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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