[Pequod]

We (meaning the wife included) are big-time into online shopping. Have bought almost all our iPhones since 2014 and an iPad from either Amazon or Flipkart. Have also bought other high value items such as gaming consoles, a microwave oven and an air conditioner online. Have never had an instance where I had to deal with a fake product.

What rather concerns me these days is that in case of a faulty product, the recourse mechanism does not inspire as much confidence as say, in 2016 or 2017. The microwave oven was in fact faulty, and Amazon couldn’t arrange a return pickup, due to the flood situation in Kerala last year. All things said, after 42 days they refunded my money, and said I could keep the microwave as pickup was no longer ‘feasible’. So while I didn’t lose any money and got hold of an oven (albeit repaired) free of cost, having to deal with such situations simply robs ‘online’ of its convenience factor.

PS - I tend to buy only from seller companies promoted by Amazon or Flipkart, as listed in various prior posts.

[JLS]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

It depends not just on fulfilled by but the seller.

If it is Amazon itself like cloudtail or appario chances of fake are lesser because this means the products are sold by amazon by buying from authorised channels. It's rare to get a fake product from cloudtail or Appario.

.....

I have bought my last phone from physical shop in 2010, a Nokia 5800!

For me and family, all next smartphones and a couple of tabs from then onward, were purchased from Amazon and Flipkart, taking care that these were sold by Cloudtail etc, and never got a fake product.
Similarly three laptops and SSDs were also bought online and got good deals and surely not fake ones - I could not have got prices offered at online from any of local stores.

Also bought a 32 inch Panasonic TV from Flipkart and local Panasonic tech installed it!

I have gone to Croma, Vijay and local shops only where I need to see the product and judge the performance , like big screen TV, home theater speakers and amp, FX DSLR - especially items priced north of 50K

My choice for online for phones and clothes is due to the following:
1. I usually buy mid level phones (less than 20K) and change in around 3 years. For these segment phones, price is usually lower at online, and at local shops chances are much higher of getting a demo piece. I have never ever got a damages or used piece from online
2. Always I have bought electronic stuff from sellers like Cloudtail, WSretails. Prime membership usually helps in any issues ( had few exchanges/return for clothes when received wrong size or damaged piece etc). So as Vid669 suggested, keeping this single factor in mind while placing order avoids most hassles later.
3. I am usually put-off by know-all smooth-talker salesmen at small shops and higher prices at Croma/Vijay Sales for the mid/low end phones
4. I believe, it is possible to produce duplicate and fake items for famous cloth brands (Levis), branded perfumes, shoes, even pen drives and memory cards. But next to impossible to manufacture and sale phones of brands like Samsung, One Plus, Motorola etc
5. Have had pretty good experience with Amazon clothes brands Symbol and Arthur Harvey, both with respect to cloth and stitching quality and also with the size/fitting - almost all routine formal shirts are bought from Amazon since last couple of years.

Well, my thoughts listed above on convenience and practicality of shopping from online. However I also have my shares of seemingly fake products from Amazon, bought a Wrangler shirt a couple of years back and realized it was a fake one, but quality was ok at the price and did not bother to return it. So lesson learned is that avoid very well known foreign cloths brands from online

Thanks for reading
JLS

[motorworks]

I have never bought big ticket electronics from any of the online platforms including Amazon and Flipkart. In the last 2 years, I have changed almost all home appliances and gadgets at my house as part of the 10 year cycle, and each time I have gone out and bought from stores like Reliance digital. And the offline players have become competitive, they mostly try and match the price in online or come close to it. In my case, I have usually seen a price difference of about Rs.1000 on a home appliance costing above 30k, and Im generally ok with that. For the peace of mind, I would rather pay a small premium than getting a pre-opened box from an online site.

Usually, purchases in online sites are restricted to Clothes and Shoes, especially for my son. And few other smaller things that you dont usually get in offline stores.

[dark.knight]

The brick and mortar stores are part of a carefully placed business-retailer-consumer ecosystem where the checks and balances are already in place, and also is supportive of many other ecosystems when it comes to the economy, namely rentals, jobs (sales associates, managers) etc. What companies like Flipkart and Amazon are doing is to break the small businesses (check how much Jeff Bezos grew in wealth in the COVID pandemic), monopolize the market and once they do, they will no longer offer the deals that exist today, same as the UBER model.

Nothing beats face to face purchase, and nothing beats buying the original.. sure some retailers can sell the typical Burberry design scarf at a fraction of its price but that won't be cashmere, same with the jacket but that won't be made of gabardine. I saw a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair for about 40k on Amazon as well (they admit it's a replica) but the original costs well over 7 lakhs.

What online shopping does to boost sales is a 3 prong approach, deep discounts with no promise of quality or untampered condition attacting the price conscious people looking to save every 100 bucks, wannabe (replica) products pitched as bargain basement deals and lastly the exclusive brand tie-ups with which they propelled a certain Chinese mega-group to dominate Indian phone market with a flurry of brands, spinoffs and LIMITED SALE tactics.

