[Rahulkool]

I recently bought rear tyre for Duke 200 bike from snapdeal.com. It was a cash on delivery order so i went ahead. I am also comfortable buying tyres from local market, i also checked before the online order but it wasnt available anywhere and the place it was available was quoting 1k higher price. I got it online for rs34xx(installation was around rs150 at nearby tyre store). The least quote i got B&M shop was rs4600.

[spoth001]

Originally Posted by GTO

The king of online retail enters the tyre business but - oh dear - what a half-hearted attempt.

Using their tyre section makes it obvious they've put little thought into it, and have only gotten in for the heck of it. For instance, their make & model menu is completely messed up. On the brands list, check the spelling of Volkaswagen . And there's two entries for Hyunda / Hyundai . Worse still, for model year, you can choose only 2011!

As a company grows, mediocrity sets in (unless attention to detail becomes an organisational habit). This lame effort is a shame for a brand like Flipkart which has unlimited resources.

Sheesh, thumbs down.

There is a reason for limiting the year to 2011. These tyres are phased out models or may be overstock with manufacturers. Flipkart may have decided to liquidate and what better platform can they choose ? Giving 10% discount on old tyres is ridiculous.

Actually an expert from Kurla CST road will make out the difference and come up with actual current value !

[Urban_Nomad]

Originally Posted by Rahulkool

I recently bought rear tyre for Duke 200 bike from snapdeal.com. It was a cash on delivery order so i went ahead. I am also comfortable buying tyres from local market, i also checked before the online order but it wasnt available anywhere and the place it was available was quoting 1k higher price. I got it online for rs34xx(installation was around rs150 at nearby tyre store). The least quote i got B&M shop was rs4600.

Could you share the tyre's year / week of manufacturing?

And what tyre is this? The MRF Revz? if yes, then the shopkeeper who quoted 4600 for this (with 150 section Michelin available for 5300) must have been reaaaaalllllllyyyyyyyy high

[Rahulkool]

Originally Posted by Urban_Nomad

Could you share the tyre's year / week of manufacturing?

And what tyre is this? The MRF Revz? if yes, then the shopkeeper who quoted 4600 for this (with 150 section Michelin available for 5300) must have been reaaaaalllllllyyyyyyyy high

I will check the manufacturing date tonight and confirm but if i remember correctly it was 02/15, as it was the first thing i checked after receiving the tyre, because many people complained for old stock. The exact model no for this tyre is MRF - Revz - 150/60 R17. When i checked locally it was not available in most of the places, they were saying low supply/not manufactured and all reasons. Then one shop guy called somewhere else and told me that one pc is available and quoted 4600/-

[embee]

Originally Posted by GTO

The king of online retail enters the tyre business but - oh dear - what a half-hearted attempt.

Using their tyre section makes it obvious they've put little thought into it, and have only gotten in for the heck of it. For instance, their make & model menu is completely messed up. On the brands list, check the spelling of Volkaswagen . And there's two entries for Hyunda / Hyundai . Worse still, for model year, you can choose only 2011!

As a company grows, mediocrity sets in (unless attention to detail becomes an organisational habit). This lame effort is a shame for a brand like Flipkart which has unlimited resources.

Sheesh, thumbs down.

I think after your post, FLIPKART has checked and rectified the spelling errors and duplicate entries though some car models are still missing. Also they don't have range of tyres for SUV's like Mahindra XUV500 etc..

On a personal note, I would never buy tyres online especially through FLIPKART and that's for sure. I would like to see the product first with my own eyes before buying.

[zesty]

Originally Posted by rajeshsundaram

Here is a joke, that still exists. A seller at Flipkart has put up a WorldTech Car Audio System, with a "1 Year Dummy Company Domestic Warranty"

Even this is corrected by Flipkart. Now it is "1 Year Company Domestic Warranty" and not dummy company. Or, did I miss the satirical point?

[neo007]

Something that the Michelin dealer gave me when I was discussing the same with him. Only authorised dealers are allowed to sell the tyres.

[malgudi]

Originally Posted by neo007

Something that the Michelin dealer gave me when I was discussing the same with him. Only authorised dealers are allowed to sell the tyres.

Same is also mentioned here http://www.michelin.in/Home/News-Pro...Policy?pid=231

[WasavaTyres]

Even Yokohama India professes the same :

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by neo007

Something that the Michelin dealer gave me when I was discussing the same with him. Only authorised dealers are allowed to sell the tyres.

Originally Posted by WasavaTyres

Even Yokohama India professes the same :

Just a small doubt, how do the Tyres reach the e-commerce websites then? Since its a marketplace, are Tyre dealers selling online to supplement their business? How can that be called illegal then? These posters look like an attempt to safeguard the dealers revenues. Quite confusing such a situation is.

Not only tyres, same applies to any other part too, for example ICE. The manufacturers state that e-commerce websites are not authorized to sell their products. No one states how the product reaches online sellers.

[Grr7]

Hey fellas,

I recently bought Good Year Duraplus tires for my esteem in 155/80 R13 configuration from PayTm. I had initial apprehension of ordering the tires online, so I ordered in batches of 1 tire(to check the online buying process), followed by 2 tires(the main order) followed by 1 tire(the free tire due to 25% cashback).

Luckily, PayTm was running 25% cashback offer back then.
I ordered 3 tires and then ordered a fourth one from the cashback received. All in call, the set of 4 tires costed about Rs.750 less per tire from the market price. Mind you, I had inquired the best market rate from Karol Bagh and likes(unlike Gurgaon malls where they are sold almost at MRP).

