I actually forgot about the "Indaplaza (FAKE) Price Challenge" issue...the FAKE story, claiming to be the cheapest on Mobile & book segment. :) Interestingly...I received a mail from Team Indiaplaza on Friday, March 9, 2007 with the following content:
Dear Arijit Sarbagna
Thank you for taking the Indiaplaza.in price challenge. We have processed your claim and found the claim to be valid. We are also happy to inform you that we have now reduced the price on the product. The Gift Certificate worth double the difference is also attached at the end of this mail. We would like to thank you for taking the effort to point out the difference and helping us maintain Indiaplaza as the most competitive destination for mobiles and books. We hope you have pleasurable experience shopping on http://www.indiaplaza.in/.
Coupon_number: <...coupon code was here...>
Value : 1000
Expiry_date: April 6th, 2007
Warm Regards
Team Indiaplaza
Initially I was bit surprised to see such a faithful gesture from IndiaPlaza...which so far behaved very poorly. I immediately decided on making some purchase from Indiaplaza by utilizing the coupon. Here I should let you know that I had previously decided that never in my life would I purchase from Indiaplaza/Fabmall based on the kind of communication I had received from Indiaplaza (e.g. Mr. Puneet Jain - Assistant Manager Merchandising, Indiaplaza...who asked for tax invoice & India specific manufacturer’s warranty, when I had already provided product number & source URLs against the Price Challenge). Anyways, getting back to my purchasing experience...for a split second I did think that perhaps Indiaplaza is changing its image. Good! That was encouraging (for a change). I started the purchasing process & after 40-50 minutes of wasted efforts...I realized...every time I am trying to utilize the gift coupon (sent by Indiaplaza)...I end up getting an error stating "Please redeem this GC only on the store it was meant to be redeemed". Immediately I wrote to Indiaplaza demanding a clarification on this. But after I sent the mail...I felt...what is the use? The consistent "no customer focus" attitude shown by Indiaplaza only suggests that I wouldn't get any response...& in reality...till date I actually haven't received any response. Uh! At least Indiaplaza is consistent in one field...harassing its customers. So, please be aware of buying from Indiaplaza or using its gift coupons...as you never know whether those coupons would actually work or not & if they don't...God be with you, as one shouldn't expect "customer support" from this company.
Lastly, let me publish the pictures which I had sent to Mr. Puneet Jain to show the my claim of higher price charged by India Plaza was actually true (& I also advised Puneet in the following words "I am least bothered about the coupons...please save a few bucks for your company. I won't be interested to buy or be in touch with a company...which can't stand to its words." ).
Price of a Mobile Handset at IndiaTimes (on the date I sent this mail to Indiaplaza.in):
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Price of same Mobile Handset at Indiaplaza (on the same date)
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4 comments:
I placed an order on the 26th of June 2007 for a Philips LCD TV - 26TA1600 on indiaplaza.in.
I have been calling the customer support number for the past 10 days. When I called for the first time the customer representative told me that he would call me back after knowing the status from the logistics team but there was no call after that from their side. The next day when I called again I was said that the product is ready but as they have a problem with the logistics vendor it would be shipped the next day. As the product status was still ready to be shipped even after two days, I called the customer rep again and I was told the same thing this time assuring me that it would be shipped by same day evening. When the status of the order did not change even after two days I called them up again and this time I was said that the product is out of stock. The status of the order in my account still shows up as " Ready to be shipped" but the product is out of stock which is told to me everytime I call up the customer rep number for the past one week. Finally when I got to speak to the supervisor, I was said that the product is out of stock but promised me that the product would reach me by 17th July which never happened. When I called the customer support again and wanted to speak to the Supervisor "Gautam R." who promised me about the delivery, the customer rep tells me that he is busy and the product would reach me only on the 24th of July 2007 which is after one week. When I tell him that I would like to cancel the order, he agrees for it. I had to gift it to somebody on the 15th of July and this would be waste to me if it is delivered to me after 10 days.
If you have understood the entire situation well, I would like to point out few bugs in the entire supply chain practice
1. First of all if the product is not in the warehouse it should show as out of stock against the product online on the site which did not happen
2. The Customer support team should give clear cut answers rather than making false promises to subside the situation for some time.
3. The status of the order should not be shown as "ready to be shipped" when it is "out of stock"
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I don't think with such a kind of supply chain management system, the site should exist or the business should be working.
My sincere advice would be not to use indiaplaza.in for shopping, please use other shopping sites like ebay.in
This post once again establishes the fact that Indian e-commerce industry is yet to get out of infancy. Only big promises...advertisement, but no Customer Satisfaction.
Try www.flipkart.com and experience the difference. We started Flipkart.com because we felt that their is huge void to fill in the Indian e-commerce space. We are truly focussed on customer service which is currently lacking in all other indian e-commerce players.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I was all set to buy an ipod touch from indiaplaza, and dropped the idea!!
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