I know monopoly is the height of capitalism and I also know that marketing is the other term for lying.. but these online "enablers" so to speak do way too much of it. We've never used online shopping till date and hope to never do so in the future as well. At the end of the day, all the great reputation apart, they are just a glorified courier/parcel service.

[DigitalOne]

In an offline store you can physically verify the country-of-origin before buying the goods, and consciously avoid Chinese goods.

[landcruiser123]

I've never faced a problem on Amazon India or US. But for high value items like cell phones, laptops, and tablets, I prefer in-store. Whether India or US - most stores do a price match.

For Clothing and Footwear - I always go in-store as I can never find the right fit online. I've been lucky with a shoe & 2 shirts purchased on Amazon.com though.

Originally Posted by balenoed_

I was told by a known shop guy who has a shop selling home appliances that, the manufacturers make some product models to be sold only through eCommerce portals......And the parts used to make those online models could also be different (read lower grades) it seems. And probably that explains the lower prices online.

He is certainly spreading a false rumor to make you buy the product in his shop. This could be possible in branded clothing where selling Factory Seconds (either on-line or in-person retail) is very common. I really doubt it happens in consumer electronics.

[lionell]

Inverse to the feeling on this thread. I buy anything and everything from Amazon after careful considerations and research just like you would if you were window shopping before zeroing in on your choice. Have come across a few fake products delivered and they were promptly returned, thanks to Amazon fulfilled, no questions asked. I then report the seller to have sent fake goods, hoping amazon will take action and for the benefit of other buyers.

[Puneet0051]

Few things to keep in Mind when buying online from Amazon.
Buy from seller Cloudtail which is Amazon only as much as possible especially high ticket items like Mobiles, TVs, Fridge etc.
Buying only assured Prime items, if its non prime I don't buy.
For last few years all my handsets and family are bought online never faced an issue. Even bought a TV online, Fridge Online, AC etc. I am even OK to buy a car Online I am that comfortable. Doesn't mean that I don't buy offline, I weigh convenience over the hassle of going and wasting time at Shop. Time is more important than the hassle of going.
Initially Oneplus handset was only available online, had no option to buy offline.

The more buy you do the more you become aware of Fakes online,

Perfume is 1 such item which I strictly don't buy Online.

Be a an informed Online user, it's for our convenience and time saving

[COMMUTER]

These sites have extraordinary barriers to post fair reviews. Whenever someone is posting a fair review, in which the real quality of the product gets exposed, they curtail it with impunity.

This review which I tried to post in flipkart is one such example. This is the video and the review I meant to post is in the description.

https://youtu.be/VDzA-CCsL6M

I have a friend who suffered a similar issue with Amazon too.

[dipdawiz]

I am an avid online shopper. I buy whatever, if it is available, online and I have time for it to be delivered. And soon after amazon launched in India, shifted from Flipkart to Amazon swiftly, due to their unparalleled customer service. Bought items ranging from laptops, multiple mobiles and TVs, dSLR to large home appliances like microwave, washing machine, dishwasher; from tea sieve to stand mixer to cordless vacuum cleaner, also enormous numbers of electronic goods and gadgets, even some small furniture.

Maybe I am lucky, never got any counterfeit items (or unsealed/opened pack) yet, specially the high ticket items. And I have returned a number of high ticket items without a single question asked (including mobile, roomba, kitchen aid stand mixer, philips mixer, camera gear costing more than 10k and many more, just because there were some features I did not get/like. And later bought a different version). Some counterfeit I got in items of 100 - 2000 range though and returned them or got a refund, just by calling them. So I cannot fault them personally yet.

I know the issue of counterfeit on Amazon is true as I heard so many disappointing stories, but so far none from someone I know. Things we need to keep in mind while ordering, buy if it is Prime and is returnable, then prefer Cloudtail or Appario retail over others, but if these retailers are not selling, I bought from other sellers with Prime returnable options. I love the sale, discount, convenience of not driving out just for any item, large variety and buying whenever I wish or decide. But definitely for some items I prefer to go to shop - apparels, perfume, watches and sometimes go to shops (read malls) for window shopping.

Recently for a year or two, for home appliances and some electronics, I can see local brick and mortar shops are selling them in Amazon (as Prime listing) with lower price and having two channels to sell items, looks like its a win win for us and them too (lower price and less chance of counterfeit).

[shanoj]

I have run into trouble while purchasing Mach3 Turbo blades. I have received fake ones even from Cloudtail. Almost every market place online or otherwise sells fake Mach3 products.

[AkhilR]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

It depends not just on fulfilled by but the seller.

If it is Amazon itself like cloudtail or appario chances of fake are lesser because this means the products are sold by amazon by buying from authorised channels. It's rare to get a fake product from cloudtail or Appario.

