Sunday, November 04, 2012

Ecommerce - an experience worth mentioning

I have just realized that I have started purchasing a lot of stuff online. Starting from electronics, clothes to even groceries and vegetables. The fact is that not only they are heavily discounted - but all i have to do is "a few clicks" and some one else does the effort of getting it home for me.

I remember the first purchase I made online - where-else but flipkart and what-else but books. The experience was ok. I have used www.flipkart.com many times since then, but my recent experience was terrible. I ordered something for myself and after 10 days, when I followed up, I came to know that the order will "not" be delivered because they do not have the stuff. I was like "hello, did you have to wait for 10 days to tell me - and that too after I give a reminder". Dont you have an escalation system for missed orders. Thanks god, the order was for myself - what if I had sent it as a gift to someone else? And I got no response back - except that my money will be credited back in another 7-8 days.

My experience with homeshop18 has been much better. Timely deliveries and heavily discounted products. It is important to remember that for an Indian customer - price matters. Remember the "kitna deti hai" ad ?

And my experience with jabong a lot better. Same day delivery - wow. And that too on prices which are way-way below. Though the site is terrible. They hardly have any content for any product. You have to look at the pic and figure out what it is. I had to purchase a watch and i had to do a lot of google to figure out the specs for the watch I liked. But eventually i went to jabong to get the "extra" discount. As long as they are burning money, I am happy.

I have used www.watchkart.com and www.bagskart.com to order stuff and the experience has been good. Watchkart guys played a trick where they gave me a huge discount coupon immediately after making my first order. It made me feel guilty. I was double minded on cancelling my first order and using the coupon to order the product again. Maybe I should have.

Recently, I have ordered number of stuff at www.firstcry.com and www.hushbabies.com. Firstcry has huge delivery times but a better range of products. Hushbabies is much better. Delivery times are less and discounts are easily available. Also purchased a lot of stuff through www.shersingh.com. The single page purchase is a very unique experience. And the packaging for www.shersingh.com is wonderful. It makes you feel a level higher.

Have been doing some shopping at www.shopclues.com. They have the "jaw dropping deals" option where you get extremely cheap stuff. Have tried it twice and both times have been extremely satisfactory. www.letsbuy.com is a site that i miss - after it was killed by flipkart. It had much better deals than flipkart.

My first attempt to shop for vegetables online at www.sabjiwala.com went unsuccessful, as they have next day delivery option and we needed vegetables - on an urgent basis.

But the best experience so far was with www.gopeppers.com - a site which sells groceries. The interface is very intuitive. I sat with a list given to me and opened up two sites offering groceries - www.mygrahak.com & www.gopeppers.com placing orders side by side. On mygrahak, firstly the site was terribly slow, and searching for stuff was so difficult. But gopeppers is much better. It took me less than 10 minutes to get the complete list of around 50+ items in my cart.

When I enquired on the chat option about payment and delivery - i came to know that the stuff can be delivered in 1 hour - flat. I was like "what!!! Are you sure??" And the response was "Yes". So, I placed the order and selected COD (Card on delivery) option - ever heard of that... Sat back and started watching a movie - thinking 1 hour is impossible - it will take atleast 2 hours. In 30 minutes, the guy was at my place with all the stuff. Unpacked it - made me tick the list he had brought with him. And then he told me that I was his "first" customer. I was both shocked and surprised. Shocked cause, I could have been duped - If i had paid online and surprised at the efficiency with which he made his first order. I will look forward to ordering my next month groceries through the same site.