Common

A little known fact about working online in India is that for non-ecommerce online business owners, a person without an MBA, MCA or Computer Science degree or young enough will find it extremely difficult to get any kind of support. In fact, when this individual shops online, many substandard products will be dumped on the person in an attempt to waste money and manufacturers support will be encouraged to avoid giving after sales service. This problem is most acute for electronics products like netbooks/laptops/tablets and mobiles.

A netbook(Toshiba make) purchased online from F** had a power supply button which was not functioning properly. The keyboard started malfunctioning after 2 months , and even though the netbook was under warranty, it took more than 1 month for the netbook to be repaired. Similarly, a Blackberry playbook costing more than 12k is not functional, despite repeated follow-up with the service centre. The seller does not provide any proper customer support in this case also. Repeated phone calls and emails to the support centre are a waste of time, as customer support is not interested in solving the buyers problem. Additionally, the buyer may also be subjected to identity theft by ruthless criminal gangs, who will try to frame the online buyer in order to get credit for the online purchase. Many buyers buy online to save time, but the poor quality and lack of customer support results in wastage of time.

In such cases, though it may be a little more expensive, some buyers will revert to buying offline . If a laptop is purchased from a store, the buyer can get customer support, since it is difficult to behave badly in public. If it starts malfunctioning, the customer can take it to the store, where sales will usually help since they do not want to drive away other customers in the store. Some Online sellers should learn to treat customers professionally and not misuse the online purchases as a means to settle personal scores/prejudices.

The disadvantage of using the feedback score to judge a seller is that it is mostly manipulated and is not an indication of the sellers performance.
Analysis of the negative feedback on Ebay for one seller shows that:
1. Two thirds of the negative feedback is from competitors who are selling the same or similar products. In real life few businesses will promote their competitors, they usually do everything possible to damage their reputation. Then why is a competitors opinion treated as important on Ebay?
2. Many online sellers are targetted by ruthless and extremely well connected identity theft gangs.These gangs and their friends have no qualms leaving negative feedback, so as to damage the reputation and business of the seller.

The reason ecommerce does not grow in India is that many buyers are extremely greedy , unfair and do not READ specifications.
For example
Ebay buyer :j*
Buyer information: *************
Buyer shipping address: ******************

Purchased an “Free shipping, autoblog with web hosting , ad supported, parking alternative” on Ebay.
It was clearly stated that the blog was an autoblog ad supported , but this particular buyer made every effort to remove the advertising from the blog after login details were provided.

He then asked and got a refund, also left negative feedback, even though he is still using the free blog. He is then claiming to have paid Rs 800, though he has not paid a single paisa.

When buyers are so greedy , liars, dishonest and lack any sense of values, how can eCommerce in India grow?

Note : Buyer has since revised his feedback, after realizing his mistake.

A payment of Rs 720 was made to Infibeam to subscribe to Electronics for You magazine for 2 years using a virtual credit card . However, the payment receipt /acknowledgement sent by Electronics for You mentioned that they had received a payment of Rs 612 through Indiatimes Funds Transfer. The subscriber was also incorrectly addressed as “Mr”. This results in several unanswered questions.
1.Why did Electronics for You magazine receive only Rs 612, where did the Rs 108 disappear?
2.Does Indiatimes access all sales data from Infibeam ?
3.Why are payments made by an Infibeam customer routed through Indiatimes?

Reply from Electronics for You support, support@efyindia.com

Dear Madam,

Thanks for your mail.

We are unable to send you the payment details as we do not such details,regarding this please contact to your bank.

Regards,

Ruchi,

Support Team

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Indiatimes was contacted on Twitter but has not replied back.

Infibeam customer support says that they are looking into the matter.

If any reader can provide any inputs, it will be appreciated.

Most large online stores in India have custom built software for their online shops, but is not feasible for many smaller merchants to invest large amounts in developing a ecommerce store. For these merchants, an online shop is an additional sales channel and ecommerce platforms are used for the online shop, which allow merchants to easily add their products to the store and manage sales. Unlike international payment platforms like Paypal, Payza (Alertpay), Skrill (Moneybookers), LibertyReserve, where a fee is charged only for when a product is sold, these ecommerce stores charge a monthly fee every month. Some of these ecommerce platforms also charge a setup fee and a transaction fee.
The popular ecommerce platforms in India are:
1.Martjack – starts from Rs 2650 /month, payment gateway not included, number of products included depends on plan chosen
2.Buildabazaar.com from Infibeam, pricing from Rs 1000 / month, number of products listed depends on plan chosen
3.Zepo.in – basic version starts from Rs 500 / month does not include a payment gateway, but other plans include a payment gateway. Like other gateways, the number of products listed depends on plan chosen
4. GetaBox.in (from Plutus Retail Pvt. Ltd.) – only one plan at Rs 1000 / month, unlimited number of products can be listed, 5% transaction fee on completed sales.

Many online sellers list their products on online marketplaces , which may or may not charge a listing fee. However, payment from the buyer is transferred to the seller only after the buyer confirms receipt in some marketplaces. Some buyers receive the item, but make false claims of non receipt which results in losses for the seller. Seller accounts at these marketplaces can be suspended if the negative feedback against the seller exceeds a specified threshold. This results in feedback manipulation as some buyers sign up only to give negative feedback to the seller, lower the feedback score, making it difficult for the seller to sell in the online marketplace. Marketplace place several restrictions on sellers of digital products such as :
1.Selling of ebooks is not allowed.
2.Linking to website urls is not allowed
3.Contact details should not be provided by a buyer to the seller.
To overcome the above problems, many online sellers are developing their own online shops using the ecommerce platforms discussed above. However, driving traffic to these online stores can be time consuming initially.