Unfortunately, this cannot be further from the truth.
Amazon uses something known as commingled inventory for items fulfilled by Amazon. This means that since all these items are fulfilled by Amazon they are stored together in the Amazon warehouses. So the same product sold by multiple Amazon fulfilled sellers would be stored together. When a new order is received Amazon just picks one product from this commingled inventory and ships it to the buyer. So you might order from appario or cloudtail but you might be getting a product which has been given to Amazon by XYZ company which is also Amazon fulfilled. This product might be a fake.

Having said all of the above I still buy all my products from Amazon even products ranging from 40 to 60k. This is because I have found their customer service and return policy to be far better than Flipkart or any other e-commerce platform. Most of the items have some form in the official website where you can check authenticity by entering the serial number. The main advantage of Amazon fulfilled is that if you want you can return the product and it will be picked back with zero questions asked. So when in doubt you can always start a return request from Amazon and they would happily comply.

So it's more important to check the authenticity of the received product then to choose a specific seller. Then also you can confidently order any item if apparel or cloud tail are the only Amazon fulfilled sellers for a product because then commingled inventory won't be an issue for you.

[charanreddy]

Since 2009 or so, I have shopped for all of my big and small purchases on e-commerce sites. All of them !

1. 3 laptops.
2. 3 TVs.
3. Countless Phones, Tablets, iPods, Speakers, Other Computer Components.
4. Fashion : Most of my purchases including formal / inner wear are from e-commerce sites like Myntra, Amazon fashion, Flipkart. Bought a bunch of sneakers, sports and formal shoes.
5. House hold appliances.

you get the idea.

A lot of thought goes into creating and executing the policies to weed out fakes and post transaction issues in the big e-commerce firms. There are multi-million dollar budgets assigned and the companies take these issues absolutely seriously. Maintaining Trust in the platform is absolutely imperative for these companies to grow.

Incase there are few issues, these companies bend over backwards to get things right for the customer.

However, The challenges are real. Any e-commerce player at scale cannot check all the packages. They use a combination of buyer feedback and automated practices (Image processing, machine learning algorithms ) to get this right. Is this 100% achievable, probably not, but as buyers we are not left in the lurch.

For really high end purchases, There are multiple programs which involve third party services as well as vetted sellers to make sure High end purchases like Rolex and the Louis Vuitton s are authentic.

So to sum it all up :

Would I continue to buy from e-commerce. YES.
Will it all be hassle free. Probably Not.
Will I be covered if some thing goes wrong. YES.

The only category I would steer clear off is the small luxuries.

for eg. Gillette Fusion Blades, High End Perfumes and toiletries etc, where the incentive for the seller is high to make a margin but not big enough for the company to invest $$.

In these cases as well, most of the brands themselves register as sellers on the platform and we are good to go.


Disclaimer : I work for a big e-commerce company. I have the choice to not buy online but do so any way for the convenience and value.

[Zinda]

I and my wife rely heavily on Amazon and Amazon pantry. And yes, Amazon, along with Big Basket duo (BB Daily, BB) helped us and thousands more to stay home during lockdown.

From my Car fridge to a packet of Bikaji bhujia - we ordered everything online.

I do the following (ofcourse some points are as applicable) -

check the model number
read the proper reviews - I don't consider 2 liner junk reviews)
check return/refund policies
Amazon fulfilled - yes it is sort of assurance
Google the product for basic info

As a thumb rule, I try to gauge the weight and packing at the time of delivery. A genuine item would be packed nicely and usually wont rattle if you shake the package.

[mvadg]

I must say that I am quite surprised at how good my online shopping experience has been. My initial post here on TBHP was to caution everyone about the potential pitfalls of online shopping, given our poor consumer protection laws. My experience with brick and mortar shops has been poor, so I expected much worse from Amazon.
I've found Amazon pretty good for items that are generally difficult to find at local shops like a OBDII dongle, tools, ATF, etc. I much prefer to shop Amazon for such items than the local gizmo store. I can ask the seller specific questions and get answers before I decide to buy, compared to the take it or leave it attitude of the local shopkeepers. Reviews are generally helpful, provided you know how to ignore the fake ones.

I am buying more than ever from Amazon and will likely continue to do so.

As others have pointed out, you need to be a little savvy about online shopping. Look for:

• Appario or Cloudtail
• Amazon branded stuff (cautiously)
• Read reviews
• Check TBHP comments
• Return policy
• Be skeptical about "good deals"

I almost never buy "deals" - they seem to be a great way to get rid of shoddy items.
I've also decided I will not buy shoes from Amazon, one pair fit well, another one supposedly of the same size did not suit me.
Branded clothing is great, if you know your size and fit. Stick with the exact sub brand you've tried before.
Symbol brand is good for shirts and t-shirts, though I don't want to try their trousers.


This is probably slightly off topic here but Tata Cliq is nowhere near Amazon in its logistics.
Patel Magnets is pretty good for magnets and the like. Elektroniks India did not reveal that my Mi branded water flosser would be shipped from Singapore - had to wait 45 days much to my dismay. Auroboutique has a clunky payment system. But none of these have ever shipped me a fake. I have stopped buying from Flipkart only because I cannot make much sense of the reviews there. Otherwise my experience with flipkart has been mostly good.