Aug 02, 2008 02:53 PM
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Home Solution Retail India Ltd, Has stepped into the Retail trade of home building, furnishing and electronics good, they have positioned Home town for Home building goods, Home Town and Collection I for Furnishing and home decor items and e zone for white goods and electronic goods.
While they struck on a gold mine with the idea of home solution retail store, on lines of stores like Ikea, Home Depot, Circuit City. However the customer support, after sales support are almost non-existing.
Its operation is similar to that of a Hyper-mall run like a kirana store, where most of the items are un branded, bought in bulk, high defect rate and buy in as is condition. A good pointer to this is a good many items on display in their shop are broken down.
Shops like Ikea, Home Depot, Circuit City all have a 15 days - 3 months replacement/money return clause if purchaser is unhappy. At Home Solutions outlets like Home town they sell a Philips CFL also on in as is condition, and wont talk about service, even though Philips have a return clause for 1 yrs for defective product.
Schemes that Home Solution run are pointers to the margins that they operate with, and this is because they are selling Cheap quality Chinese excess stock at the cost of International market 1st quality product and these could be anything from a mattress to a Rs. 1, 00, 000+ bedroom furniture set.
Home Solutions with this approach is ensuring disaster to happen, it could be a class action suite, a battery of consumer court cases, or a total shutdown of operations leading to unemployment of 1000 of youth across the country.
However not much is lost as prudent actions with dynamic leadership can still transform a pioneering effort to be counted as number Uno.
Author is a customer having first hand experience many times over in all the brands retails outlets in the city of Hyderabad. The Team at Home Town Hyderabad though friendly have only word to say, Mr Shiva, Mr Vedula Managers at Home Town express helplessness. The case with Collection I and e-Zone at City Center Mall Panjagutta is also the same, Mr. Aamir Khan, Mr. Nadim Managers, blame head office for service issues and delays
