[vvijay]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

So in this lockdown the tables have turned. I was an Amazon loyalist and using Pantry for all groceries. In the last 1 month, I have placed only 1 order on Amazon pantry with great difficulty and 3 orders on Flipkart with ease.

This is quite true even in Chennai. Both in terms of quality and delivery Flipkart outdoes Amazon with much ease. Till date I made 2 orders in pantry whereas 5 in Flipkart Supermart and the numbers speak for themselves. Couldn't agree more with you that Flipkart has done a better homework on this COVID-19 crisis management.

Cheers,
Vijay

[kavensri]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

The worse has been Big Basket with delayed delivery and prices of many things higher than both Flipkart and Amazon. BB is making money.

Thanks for 'opening' my eye. I have been buying groceries from BB since many years because of Bank offers (Citi, HDFC and ICICI). But during this lockdown period, most of the offers vanished, still i brought my groceries from BB.
I had tried Amazon Pantry before, but somehow I am not happy with the availibility of the products and also sometimes the price. But, I had never tried FK before.
After reading your post, I just went and checked the price and found that they are cheaper than BB prices, for almost all the products that I checked.

[udaji]

Amazon last mile delivery is terrible. The delivery staff are congenital liars. At least three times in the past year they falsely claimed they delivered the packet. Complaining to Amazon support just resulted in templated apologies. Flipkart delivery is much more professional. For my business purchases I have to use Amazon though, as Flipkart are not GST-friendly.

[daretodream]

I stay in Bengaluru where delivery speed between Flipkart and Amazon is at-par..
so, for grocery, home & kitchen, apparel purchases, it comes down to selection and pricing/offers/discounts at the point of time !
For white goods (AC, Fridge, TV) etc, it is always Flipkart as I've found their installation services team (owned by Flipkart) - Jeeves to be great !

[vinodh_eee]

I was looking to purchase a pulse oximeter yesterday. Expected delivery time in Amazon were all after 18th May. Checked Flipkart. Quoted delivery time was today. And it was delivered as promised, before 3PM today.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by daretodream

I stay in Bengaluru where delivery speed between Flipkart and Amazon is at-par..
so, for grocery, home & kitchen, apparel purchases, it comes down to selection and pricing/offers/discounts at the point of time !
For white goods (AC, Fridge, TV) etc, it is always Flipkart as I've found their installation services team (owned by Flipkart) - Jeeves to be great !

I've had a terrible experience with flipkart and white goods, specifically my dishwasher. The delivery was botched up, lousy behaviour and the machine was damaged(they dropped it during delivery) . The dishwasher company guy who set it up said I should have got it from a brick and mortar place. My wife has said that the next appliance we get, fridge or washing machine should be from a physical store mostly will be going with Croma. Amazon so far has been reliable with the consumables.

[wheelguy]

Always found Amazon's service & customer care/support to be much better than Flipkart and other e-commerce players in India. I only check Flipkart and others if the product I am looking for is not available with Amazon.
Worst experience so far is with Shopclues.

From the interactions so far with Amazon's customer care executives, it is understood that their executives were empowered enough to make few decisions by themselves without needing to consult the superiors, this really helps in speedy resolution of issues.

[Sebring]

With the recent dishwasher sale they were caught unawares as Covid struck and they could not honour their commitments. So my mom cancelled. Also, old rejects/returns could have been passed off for new. Brick & mortar places are quoting prices Rs. 5000 higher.

Originally Posted by avira_tk

I've had a terrible experience with flipkart and white goods, specifically my dishwasher. The delivery was botched up, lousy behaviour and the machine was damaged(they dropped it during delivery) . The dishwasher company guy who set it up said I should have got it from a brick and mortar place. My wife has said that the next appliance we get, fridge or washing machine should be from a physical store mostly will be going with Croma. Amazon so far has been reliable with the consumables.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by Sebring

With the recent dishwasher sale they were caught unawares as Covid struck and they could not honour their commitments. So my mom cancelled. Also, old rejects/returns could have been passed off for new. Brick & mortar places are quoting prices Rs. 5000 higher.

The problem is handling it, the damage is permanent and rust will be an issue. I would pay extra because the discount will be wiped out with repair and service costs. The problem with a dishwasher is that it's not designed to be shifted. I have had to shift it twice and the levelling was wrong for a few months. The front had to be higher than the back.

[WorkingGuru]

For me, Amazon Pantry had 2 stores initially, but now has only 1 store - this is out of the usual 4. Still, I've ordered plenty from them as that one store has ALOT of options available.

