- I sense that the sellers are mixing fake and real goods. That is the reason we see very good reviews as well as crappy reviews for the same product. If you're lucky, you get the original.

- What my friends have been doing for home appliances is to quote the e-tailers price at brick and mortar stores. Shops like Girias are happily matching the quote, which is good in a way.

[Anjadekar]

Originally Posted by WorkingGuru

Sad, since I was really looking forward to the firestick, its available now but deliverable only after a month.

You can consider getting the Fire TV Stick Lite instead. It has the same exact specs as the regular Fire TV Stick but doesn’t include the power or volume keys, for which you can easily use your existing tv remote, and is a tad cheaper.

The Lite variant seems to be in stock and, for my location, shows next-day delivery.

[meerkat]

Originally Posted by HTC

- I sense that the sellers are mixing fake and real goods. That is the reason we see very good reviews as well as crappy reviews for same product.

It is well known that some sellers purchase and plant fake reviews from fake review writers. I've just got a first hand experience of a more subtle way of biasing even some real reviews into more favourable ones:

A dried fruit package delivered by Amazon yesterday has this sticker message pasted on it:

EARN Rs. 50/- CASHBACK

"To claim your cashback give your valuable feedback on the Product and send us the screenshot of same over whatsapp @ **********"

[saleem_k]

I got a couple of products recently from Amazon during their sale, one was an external hard disk and the other a soundbar manufactured by Realme. I must say both of them are original and high-quality. I am actually blown-away by the quality of the sound doled out by the Realme soundbar. I bought the Canono 90d camera in June, along with an extra lens and I did get original products. The only time in the last 6 months when I got substandard products were when i ordered for an office chair and the handles seemed to be scratched, which I noticed before I assembled the chair. I raised a return and it was hassle-free, no questions asked.

Online shopping is an art and needs to be mastered. Personally, whenever I shop on Amazon, I research a bit about the seller, see the ratings for the last 6 months, 12 months and overall. Also being a prime member, I go for Amazon fulfilled orders mostly. Also, be careful when you go for discounts and offers, compare it with other platforms and see what the price range is. You don't always have to go for the lower-priced platform but for a more assured platform. Also, be aware that whatever the platform, they usually jack up the prices just before a major sale and then give the discount, which essentially means we end up paying the same price with no major actual benefit. It's just a perceived benefit.

I must confess though that I've stopped ordering from Flipkart since about 4 years because I personally didn't have great experiences shopping from them and the products I got were not up to the mark. Also, the horror stories around Flipkart's handling of returns, duplicate products, etc. pushed me away from this platform, although personally I didn't face any such issues, I just didn't want to be the next such customer. That's just me and probably someone else had a better experience from Flipkart compared to Amazon.

Happy shopping guys!

[Vasuki]

Fake reviews beware. Really interesting tactics used by fake sellers to promote their brands.

Link

[mayankk]

I bought 4 things each from flipkart and amazon.
3 of 4 from flipkart had to be returned either due to quality, or for incorrect product. Nuff said.
Gave a shot to flipkart, even though I knew it's useless, but didn't realise it had become rediff shopping.

[Mortis]

The accuracy of the search results on Amazon and Flipkart us also crap. Sometimes the product you are searching for doesn't show up or it shows totally different products which don't even have the search keywords in the name.
Stupid search and marketing algorithms with AI crap.
I often have to search from Google with the keyword amazon.in to get the link to the actual product I want.

[SideView]

Originally Posted by Mortis

The accuracy of the search results on Amazon and Flipkart us also crap. Sometimes the product you are searching for doesn't show up or it shows totally different products which don't even have the search keywords in the name.
Stupid search and marketing algorithms with AI crap.
I often have to search from Google with the keyword amazon.in to get the link to the actual product I want.

Have you ever thought Amazon/Flipkart might be messing with the search on purpose.

The more time we spend on website browsing through random stuff more likely we are to buy things just like real life window shopping in supermarket.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Mortis

The accuracy of the search results on Amazon and Flipkart us also crap. [...] I often have to search from Google with the keyword amazon.in

In a way this proves that Google was right all along; Searching is what comes to us naturally and not Filing. :-)

(I don't know what product you were searching for; but on Amazon generally I search after selecting the category that contains what I want. Then I use the various filtering options to get to the appropriate one).