I was looking for a wedding gift for a friend, a gift that would be out of ordinary & he would carry it with him back to USA & most importantly would not make a big hole in my pocket. Since I always buy my gifts from there, my first action was to log on to BAAZEE.com & check out stuff that was available in the gifts section. I did find a Maharaja Antique clock, which was available on auction as well as fixed price sale at a discount of half the original price!
After checking the ratings of the seller & the comments he had received from the other customers, I was fully assured that this would be an ideal gift for my friend. I placed an order & that evening before I could reach home, my order was delivered at home ! This is the way baazee.com operates!
Baazee.com is India’s largest online auction site where you can buy or sell anything.......well almost anything. Baazee.com is India''s answer to ebay.com & is surely one of the most famous names in the Indian dotcoms. I''ve been more of a buyer at this site & have won/bought stuff like jewellery, costmetics, garments & yes, even mobile phones!
Bidding or buying on Baazee.com is very simple:-
After registration, the user can bid through Auctions in which the seller specifies the minimum amount for an item. As a buyer, if you wish to participate in an auction, you need to ''bid'' for an item. The person who offers the highest bid wins the right to purchase the item at that price.
If you are not interested in bidding you can buy products through the Quick!Buy facility where the seller sells an item at a ''fixed price''. As a buyer you can buy the item immediately, without waiting for the auction to get over. Naturally, prices are below the market price and goods are available at a huge discount. [I bought a brand new mobile worth 18K at half the price & gifted it to my sister, who will always remember me when she looks at her mobile :)]
The third option is to buy through baazee Classifiedshere the seller advertises his product & as a buyer, you can view the item, negotiate the price with the seller & then complete the sale.
Some tips for successful baazeeing :-
I know its really boring to read Terms & Conditions which seem to be never ending but this should be your first step before registering your name & bidding for any product on this site. It clearly states that once you have placed a bid, it cannot be altered or deleted. In case, your bid is the winning bid, you are legally obliged to buy the item. It is human tendency to blame others but if we are cautious before committing to purchase, we need not end up with a negative experience.
Once you find a product that seems good enough to buy one should check the item description, always given along with on the product page. This page would also give you all of details of the seller, his terms and conditions [whether the buyer has to be any further delivery charges besides the bid amount, the payment options etc].
Always check the ratings given to this seller by his previous baazee clients, this is an excellent feature wherein based on the other customer ratings & sellers response [or lack of response] one can judge whether the product is worth buying/bidding. The number of responses are marked as : Positive, Neutral & Negative comments. Reading the comments on these ratings by the customer we would also get information of the quality of the products, seller''s delivery times & after-sales service.
This is very important as we are buying without inspecting the product. Before you decide to bid or buy any products, it also very essential to get an answer for all your doubts, about the product as well as the seller. There is a facility where the prospective bidder can ''''Ask the seller'''' and one should not hesitate to make most of this feature. When buying from out of town seller, it is better to use this feature if his selling terms & delivery charges are vague.
As much as possible, try to bid/buy from Super Sellers who is a recognized Baazee seller with significant sales figures on Baazee, most of the times such a seller would also be a reputed known one, for eg : Popley jewellers.
Baazee also protects its buyers under the Buyer Protection program which means that you can buy from good sellers on Baazee without a worry. In case, you had a bad experience with a particular seller, you can report this to the Baazee Customer Service department & it is immediately taken care of. Though I didn''t have any serious problem with a seller, I was given none purchase warnings by one of the seller even after he had delivered all the 3 products, hence I got 3 warnings & a message from baazee that my account would be terminated! This was a silly error from the seller & was corrected as soon as I pointed it out to the customer service. This was a annoying incident but totally the seller''s mistake. I ended up being more impressed by baazee''s swift response to my complain.
Though I''ve never been a seller on baazee, its a simple procedure if you are interested in selling an item on Baazee. One can do this using :
Auctions : selling to the best bidder
Quick!Buy : selling an item at a fixed price &
Classifieds : advertising your product & selling to the best bidder.
There are many other features on baazee.com which would make your online shopping a pleasant one. To know more about these check out this site today.
My Word:
Having read most of the 57 MS reviews on baazee - including the one where Avnish tried to clarify certain ''doubts'' & requested people not to give up on baazee.com - I feel it is the most underrated [infact I shoud say victimized] product on MS. I can understand that some of the reviews were from genuine baazigars who had bad experience with this auction site but every system has its faults & since then baazee has improved a lot. This is also obvious with the recent reviews which are much better than the 2001 ones. Yet, there are some people who have made a lifetime job of badmouthing this site. That is really sad coz all Indians cannot shop on ebay.com & even when baazee has ''being inspired'' by the idea, making an effort to ease our online shopping all we do is critize & make things worse for them.
I do most of my gift shopping online through baazee.com coz the site is very user-friendly, in one go it helps me to check out/compare products/prices & at the sametime I can buy a product at a discounted price, so will always prefer using this site for gift shopping. When we decide to purchase any product from a shop do we bother to know what the shopkeeper does behind his doors? Similarly why should it be our problem where baazee gets its funds/ideas from or who the CEO Avnish is dating & why in the world should we go around shouting murdabad? If one doesn''t like shopping thorough this or any online portal, they can always ignore it & get along with their life shopping in supermarkets.
To all those baazee haters out there, all I can say is ''U've been on its case since 2001 & even after 2 years baazee is going on strong, it has also overtaken the other auction portal bidorbuy.com. Isn't this enough to prove how good this site is? So Chill.'' Rest of us can carry on shopping happily on India’s Biggest Marketplace :)
Disclaimer: I know it won't serve much purpose to inform here that I do not work for Baazee.com :)
