Sunday, March 23, 2014

Shop Critical

I have learned the hard way to mind my business, without judging who people are and what they do. I am more troubled by the lack of space being provided for the truth to unfold. Humans cannot seem to wait for or honor the truth. Instead, we make it up based on who we believe people should or should not be. - Iyanla Vanzant

Well I believe, its okay to judge someone based on your own experiences; that too if you have paid to get that experience.  Continuing on my other post comparing ebay.in and amazon.in, penning down some more experiences with a few other eCommerce sites in India. India is a very inconsistent country and same applies to experiences you get in here. While I did not write so much in affirmative about infibeam.com in my earlier post, one or two of my experiences has been good with them since then. I had a good experience with flipkart.com too, because they shipped the item I bought to N.E India and delivered in record 3 or 4 days. Hats Off! Anyways, I am going to write about snapdeal.com, myntra.com and jabong.com in this post.

snapdeal.com is a self proclaimed #1 shooping  portal in India. Their TV ads are long these days that too in the prime time. I happen to buy a book last month from them. I mostly placed the order with them because that was the best price with free shopping I could find. However, I was quite skeptical about them initially and so placed a Cash On Delivery (COD) order. The initial shipping time promised was 4 - 5 days or so. But I got a mail on the 5th day that due to unavoidable circumstances the shipping will be delayed. It was probably shipped on 7th or 8th day. I anyway did not worry much as it was a COD. Then I also wanted to buy another book last week, shipping time promised was 1 week. I placed a COD order, but cancelled it the next day because no body can (at least I can't) wait 7 + 5 days to get your ordered item. Gimme a Break! I think snapdeal's business model is very simple. They publish a plathora of items in their site, and once someone orders something, they will figure out ways to source the item (I don't know how) and finally ship it. They assume online shoppers are patient enough to wait 10+ days for getting the items. WTF!

myntra.com is quite matured enough. I think so far they happen to be the fastest shipper. They have some amazing deals every other day and products are good, return policy is awesome. However, last year during The Great Online Sale, they probably experienced the thundering herd problem. My item was delayed by a week than their normal shipping schedules. But it's okay. Only turn off is the minimum order amount for getting a free shipping which is INR900. That's on the higher side, but I guess myntra sells branded and expensive goods, so 900 bucks should not be on the higher side. I like their reward points funda. Its a good gesture to give rewards to return customers. I like Myntra's site design. The engineers in Myntra has really done a great job.

jabong.com is another large eCommerce portal. I was quite amazed by their collection of lifestyle products. Buying stuffs during weekend is pleasant. Once I got 35% discount on orders above INR1500. Most of the items are covered under free shipping and they ship almost all over India including N.E. India. I hope the experience remains same going forward as well (I have some of my stuffs in transit!). Update: Jabong didn't live up to my expectation. A few stuffs I bought looked old/creased and one of it was dirty as well. The stuffs looked quite nice in the site though. All that glitters is not gold, indeed. I wonder if I'll ever buy from them again. Not clothes for sure.

      It's really nice to see India's eCommerce scene getting better and larger. People like me who usually shop alone and don't really want to roam around the floors of the malls, its an great convenience. A few bad experience may spill water on the excitement, but shit happens sometimes. Error happens. So, its okay as long as my money is safe and I am not cheated!