This may be normal for many who have been living in India for several years. However, i was surprised a few days ago when we purchased a heater for Rs 6000 that did not work. When we took it back to the store, the owner pointed out a clause that clearly said, "No Returns, No Exchange", which i had missed. Legally, he is right. Morally, i am. So now i have a heater that does not work and i am out the money.
So i have concluded that to purchase in the future, we must use a resource like EBay, Naaptol, Indiatimes, FutureBazaar, HomeShop18, which gives the seller an incentive to be ethical. Chalk it up to lessons learned. Fair Warning--i have tried EBay and the customer support worked well. I have no personal experience with the other sites.
Any other options to pursue that don't cause more trouble than they are worth? Suggestions welcome!
What is the cause of corruption like this? Is there no incentive to this vendor to take care of his customers? No competition? Or is it that he has such a steady stream of customers that he doesn't have to take care of them? It seems to there is an opportunity here. yelp.india or something for vendors. People post reviews of local shops. They have to be verified users, but still, some sort of feedback needs to happen.
ReplyDeleteI think it is more of a supply chain and economies of scale issue: there are no large chains like WalMart and Home Depot that can absorb a few losses or programmatically profile and eliminate dishonest customers. Hence, the small shopkeeper cannot give a money-back guarantee since his distributor will not take back the product . . . and so on. The other problem is that the road network is less well-developed so returns do not go back up the supply chain quickly.
ReplyDeleteAll this will change when the large chains set up shop more firmly in India but it is a slow process. Walmart has just come in. The potential is huge, though. Check out: http://walmartstores.com/pressroom/news/10404.aspx
Check out http://delhistatecommission.nic.in/ for more avenues of redress
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