The tires were shipped by Capital Tyres based in Green Park and were fresh rubber(April 2015 manufacturing date). The invoice is from Capital Tires and the guy across the phone acknowledged that they will honor the warranty.

All in all, I am a happy petrol-head, with no nonsense functional tires expected to run 80000ish km.

Regards

[WasavaTyres]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Just a small doubt, how do the Tyres reach the e-commerce websites then? Since its a marketplace, are Tyre dealers selling online to supplement their business? How can that be called illegal then? These posters look like an attempt to safeguard the dealers revenues. Quite confusing such a situation is.

Not only tyres, same applies to any other part too, for example ICE. The manufacturers state that e-commerce websites are not authorized to sell their products. No one states how the product reaches online sellers.

It is more to do with issues like this one , since international brands have factories in several countries.: Link apart from predatory pricing that eats into the business of smaller dealers.

For example, a dealer in a tier 1 or metro city will have sales 3 to 4 times more compared to a dealer from a smaller town on account of the sheer number of vehicles on the road. And that upsets the level playing field theory. Yes ultimately the customer will get it at a lower price but at the cost of the smaller dealer being perceived as being a greedy businessman.
Tyres are not a high margin business, the profits are more volume driven. So for smaller players it becomes a catch 22 situation, they're not able to match prices of the larger players - sales decline - and they're further relegated to a smaller sales slab, hence lower discounts and even lower sales. A customer's first reaction would be "" öh ! he's ripping me off " while the guy is just operating on a small margin.

[ACM]

Originally Posted by spoth001

There is a reason for limiting the year to 2011. These tyres are phased out models or may be overstock with manufacturers. Flipkart may have decided to liquidate and what better platform can they choose ? Giving 10% discount on old tyres is ridiculous.

The reference is to car year NOT tyre year.

Originally Posted by neo007

Something that the Michelin dealer gave me when I was discussing the same with him. Only authorised dealers are allowed to sell the tyres.

Originally Posted by WasavaTyres

Even Yokohama India professes the same :

Originally Posted by malgudi

Same is also mentioned here http://www.michelin.in/Home/News-Pro...Policy?pid=231

The Key reasons for this is:

1) Protection of Dealer Margins and company set pricing.
2) Protection of Dealer / channel business itself.
3) The Tyres on online sites could have been purchased and imported directly from any other country globally. - This will then not count in the India Country heads sales figures.
4) Actually Tyres do face duplication and branded online sites have been found to be selling all kinds of branded duplicate products as the model depends on the companies selling to it.
5) Online sites and new entrants subsidize their business to get customers to latch onto them initially, flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, and even Uber and Ola all do this. - The Burn rate logic. Regular Brick & Mortar companies face an issue due to this and can't keep up or sell at loss just to gain numbers. The online ones are just using up the VC /investor funds to get market share right now.

Presently the range of sizes and brands on Flipkart are very limited, I am not able to get even one option in 225/55R16.

[deepv]

Originally Posted by ACM

...
The Key reasons for this is:
...

Someone asked me how they distinguish between tyres bought online or off the shelf from a dealer,
because most of time they just depend upon manufacturing date on the tyre for warranties.

I was wondering about this, and some of the points you mentioned here do answer this concern.
Since Michelin India (or any other vendor) officially doesn't support online sellers, the tyres available with them would have to fall in one of the categories you mentioned.

[ACM]

Originally Posted by deepv

Someone asked me how they distinguish between tyres bought online or off the shelf from a dealer,
because most of time they just depend upon manufacturing date on the tyre for warranties.

I was wondering about this, and some of the points you mentioned here do answer this concern.
Since Michelin India (or any other vendor) officially doesn't support online sellers, the tyres available with them would have to fall in one of the categories you mentioned.

To add further my experience recently with "SNAPDEAL".

I was checking out Pirelli P7 Cinturanto tyres in size 225/55 R16.

Now let me clarify that I finally bought the tyres from a physical store.

I noticed that there were multiple sellers for these tyres and 1 of them was selling a set of 4 for 35.5K approx. while the rest were at about 45K. The one selling for 35.5K mentioned the MRP as 38K and the ones selling for 45K as 48K. I FYI bought the tyres from a physical store at about 41.5K and the MRP was about 45K. (These are all for set of 4)

I wrote to Snapdeal asking about warranty - their response was that this would be taken care of by the Manufacturer - This did not inspire confidence.

I wrote to Snapdeal about age of the tyres - their response was that we ask the dealers to ship tyres less than 6 months in age. I asked what should I do if the tyres are older than 6 months age, will they ensure full refund including shipping costs. They then directed me towards some standard terms and conditions. This again did not inspire confidence.

I separately asked them regarding the MRP difference for the same product and how the same product can have a different MRP plus who can another seller be selling above the MRP price. They had NO response to this and simply said this is something that they cannot respond to and I have to ask the dealers.

I then asked the dealer with the lowest price the same question directly and go no reply. This again did not inspire confidence.

I then simply purchased the product from a physical store.

I think in the mid term online India based tyre sites seem to be good places to buy certain brands of tyres. Indian brands like MRF, Apollo, Ceat etc, and Bad for certain semi Premium (in India) brands like Michelin, Yokohoma, Pirelli & Continental and also quite decent for brands like Bridgestone & Goodyears if manufactured in India specifically. They are also a good place for hard to find brand like Kumho & Hankook.