This is the message my wife got on Flipkart when she ordered 50 books of The Autobiography of a Yogi
(for me to give away at the Rodinhood Bangalore Open Housesoon)
So, we had to scramble and get the copies from elsewhere.
From a consumer’s viewpoint:
– This experience was a pain ‘coz my wife had got used to ordering this book in lots of 50s from Flipkart. She was going to ship 2 lots of 50 books each to Rodinhood volunteers in Delhi and Bangalore, so that they could get the books for me when we meet in these cities.
– This experience forced us to look at alternative suppliers and we found the original publisher of the book – Anand Sangha, so that has got taken care of permanently.
– I doubt I will ever go back to FK for ‘bulk buys’.
From Flipkart’s point of view:
– This makes partial sense. Sell what you stock. Then stock again and sell again.
– I read that lots of e-gonners had stocked ‘weird quantities’ of goods in the anticipation of orders to ‘delight’ consumers with instant deliveries.
This ‘refusal to sell’ is now pointing in the right direction.
Additional thoughts:
Flipkart resembles an extremely realistic retain business now – Come in, check, find, get happy/walk out disappointed.
[In Delhi last month, I walked into all the book stores in Khan Market looking for AY (Autobiography of a Yogi) to give away, and this was the same experience! Each shop had max 1-2 books!
But then the question I ask is, where is the technology at play here?
– Shouldn’t Flipkart actually be sending my wife a mail every 2 months saying, “Wanna buy your next lot of 50 books? Just order now.”
Ok, if that’s asking for too much, then how about saying:
“Sorry, we don’t have the quantities you are looking for just now, but we will quickly come back to you about when we can supply them or not. Please give us 24/48 hours to respond…”
That’s a real ‘technology meets consumer business’ to me!!
Looks like the brakes are really pressing down hard on some of these e-guys and the consumer experience is not so pretty anymore…
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Layak Singh
THERE TECHNOLOGY IS UNBELIEVABLE, THEY EVEN DO NOT KNOW WHETHER THE INVENTORY IS THERE OR NOT FOR WHICH SOMEONE IS PLACING THE ORDER.
ALSO, THERE IS NO SYNERGY IN BETWEEN THE DELIVERY DATE, THEY SHOW BLAH, BLAH..AND THEY SAY BLAH..BLAH..
I AM REALLY SURPRISED WHAT THEY ARE DOING ACTUALLY, THEY HAVE 4000 EMPLOYEES FROM REPUTED TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT INSTITUTES EVEN.
IT REALLY NOT A GOOD SIGN FOR FUTURE. I AM NOT GONNA TO BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM NOW OWN WARDS. MOREOVER, THEY PUT THE ITEM OUT OF STOCK WHEN I CANCELLED THE ORDER AFTER 4-5 DAY OF ORDER PLACING…BAD BAD!!!
Sarsij Nayanam
I believe, flipkart has not given much thought over this issue of handling the bulk purchasing. I would give them a fair chance because they always wanted to cater to only the retail demand (ok, that is an assumption I am making). There are portals which have diverted their retail and bulk purchase customers and they handle both the segments with the same ease.
And whatever you wrote about technology, I agree to that. Technology should have been able to spot the buyer behavior by now and should have indicated the right message to be given to the customer.
Regs
Everything that goes up has to come down :D… Time for Flipkart to come down and you to move to some other ecom player..
Gopikrishna Kannan
That is the technology gap the Indian e-commerce industry is facing. Companies like Amazon, Dell have built a very strong supply chain operation systems in place over years to build a very strong customer experience.
This shows the big gap the e-tailers today are facing with their supplier chain. The minimal expectation from any eCommerce player is to maintain the safety stock & execution of proper forecast against supply & demand and keep the inventory running.
This instance is a classic example to show that, the India e-tailers are still way behind as a technology company, i’m wondering where are the funnelling all the money they raise from the VCs…
I think it is just being spent on ads & adding the product ranges for market consolidation. The true sense of customer experience is not prevailing…
This is not at all a healthy scene, that too from poster boy of Indian eCommerce….
Regards,
twitter.com/@gkrishnak1
Puneet Nirogam Aggarwal
If Flipkart had a “Dilli wala” dimaag – they would have sent an email “Madam, 2 minute do, abhi karvata hoon”
That is atleast what we do when we try and find room inventory in oversold hotels.
Sarthak Jain
I think what you did was absolutely right to contact Anand. I had one time wanted to Order 20 Copies of a Book which was possibly extinct (or made extinct) – It was called the Polyster Prince by Hamish McDonald. The first option should always be Publisher for large quantities. I feel Online should be the last option. Additionally, I don’t think even from Flipkart’s point of view you gave enough try. That was just an automatic message. May be if you have Emailed Flipkart. Who knows !!