Before you go on reading the post, I’d like to state openly, I am not a very big flipkart fan. Infact not even a fan at all. It’s rocket high valuations, its crazy ideas of burning cash and the founders blatant approach towards human resource has always agitated me. Well, in the 6-7 years of flipkarts existence, all that I’ve ever bought is a book, 1 pendrive and now this Moto G.
This is about the fake refunding games flipkart played with me and a dent on the highly appreciated customer satisfaction ratings it has.
I’d ordered a Moto G from Flipkart which was delivered in time.
The phone delivered perfect satisfaction. But, the charger gave up on its life within a week. It simply stopped functioning.
I immediately lodged in a complaint :
As assured in the mail, I got a call in 2 days and the customer care executive understood my problem and offered to refund Rs. 500 in my flipkart account wallet and directed me to buy a new charger from the site. I asked them to simply replace my charger with a new one. I didn’t want to get into the hassles of buying a “charger” online. The polite executive stated, “this is all we can do”, replacing a charger would take 8 days and buying online would render me with a charger within 2 days.
I had no choice and decided to give in to their call!
The moment i got this mail, I noticed the catch, the cash could only be used to make a purchase from WS Retail. Nevermind, I waited for the cash to arrive in my wallet. And, when it did, I was amazed to see that from the entire range of chargers on display at Flipkart, WS Retail sold none.
I was caught between flipkart’s fooling game of customer satisfaction.
Once again, I lodged in a complain through e-mail :
The resolute to this query was a sorry and this link to buy a compatible adapter for Moto G being sold by WS Retail :
https://www.flipkart.com/digiflip-mc002-mobile-wall-charger/p/itmdmfgcef5tfxhc?pid=ACCDJKHFHHBMF6DE
The link has been showing as discontinued since the time I had received this mail.
I gave up on lodging repetitive complaints at Flipkart. Have bought a charger that cost me Rs.800 and donated books worth Rs. 500 (the wallet money) from flipkart to my sisters campaign at Teach for India.
Lesson Learnt: Never trust an ecomm player, You can go to your nearest mobile shop in case such things happen and demand a replacement but in this case, I would have to go bangalore!
Sai Rodinhood Pothuri
Hi Prateek
Good Point. Its not only you, lots of people face the same problem with flipkart and its no sense policies. thought every thing is available online, its better to buy from nearest shop where you can touch and feel the product. I always prefer buying products online which are less than 2000/- or 1000/- where in these cases, badly if all went wrong I might be loosing less amount.
But in cases where you have to pay large amounts of money, then its better to buy from nearest shop where the shop owner can give you best solution.
Thanks & Regards
Sai Pothuri
http://www.beautona.com
Gopinath Vangili
Hi Prateek,
Its not just this, they don’t have a return policy. Just focussing on sales. I bought a watch from them and could not replace or exchange it even after repeated calls. That was the first & last time i bought anything from flipkart.
With this worst policies they are comparing themselves with Amazon. Poor kid wants to run even before he could learn walking.
Omkar Nisal
How about some Flipkart hacking?
Quote:
I made a python script that eventually led to Flipkart (an e-commerce website) delivering the product I ordered within 30 working hours after the script was run.
Continue reading here
asha chaudhry
omkar… you are actually suggesting flipkart hacking???
🙁
Omkar Nisal
Hey Asha, This is not traditional hacking as in breaking into website and doing nasty stuff.
Sorry for the terminology .. now a days everyone is using hacking liberally in a good sense.
This ‘hack’ uses software to paste comments all over flipkart’s product pages… to get their attention.
Sort of like a wake up call they need, Which they would not have needed, had they given this dude enough attention and solved his problem.
I dont believe there is anything illegal in doing this.
By the way, I have heard that many MNCs have official titles like : “Growth Hacker” ! Here are indeed posts.
asha chaudhry
omkar – i may be a tech dummy – but i did read the link you posted and commented afterwards!
ps: i’m familar with the jargon – growth hacker.
i just thought it wasn’t such a constructive idea.
