Dec 06, 2006 10:03 AM
5515 Views
I m regular buyer of online stuffs and recently bumped into India Times for some electronic items. I found the model quite interesting as the bidding starts at Re 1. Definitely you wont be getting anything for Re 1 as there are players from the behind you increase the bid. However, my ideas was to get something online and not to hop in the shop for my purchases. I bid on the first item, which was a SAMSUNG Home theatre system. It asked me to login, which I did. It said I need to make a payment of Rs 500 as security deposit and in case I win that bid I will be asked to make the balance payment. Again, nothing wrong in that. So I went ahead and made the payment through my net banking account. It asked me about my delivery address, I confirmed and all very good till now. I got tempted and bid on another 2 products, which had relatively lesser price. Now the mockery starts:
No emails were sent when I made the bid, kinda surprising as that is one of the way I could be informed about the status of my bid. I went to MY ACCOUNT page and it said you have made no bids till date. I was like, WHAT? Anyways, thought might be taking some time to update my account. So I logged off. Next day I logged into Indiatimes from homepage, I was taken to my email account, which I wasnt interested. So I went back to homepage again (without logging off) and from there I went to the "TELL your Price" section. I was asked to login again. HA! I did again. I was shown my account page, again no sign of my bids. I thought should call HELP line number and I dialed 1-800-102-8888 (Airtel). Some Mr. Deepak picked the phone. I explained that I made a bid and it does not reflect on my account, my username is XXXXX, can u check pls. Kindly note his Question: Sir, can u tell me the order #? I said WHAT Order #. He said you must have received a order #. I said where, I didnt receive any email, I cant see the bid in my account. He was adamant, says without order # or transaction # I cant give you proper information. I said I have given you my userID, cant you find with that? He said no give me the transaction #. I said I dun have, but bank account shows 3 debits and I gave him the transaction details as well. He put me on hold and after 10 mins came back and said he cant find it. THE BIGGEST JOKE IN THE ONLINE ECOMMERCE SITE I EVER SEEN. There were many loops and holes in the whole experience I had:
No Emails were sent when I made a bid
No where did it say, please keep this order # handy for any issues or queries
No emails were sent saying I won, I was outbid, I was lost. Which means, Indiatimes is least interested in bringing back the consumer on the site.
My account is USELESS.
No bidding history, no easy access
Customer Support executive are useless. They dunno what online transaction is. They are taught, Step 1, do this, Step 2 do that. If someone asks a different question they are all puzzled.
And yes, reminds me, I went to post a feedback, it gave your session has EXPIRED. I mean what the hell was that. It asked me Indiatimes User ID in the feedback form, why does it says session expired on the screen. What will a common person understand. OH there was some MR. Session, who is no more in this world.
Shouldnt Online shopping focus on USER FRIENDLY EXPERIENCE. I am a Web expert and when I have so much difficulty in accessing the site and it details, what about other people? No doubt Indiatimes might be making some good money with online shopping, but my suggestion to the management team is you are luck we dun have good competitors in the indian market. The day when we have, NO BODY will use your site. Instead of spending lakhs of rupees on advertisement on the paper, putting 1000s of popup banners (another joke, all browers have popup blocker), please get a technical team to put the functionalities together.
Anyways, I now have a big task of getting my refund from the site. To my all friends, who use IndiaTimes or similar shopping site. Be careful and see all the functionalities of the website before making any purchase. Prices can be attractive but if it comes with lots of hassle whats the use? Hope Indiatimes management pull up their sock and spend more on the functionalities of the site rather than on advertisement so that visitors get a good experience and not horrifying like I had.
