I am Chetan and founder of a publishing house called Half Baked Beans.
We sell books through Flipkart as a seller and the following is an account of what has been happening for the past two months with the sellers.
Even though Flipkart is one of the leading online business companies in the country, it’s only NOW that they have resorted to become exploitative towards small scale sellers with each passing day!
Little did we know that listing in Flipkart could have been such a boon turned bane in our businesses! Neither are they interested in giving apt and timely responses for the enquiries and complaints made by the sellers nor in returning the parcels or giving the claim for the sellers.
Examples of Incidents :-
Few of the disappointing incidents faced by the sellers are abominable. Here’s a list (Feel free to add your’s)
Due to system errors there are “NO pick ups!” You can keep following up but the screen will just go ticking by a digit to increase the PICK UP RE-ATTEMPTS # with each passing day.
An incident to share, we had already dispatched a book and it kept showing in the dispatch seller panel until three days later. Not only did business suffer, customer satisfaction went out of the window and we were unfairly charged with CANCELLATION CHARGES and PRODUCT LISTING DEACTIVATION.
Many orders have been cancelled and many listing have been deactivated because of the technical error (as we learnt from other sellers) and even when all issues are happening in real, Flipkart hasn’t called the sellers for any discussion.
Unanswered questions:-
Who will pay commission which Flipkart charged due to seller cancellation?
Who will pay the loss which we bear due to deactivation of listings?
Who pays for the undelivered goods which have mysteriously been untraceable like the Malaysian Airlines?
Who pays for the returns when Flipkart conveniently sends mails stating: “The order has not been delivered either due to customer cancellation or logistics partner”
The Answer my friend is blowing in the wind, and the answer is we, the Sellers!
Flipkart doesn’t share numbers of the customers. Do we even get to rectify if it’s Flipkart or the customers who cancel the orders due to delay in their own Logistics chain? The accounts (or the money transferred to a seller’s account after a product sale) are broken into so many modules that reach to our account on different dates that it is practically impossible for even the executives to come up with the revenues for one particular order!
These are only a few questions unanswered. The customer support executives know all details (technical or whatever) of all active listings on Flipkart and they immediately create a new order (This re-order is showed in seller panel like new order, there is no mark for re-order) . Without understanding the technical issue, they refund the amount even from the buyer’s remorse issues or buyer not interested, sometimes they initiate returns up to three times for a Rs.250 item. (Where they charge 6 times of courier charge from sellers)
Here is an excerpt of a chain mail which we sellers were a part of and one seller shared his experience-
“Still After 4 days, status has not been updated in the Portal. We will now bear the loss of product and product will also be blocked, will have to also bear seller cancellation charges.
This is happening so frequently in last weeks, have already incurred loss of previous products. So, now we are stopping the listing for high price products and will remain unlisted.
I think we should lodge an FIR against E-Kart so that some legal action can be taken for STOLEN products.
The main problem is the products got picked up by E-Kart, they signed manifest copy. But those products never got returned . If you open a case with Seller Support they share the status given by the logistics that “You have not handed over the product” even though you provided the signed manifest copy, they simply ignore those copies and stay on their word that you have not handed over the product. I have one email communication where they said manifest is not the proof of product handover.
Later on we went to Lawrence Road MP Hub but we didn’t find any single product out of 5 products which we handed over to E-Kart they started the blame game but nothing has happened till today.
So where are the products which we handed over? Obviously they were stolen hence not uploaded to the portal. That is why we didn’t find any when we went to Lawrence Road MP many times.
We have even created SPF claim for the same but till now no update on the same even though they have 12 days SLA.
It is not the one and only incident but it keeps occurring.”
Suggestions Welcome:-
As a conclusion, if things are going in the same way as they are, the existence of this website after 1 or 1.5 years from now remains questionable. Maybe many of you remember Letsbuy, Tradus, Buytheprice and what fate did these websites meet?
So the company should take into consideration of sellers needs and they should discuss the issues with the sellers and they should enter between seller and buyer only when there is any dispute which seller wasn’t able sort out with the buyer. If these things happen it will be good for the sellers. And also should call a meeting with the sellers and thereby they can come into some fruitful solution which will be beneficial for both sides.
P.S.
The above situation has been faced by us and many other sellers, you might have a different experience. I want to ask if there is anything we can do or anything you have done previously in this kind of situation?
Thanks
Chetan Soni
https://twitter.com/chetansoni23
https://www.facebook.com/Half8akedBeans