Flipkart is no saint - prices & offers displayed on my phone are different from my mom. I can understand "dynamic pricing", but the price of the same items being 1.2x for the same address at the same time is "price discrimination", viz unfair for homogeneous products in my opinion.

Big Basket - I don't see why I would pay 1.2x - 1.5x of Amazon/Flipkart prices for veggies.

Offline - I bought some clothes (shorts, formal shirts & a blazer). They were giving every visitor a surgical-non-woven-mask for free & somehow this reminded me that none of the online stores delivering home were thoughtful enough to provide a mask for their customers. They only sold them online in large/bulk quantities.

[civic-sense]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

So in this lockdown the tables have turned.

One thing that I noticed is that Flipkart is putting a cling wrap over the usual brown boxes, which the delivery person removes before handing over. Maybe to avoid contamination on the way.

[Sedate]

Had been an amazon loyalist for last 14 years (outside India and India), but now a days looks like they are drunk on their success from COVID. Looks like they are going the Nokia way.

The delivery person (Amazon Delivery) denied delivery as road works were happening near my home and he didn’t want to drive on broken road! He asked me to come to him, otherwise he will cancel the order! Buh!

On this instance, a return pick up for a defective item requested by me in August is yet to be picked up after 30 days and 9 requests to CS!

One word of caution in case you are buying electrical items from Amazon. I ordered an electric water heater (geyser) recently. It was from a third party seller. The price was a bit higher than local market, but the convenience and wider selection of items was the reason for purchase from Amazon. The item delivered was not having its LED indicator working. The plumber did his part and did send the electrician for troubleshooting. Electrician informed me that the thermal cutoff for the water heater is not working. He is of the opinion that someone removed the safety components in the water heater and is reselling the heater. This made me look at many of the reviews for small electrical items in Amazon. For water heaters, there were many instances of water heater having its outer casing melted or catching fire in reviews page.

This made a read many of the stabiliser reviews (since I bought one for my in-laws AC) which arrived with a broken warranty seal on body. I didnt care much about it at that time. But opening the stabiliser revealed the best electrical circuit I have ever seen - A set of wires going from input to output together with a very old transformer like thing just sitting there on four screws! The return period is already over for this, so just disposed it and bought another one from local dealer.

I think I have had enough with these two experiences. I am still fighting with Amazon for the return on the water heater. I complained to them about it as removal of safety devices from appliances is a safety hazard and for a heating appliance it is a fire hazard - But Amazon being amazon just did send me a templated reply that they will investigate it!

Just to be sure, I ordered the same model again from Amazon, but seller being Cloudtail. This time looking inside through vent holes, the water heater had a thermal jacket (thermal wool insulation), all working LEDS and temperature cutoff near 70 degree water temperature.

Now that makes me rethink about the shopping convenience vs safety aspect of tampered goods sold online.

Buyers beware. I am slowly moving out of the Amazon eco system.

[FURY_44]

I had made one purchase to date from Flipkart since launch and that was before Amazon entered India and I had no other option.

Since the Big Billion Days and Great Indian Festival are on show, decided to purchase a few items from Amazon, what I was looking for was out of stock in Amazon and it was available on Flipkart. I did think thrice before placing the order with Flipkart, ordered a couple of items from Amazon as well on 17th Oct, Saturday.

Amazon delivered one item the next day i.e 18th Oct Sunday (not a prime member) and the other order will be received today, whereas Flipkart has gone cold with my order with zero updates till now.

Sticking to Amazon no matter what.

[Funny]

Once I started using Amazon, there was no going back. Its much more convenient especially if you have the Prime account. Using the same Prime account I get access to PrimeVideo, AmazonMusic, Next-Day deliveries for many items and great discounts. What more one could ask for, I am a fan of Amazon now. I have used Flipkart and Snapdeal before but right now nothing comes close to the Amazon experience. Their support is fantastic and almost always I have been satisfied with their resolution. Although I do compare the price of costly items on all available portals and take decision based on the available deals, delivery timelines, seller quality and reviews. I prefer the official sellers (Cloudtail, RetailNet and direct Brand seller) above the 3rd party sellers unless the 3rd party sellers have really good ratings.

[Elito11]

IMO Flipkart has come up leaps and bounds in the last 1 year or so. It is definitely the clear winner in the ongoing online sales. More products, better pricing and frankly better organization. I noticed how well categorized the products were this time around and how much more intuitive was navigating the website. AN interesting I started noticing since last one year is how I am more confident of a 'flipkart assured' product being genuine than anything similar I might order from Amazon. Personally I have no favorites, but I am really enjoying the new FK much much more!