The best place to buy books online in India. Review on Flipkart

Original - 27 Jan 2010

Of all the online places I have tried to buy books from India, I've had the best luck with Flipkart. Bought six books in two orders in the last six months and all came without any issues.

Shipping was slow. Though all the books I ordered have "guaranteed delivery in 3 business days", I got mine in about 5-7 business days. One was packed well, but the second order had shabby packing. It was torn and open and the corner of the books inside was exposed, They need to pack better.

I did not have the need to contact their customer support till now, so no opinion on that. But based on the other reviews here, the support doesn't seem to be any better than the other Indian online shopping sites. And that is mine main worry. What is the recourse if things do not go as planned? Do they respond properly and solve the issue to my satisfaction?

I am now mulling about placing a large order for a collection of books. I get a decent discount at my local bookstore(as I am regular there) and can play only after I am satisfied with the item. But with FlipKart I have to pay upfront and wait about a week to see the item - but the discount is almost twice what I get locally. Hmmm. what to do?

If I do place the order with FlipKart.com, I will update about the experience.

Regards.

=========================================================

UPDATE - 2nd Sep 2010

Since my last review I have purchased books worth nearly Rs 50, 000 from Flipkart. Nearly half of that is for the Asterix, Tintin & Lucky Luke Collections, and when I got the 20% off coupon I kinda went on a crazy book-ordering spree till my wife snatched and hid all my cards. I am quite satisfied with the pricing and the quality of the books delivered(the packing has also improved a bit). I still am a bit unhappy that they take a week or more to deliver to my town, but I guess that is more to do with me living in a small town instead of one of the bigger cities.

Anyhoo, I had the need to contact their customer support twice.

Once for a price match/correction. They had the series of BONE books(by Jeff Smith), total nine volumes on sale. Of these the first Five had Indian MRP while the remaining Four had the same pricing as Imported versions, even though they were Indian editions. I emailed them about it and only got a reply that they will look into it, and by next morning the pricing for the remaining four was corrected and I purchased them promptly.

Second time, I ordered Eight technical books but received only seven in three different shipments. I emailed them about the missing book and they replied promptly that it was an imported edition and would take a couple of weeks to procure. Their shipping notification emails were not very readable, but looking closely they did say that the Eight book is still "in process". Anyway, I got the book about 10 days later.

I have now almost completely stopped visiting the local bookstore(except for buying the occassional magazine or a regional language book) - their 10% discount and limited selection seems pale compared to Flipkart. I have driven at least half-a-dozen fellow book lovers to Flipkart and they are all quite happy with it.

So to sum up, barring Amazon setting up shop in India, Flipkart will be my first choice for buying books.(Maybe Amazon will buy these guys out, like eBay bought out Bazaar.com).

Cheers!