That is really terrible and a cheap practice by Flipkart, i've never really fallen for the diwali sales and all anyways, not worth waiting for the sale to order, then worrying about ordering at the right time, then feeling frustrated if it goes out of stock in that small window and then ending up buying what you didn't really need in the first place.
i've always bought only the small stuff like Blu-rays, phone wires and power bank kind of stuff online and Amazon has always been my go to for all these things, the experience has been outstanding everytime, hassle free ordering and delivery experience, returns are super easy too and whenever i needed their support, they have been great.
I used to order discs from Amazon UK and they sent it using royal mail and then India Post delivered them here.
Needless to say there were delays sometimes and the stuff got lost a couple of times too.
They used to immediately re-send it without asking any questions everytime, in a couple of occasions i ended up having 2 of them because India post delivered them after a few months. Had a small issue with Snapdeal once and long story short i have'nt shopped with them since.
The only reason why i shop online is ease of use and excellent customer care experience, if Flipkart is not being able to deliver on the latter, then no point using it.
I buy stuff like clothes, shoes exclusively from actual stores after trying them and experiencing them first hand.
More expensive stuff like TV has always been bought from Gaffar market by our family because of a huge difference (sometimes 2x and in the case of bigger TVs in the range of 40-45k, even more in some cases), it is a huge gamble but has paid off everytime.
Sony, Samsung have mostly been super reliable.
We even buy mobile phones from there but they come with a valid bill and warranty, the prices there are lowest anywhere though, Amazon and Flipkart have come close because of their close relationships with the companies directly, and the gap has narrowed down to just about 1-2k in case of a phone costing 40k but Gaffar is cheaper still.
But yes, Websites like amazon have brought reasonable prices to masses and that can't be denied.
There was a time about 5-6 years ago when i used to buy phones at atleast 5-7k cheaper than my friends who bought it from Company showrooms or Chroma and all, now the difference is too little between Amazon and Gaffar.
This is the future for better or for worse for a lot stuff, Amazon atleast is not doing too bad in replacing the shops. The prices for most small items is actually much lower than offline retailers and almost at par with wholesale markets, though some stuff is still a lot cheaper there but generally this does better than regular retailers, i recently wanted to buy Airpods and just checked Amazon and they had this sale going on so they were offering 25% off on them, much more than anywhere else, i placed the order right then and got them no problems at all.
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Originally Posted by sandeepmohan Malpractice seems to be taking place on several e commerce websites. You have to pay more attention when there are sales as that is when they inflate the price, show a unrealistic discount percentage which prompts you to hit that "Buy" button without even thinking. Time to head back to the good old brick and mortar store and get a quote. With the advent of e commerce, most of us have become lazy to head to a store to get an idea of what the price of a product is on the market.
I can share two examples.
I picked up a LG top load washing machine for my folks recently. LG's web price was Rs. 24,000. If you clicked Buy Now, it took you to another section on LG's website which indicated a lower price of Rs. 22,000. You hit Add to Cart and the price further reduces to about Rs. 20,000. Finally; my dad went to a store who quoted way lower at Rs. 16,800 for the same machine with delivery! When the machine arrived, the sticker price on the box was Rs. 22,000.
Another account was for a weighing scale sold on Amazon. A brand called Soehnle. Amazon indicate 73% off for a scale called Analog Personal Scale Loupe. Sold by a company called Perumana. My dad calls the Distributor who claims that they have only put up the product on Amazon and they say that the product price is Rs. 2200 (Not Rs. 8000 as Amazon indicates.). He observed something similar for a food weighing scale too. Pictured below. 91% discount! A food weighing scale for Rs.11k! You gotto be kidding. Attachment 1809068 |
This i've noticed a lots of times on Amazon too, the price they strike out is fake a lot of time, even if the seller is Cloudtail (which they own), this is downright cheating on their part and we need to watch out for this carefully. There's another thing they do, i bought Whey protein from them 15 days ago, the price was 3700, they increased it to 4500 after a week just because of their big billion sale, only to decrease it once again and call it a lightning deal by selling it for 3900 (which is still more than what i had paid on a regular day)