Quality of Service

Why

would you go to an online shop, instead of to a brick-and-mortar one? There

could be several reasons for that. It could be for the sheer novelty of

shopping online. You may opt for online shopping because you don’t have to

travel all the way to the shop, or stand in a queue, or lug your shopping

bag around. It may be because you don’t have the time to go to a shop, and

you can shop online from your office or home. Or, it could be because there

are good discounts available online. If you exclude the novelty factor, then

the rest of it boils down to one point—quality of service.

So, how has our experience

been on the quality of service offered by the Indian e-com sites? In a word—Bad.

Orders that were never

delivered, deliveries that didn’t happen on time, wrong products

delivered, requests for help not answered…The list of problems we faced is

long.

Let’s take the winners in

this shootout—Rediff and Fabmart. We had problems even with them. Rediff

never delivered one of the products we ordered. We had to go back to the

site and request for a clarification, before they got back with the

information that the item was out of stock. Surely, they could have

intimated this piece of vital information before we asked for it after

waiting it out. Fabmart never responded to our question on security. If the

best sites are like this, then the less said about the others, the better.

Colorplusonline, where we

ordered stuff worth Rs 2,000, responded by saying that the ordered items

were out of stock, and that they were canceling the order. About two weeks

later, we suddenly received the ordered goods. An e-mail asking for an

explanation of this strange behavior never got a reply. Jaldi.com took our

order for a Gillette Mach 3, but never bothered to deliver. Repeated e-mails

asking about the status didn’t get a response. Hiperworld took an order

for Dairy Milk and Crackle, and delivered two Dairy Milk chocolates. Again,

no reply to mail inquiring about what happened. Asianskyshop required a

reminder, a week after placing the order, before they sent out the letter

asking for confirmation of order. Amul took the order for butter, and their

representative even called up to confirm the order, the address, and date

and time of delivery. But delivery never happened. Indiashoppingmall

promptly sent back a mail giving the credit card number and billing address

of the credit card we had used. This mail could easily fall into the hands

of unscrupulous elements. So what if they use a secure server? All the

security is negated by this one thoughtless inclusion.

In short, Indian e-com

vendors have a long, long way to go before the quality of their service can

stand up to scrutiny. And Indian e-com shoppers have to bear that in mind

when shopping online.