Comment

Comment by Gaurav Thukral on May 30, 2012 at 1:31pm

Hope babyoye learns from other players in the ecommerce space.

My experience with another ecommerce player Makemytrip (this was around 5 years back when Makemytrip was also in the initial stages) shows the difference between a customer oriented startup and profit oriented startups.

I was searching for the best prices for an air ticket from Bangalore to Delhi (during peak season around Diwali). Most of the websites were showing tickets above Rs 10k (normal prices at that time were around 5k). Indian Airlines website showed ticket price around Rs 14k.

To my surprise, MakeMyTrip showed the ticket price for the same flight to be Rs 4k (a whopping 10k less than what Indian Airlines showed on their website). Without wasting any time, I booked the ticket and paid Rs 4k to MakeMyTrip.

2 days later, I had a paper ticket in my hand and the cost mentioned on the same was Rs 14k.

As the credit card details were still not available to confirm if I had been charged Rs 4k, I called up the customer care team of MakeMyTrip and enquired abt the difference between the price shown on the website and the price mentioned on the ticket.

The reply received from the customer care team brought a big smile on my face. MakeMyTrip had paid the balance 10k to Indian Airlines because they had committed the ticket to me @ 4k (a technical glitch on their end had incorrectly displayed the 14k ticket as 4k).

Customer care at its best.

Comment by Abhimanyu on May 30, 2012 at 1:31pm

@Rahul I was a little late in writing about this. The call probably came on 9th May. Call details on my phone go back only till 19th May. Also, just got off the phone with vodafone. They said they couldn't locate the number as there's no provision to get details of incoming calls except filing an FIR with the police.
Its babyoye's call. I am open to scrutinizing my call details if it helps in nailing the bugger

Comment by Alok 'Rodinhood' Kejriwal on May 30, 2012 at 12:30pm

Thanks Abhimanyu for the feedback. So, you ARE certain that IT WAS BABYOYE.COM?

That is critical. I am sure that Babyoye will go into more details.

Comment by Abhimanyu on May 30, 2012 at 12:14pm

@Rahul Great to see you come out like this and being open to an inquiry. Appreciate your stand on this. I am trying to contact my sister for the details. Will fwd you the order no. and the date of purchase asap. Hope this sets a precedent for the whole e-Com industry.
Just get a feeling the delivery guy and the caller might be upto something here. Who knows? There might be a big racket that operates like that? Can't recall the exact words he spoke when the conversation happened, but he did come across as a professional caller. I didn't feel for a second that he's not what he's pretending to be. Rest, hopefully, we will know in days to come.

Comment by Devesh Tanna on May 30, 2012 at 11:55am

Hi,

For all of you going gaga over Flipkart, let me share my experience with FK CS this morning.

I simply asked him - I am a customer in Mumbai, If a buy a certain product will you be able to give me Maharashtra billing as I would get VAT benefit.  IF billed from out outside Maharashtra, it would be a CST billing and I would not get VAT input credit.

The CS spent the next 5 - 10 mins explaining that the price is all inclusive and the do not charge vat extra.

It is quite ridiculous that a company doing commerce and interstate business does not train its CS executives on VAT / CST.

So finally told him to just tell me where it will be billed from Mumbai, he said he need one day to confirm that.

What???????????????  Can't he just his supervisor?

I ended up getting a headache.  Atleast on ebay, you have the location of the seller displayed upfront.

What is the use of having fulfillment centers all across, and no knowledgeable CS.

Devesh

Comment by Balachandar Muruganantham on May 29, 2012 at 9:08pm

This is quite common. not just with ecommerce companies. even with government enterprise.

I booked a ticket in IRCTC in march 2012 for journey after april 2012 in Rajadhani express. The ticket costs around X amount. since it was applied in budget, every one was forced to pay extra Y amount. 

This is not wrong. what is wrong is, if you are not informing the customer about the change in price.

- bala

Chennaishopping.com

Comment by Himanshu Agarwal on May 29, 2012 at 8:06pm

On 25th Jan 2012, I ordered a book from infibeam.com. I got a Infibeam Purchase Confirmation email bearing the order no. 8585282 and I paid for the order by Credit Card (CC). Since I get transaction notifications of my CC on my cell, I did not get one for this transaction. i thought maybe, the bank does it in batches and there may be some delay in my account being debited. Later I forgot. After a week when I still did not get the book, I checked infibeam with my order # and man...the order was cancelled. It's true that my account did not get debited...but at least have some workflow in place that triggers a mail on suo moto cancellations. 

Reason I ditched other e-tailers for infibeam was because it was cheap...but after this experience I realize, they indeed are 'CHEAP'.

Flipkart comes at a premium, but given the positive BUZZ surrounding the brand, I won't mind paying a premium for a guaranteed delivery and a two way interaction.

Unfortunately, e-com is not about technology, but establishing positive brand connect, which cannot happen by buying spots/banners on mass media...one needs to put their heart behind the whole thing!

Comment by Abhimanyu on May 29, 2012 at 7:02pm

True Nayan. I think, most if not all eComm players are myopic, especially the ones that have cropped up in last yr and a half. And you'll see that the amount of traffic and online sales on these sites is indirectly proportional to level of customer care and post-sale service. More the traffic, more they take the customer for granted. Compare that with a flipkart or amazon - more traffic, more sales, more trust and more word-of-mouth..and even more sales!! But thats too long a haul for these sprinters here.   

Comment by Devesh Tanna on May 29, 2012 at 6:51pm

Any smart site would forgo such a small amount.  If the difference was say like 10000 and 1000 (forgot to add one zero while uploading), it is obvious that such an order cannot be fulfilled.

Comment by Nayan Khinvasara on May 29, 2012 at 6:43pm

E-comm websites leave a lot to be desired. Something similar happened when booking flight tickets at Via.com. My payment went through but I received an email that the tickets are pending confirmation, This was shortly followed up by a call from heir customer care saying that the prices have gone up by more than Rs.2000 per ticket. On asking him why the true price is not displayed on the website, he said that it takes some time to refresh. On pressing, he clarified that 'some time' can be up to 15 minutes.

3 hours later, the same lower price was being displayed for the same tickets. Needless to say, I ended up buying from a competitor.

If e-comm sites want to attract buyers (and get rid of the pain of COD), they need to earn the customer's trust.

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