Kamal Kalra
Hi Prateek, The same thing happened with me as well, but in my case, I got the charger exchanged for a new one from the authorized Motorola Service Center ( Since it was a brand new phone with Accessories under 6 months warranty) and it was not a hack, I was told the same by the Flipkart Customer Service, and INR 500 added to my account was more of Service makeup discount. I used that to buy books of my choice. 🙂
For me, it was more of a win win situation
asha chaudhry
hey kamal,
since you are an e-com player (insider) plus an e-com customer – i think you should share these kind of little case studies which will serve as tips to others who might be facing these (common?!) issues with the flipkarts of the world.
in fact we can start a small series in e-com that would really help us layman users. so that any issue can become win-win for all of us. what say?
Sai Rodinhood Pothuri
As Lot of people face same problems again and again, it will be better to open thread like flipkart, snapdeal, amazon etc where customers or members or sellers who face any problem with specific portal can post and share the problem. I still remember timtara case, there used to be specific url for timtara, where any person who faced problem with timtara used to post and with all those posts with proofs as proofs filed a case, where ceo arrested and timatara closed. after that there is no such specific website where customers, sellers, can share problems in a specific channel.
Ref : https://www.nextbigwhat.com/timtara-founders-arrested-297/ ;
Future is e commerce, e payments, every thing electronic . do think about this big project
Thanks & Regards
Sai Pothuri
http://www.beautona.com
Arpin Gajjar
Hi, Prateek
Online shopping deals, offers, etc always come with a game. just we need to be aware of fraud, etc. I am always prefer to buy electronics & fashion products from off line store. some time prefer to buy electronics products like memory cards, headphones, etc. i bought my all phones from off line store even give 500 rs more then online store. but the point is i am satisfied. if i have any query or problem i am able to go direct with dealer and get sort out any problem at a point. For Fashion product never prefer actually personally. the main reason is what if you Jeans not suit on you?? What if your jeans color gone after wash?? ha ha ha LOL. the point is lots of issues in online. The problem start when you have some problem and they don’t reply OR you don’t get satisfied answer & solution.
Amit Shroff
Hi Prateek,
I can understand the pain, the players like flipkart, snapdeal, amazon etc have spoil the market. No body is just bothered about service and is only concerned about sales.
The reason for doing this is simple, since the replacement cost would be higher then delivering a new product. Hence they preferred to this option. I had myself faced similar issue, I bought a baby diaper from amazon on 24th Sep and was supposed to be delivered by 29th Sep, but till date it has not been picked-up from seller by Amazon logistic team.
If eCommerce need to grow in India, they have stop selling discount and look at improving customer service.
Regards,
Amit
Arpin Gajjar
Absolutely, Amit
If eCommerce need to grow in India, they have stop selling discount with some valid offers and look at improving customer service.
because in india people are more mad about offers & deals but if its not valid then at last it will be total waste.
Amit Shroff
Yes Arpin, we too manage eCommerce store for our client http://www.printawallpaper.com but we don’t sell discount and don’t offer heavy discounts. Since we are trying to create a platform where commercial printing can be made available to retailer customer at affordable cost.
Believe me in last 1.5yrs we have been growing. We don’t do COD and currently don’t have a installation team across india, but still getting decent growth.
It is important that we value our customers and look at improving customer service, since over the time that would be the key to growth, you cannot sell at loss to build goodwill.
Amit Shroff
Arpin, the problem is not with online, the problem with selling everything in discount. What Samsung, Nokia, Levis, Arrow etc provide to an offline customer, can be provided to an online customer too, but the problem is they prefer to sell at discount instead of providing a good service.
Imagine a situation like this, If prateek was asked to pay Rs 100 as product replacement charges. Since going to a service center and wasting time/money/fuel would be costlier then spending Rs 100/- as replacement charges.
So the idea is to build trust and not just customer network.