My personal online shopping is more or less restricted to travel, web products, movie booking , Bill pay etc which are very standardized products/services. I have made most of my online product purchases on non indian ecommerce sites (google, amazon , bestbuy etc) though I have few transactions in my name in erstwhile baazee.com (now ebay.in) way back in early 2000.
Why ? I think the primary issues being TRUST. Trust on the service provider and the product itself. In name of discounts and deals most of the online sites are selling cheap imitation of real products. Moreover the vendors also don’t have any great reputation. You have have no where to go incase the buy goes wrong.
The notion of buying online is looked only as buying cheap and not as an alternate market place which offers you choice of products at competitive prices. A place which will bring price and product advantage beyond the geographical boundries of your local market.
Offlate there is spurt in number of ecommerce sites and the way they are positioning themselves in the market. They seems to be taking onus of the business and are strongly backed by brick and mortar support.
I just bought a HP mini 8 Gb pendrive from Flipkart. It was such a nice and smooth shopping experience. So what is flipkart doing right or different in still nascent indian eCommerce space , so many other players are jostling for the market share.
What flipkart is doing right according to me :
- 24×7 toll free helpline (Build faith that you have human support in case something goes wrong online ; my transaction failed once)
- Delivery by Flipkart own network (Enhanced reliability)
- Shipped by Flipkart (Vendor is identified)
- 30 days return guarantee (Eliminate the fear of being cheated or duped with damaged product)
- Almost real time tracking of shipment (Timely delivery)
- Cash on delivery (Most Important as fear of using credit/debit card online is the biggest deterrent in the growth of online shopping)
- Promise less and deliver more (2 day delivery against promised 3-5 business days)
PS:
- The packaging was sturdy enough to withstand any transit
- The customer support staff is very polite and helpful. They refer to customers on first name basis and come across as very friendly ; infact I have spoken to them thrice in these 2 days.
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An internet Product Manager by profession and entreprenuer by heart. At work I am manages all stages of the product lifecycle from conceptualization, initiation, development & monitoring of new product development.
Online shopping is a good way to save time especially for people who work late nights. For me it works wonders. I shop my groceries online and I find it very convenient. Saves time, products get delivered at home on time and most importantly cash on delivery. I pay only when the order arrives. Thus I am at the ‘benefit-end’ of it. I usually do it from mygrahak.
I had an fab experience with Flipkart. I ordered a book at around 11:30PM and I was really amazed that how fast the service they offer. I got the book very next day in early afternoon.
hi amit,
I would like to recommend another online shopping website i.e. letsbuy.com. This site is also indeed a good website in offering discount and other stuff. I purchased a 4 gb pen drive as a test on ‘cash-on-delivery’ basis so I had nothing to lose anything if something had gone wrong. Overall, it was the good experience and I got my pen drive within given time period.