Guys,
As the title suggest, I am writing this to share my experience related to the return process of Flipkart. I have been doing business with Flipkart since March 2014 and till now, I did not had to return any product. Thus the journey was smooth and hassle free until now.
During the last week of May, I was into the market looking for a RO water purifier. As usual, I browsed many products on Flipkart, Amazon, and local market to finalize my deal.
I selected a product from Flipkart and ordered it for INR 12,000 which was delivered on time. While going through the specifications on the box ( not-yet-opened), I realized that the product does not contain "UV" purification system. I was not much worried as I thought that I would return the product (sealed condition) and then order another product with "UV".
I agree that it was my mistake to not see the specification's fine print and assumed that all water purifiers are "UV" based.
Thus, with the intention of return, I logged on Flipkart and navigated to the return page.
I selected the following honest option:
Quote:
- Reason for return: Item no longer wanted
- Issue with the item: Ordered by mistake
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As you can see, the following options are provided by Flipkart itself!
I then wait for the call from Flipkart executive, only to hear that the return is rejected. The reason stated was:
Quote:
As it was my mistake to order and there is no issue with the product, thus no return in such cases.
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As anyone would, I was disappointed to see the response. I then call Flipkart to understand the reason of rejection, and why they have an option to return with a reason "Ordered by Mistake".
All they could say was that this type of return is not honored and the option is provided just to collect the data!
Sometime later, I visit my local electronic store and ask them to give me a "UV" RO in return of my non-UV RO and the delta cash.
After a long discussion and a net loss of INR 1000, the deal was done. I was happy with the deal.
In the mean time, I asked the dealer about the price of mine non-UV based RO, to which he quoted less than Flipkart!
I now had one more reason to return the product!
Thus this time, I selected the following reason to return:
Quote:
- Reason for return: Item no longer wanted
- Issue with the item: Available at lower price
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I get another call (
which I recorded) from Flipkart and the executive tells me that this return is also rejected as
we do not match the market price.
He goes on saying that price for a product may vary in a day; thus this is
not a genuine reason to return!
I ask him that I have not made up this (and previous) reason to return. You have provided these options in your website in drop down. If you guys don't honor such returns, then please remove those options.
He then forwards my call to his senior and he also says the same thing. We have a long chat and then, at last, he accepts that - "
Sir these options are for data collection purpose only"!
Now, I am not able to trust Flipkart as they have purposely added options to trap the customers! This pi$$es me off!
I got my replacement from outside, thus the wrong product is no more a concern to me!
However, I question the ethical behavior of Flipkart's policies. Why give such options, which are not honored!
Also, I think that I had been a very good customer of Flipkart (and also part of some paid membership) with good purchases and no returns ever; thus they could have simply replaced/returned my product as good-will!
So guys, please thread cautiously over Flipkart's return policy. I can share the audio recording, if it is at all required and is within our forum rules.
Some stats related to my past orders:
May 2016 - ~ INR 72,000/-
March 2016- ~ INR 20,000/-