Flipkart - Feedback Thread

2 years ago, I had ordered several computer components from Flipkart, and I was really impressed with their service. The packaging and prompt delivery was excellent. The delivery happened even a few days before the expected date.

This time however, I was utterly disappointed with their service. Details below.

On 9th Sept, I had ordered Moto G3 from Flipkart, a gift for my mom. On 10th, the item was packed and dispatched by the seller from Bengaluru. On 11th, it reached Mumbai, and on 12th, tracking status showed that the item was expected to reach Indore (my city) hub. However, after that, the status did not get updated.

I had sensed something was wrong, but the delivery date being 16th Sept, I waited patiently. However, on 16th Sept, beyond 12 PM, when there was no status update, and no information from Flipkart, I decided to pursue it myself.

First of all, why do these commerce sites make it so difficult to contact them. After looking for quite sometime, I found the button of contacting them. Otherwise, the 24*7 customer care and contact us page mainly showed the pre-determined queries. The button was easy to miss... should be more in plain sight.

Anyways, after I located that, first I did was to email them via the option provided. Even after 4 hours, there was no response.

Then I decided to go for the call back option. It was nearly 5 PM that time. I got the call promptly within a few minutes, and customer care executive was cordial, and listened to me. He told that he will see what the problem is, and that he has registered a complaint.

He had also said that the delivery will be done by 19th September definitely.

After that, in a few minutes I got the mail that the issue had been escalated.

But, after a few more minutes, I think within 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes, I receive an sms saying that the order has been cancelled.

In a few more minutes I get a series of emails, saying order had been cancelled, and another saying to place a fresh order.

This all was really strange to me, and it seems like some kind of game was played with the item that I ordered.

Absolutely no reason was provided as to why the order was cancelled. If a satisfactory reason was provided, that would have made me happy. But, no reason was provided.

It was also strange that the item had been shipped, and reached Mumbai from Bengaluru, and then was cancelled midway. How can the item disappear midway. I dont think they are that much irresponsible.

Also, the order was cancelled within just a few minutes of the call back from their customer care. So, it seems like they did not look into the matter properly, or tried to find out what happened. They just cancelled the order.

And this was done after the customer care executive had said that the delivery will happen by 19th September.

When I was ordering the mobile, several times the item went out of stock. When I added it to cart, and by the time I made sure the details were okay, it would go out of stock. Happened several times. I had to then give up and try the next day. The next day I was able to place the order.

I had ordered the Moto G3 16 GB Black mobile. I noticed yesterday that the item was no longer listed on Flipkart. The white was listed, but out of stock. Today, when I checked, the items are listed, but said to be "coming soon". So, they are out of stock.

Looking at all this, I can say that definitely some kind of game was played with my item shipment, and maybe sold to someone else, or something similar was done.

This has been really disappointing experience, utterly disappointing. After the cancellation, they had the audacity to tell me to place a fresh order.

Today, I have sent them an email telling how disappointed I was with this type of service, and how do they expect me to place a fresh order after what happened with this order. How can I know that such a thing won't happen again when I place a fresh order?

Let's see what response I get.

Anyways, it seems like I might have to order it again, because that particular phone is available with Flipkart only. So, no choice is there. I wouldn't have ordered the mobile from Flipkart again, if it wasn't available from their site only. This sucks. It will be a few days though, before I place a fresh order. This experience has left me in quite a bad taste about Flipkart. Thank goodness, I had gone for cash on delivery.
 
I got a response. Such a bad response! It's like a standard response, with no replies to what I had written in my email. I was not concerned with the previous order, but they wrote only about that. Terrible customer care. Here's the response I got:

Hello,
Greetings from Flipkart.com.
Order Number: [edited out]
This is to inform you that due to transit issues from the courier partner the shipment has been delayed and there is no update from 12-09-2015.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused, request you to place a fresh order once the product will be in stock and we’ll certainly have it delivered to you.
Thank you for shopping with Flipkart.com.

This content had already been sent to me via previous email. I was expecting some kind of response from them with a sincere apology, about what happened. Really disappointed!

I am thinking of sending a reply asking if they even read my email properly.
Anyone has any other idea of what response to send them?

That is the problem with services in India. They cannot be atleast sincere with their replies.
 
Yea, seems like it. But really, have the services degraded that much?

I think in this guess, the issue happened because the phones seems to be selling really well, and they are out of stock frequently. Might not happen with other items I guess.
Still, I can't understand, why they shipped the item and then cancelled it. It could have been delivered with a delay, wouldnt have mattered. Either they did not had the item in the first place, and thought maybe they could deliver it.. or else, they some how played some game with it.

Anyways, which commerce site is recommended nowadays? Amazon?
 
Had ordered mi4i and moto g3 from flipkart couple of weeks back. Didn't face any problems to be honest. Nothing too special too though.

Amazon is just awesome, from their packaging to their customer support and to their return/refund options, I just have no complaints. And even the prices are very competitive there. But lighting deals and today's deals are shit there though. I was thinking of purchasing speakers and normal price was 1299 and lighting deal price was 1259. This is a lighting deal? One of the comments i found there said a person got it for 899 some time back, wish they would have priced it that much in lightning deal.
 
Thanks for the feedback, @Sobirvs . I have had pleasant experience with Flipkart before, that's why I had quite disappointed this time. Don't know why it happened, but wasn't pleased with the response. Good to know that you did not had any trouble with your orders.

Have been hearing good stuff about Amazon. I am not much of an online shopper. I did noticed lately that prices on Flipkart are somewhat, or even quite higher than the same products on other websites like Amazon. For example, my cousin was looking for an external hard drive. The same one was available at a higher price on Flipkart, but much lower price on Amazon. He bought it from Amazon and was quite happy with the service.

If I get a chance, I will try to order from Amazon.

Meanwhile, the phone I want is available on Flipkart only, which kind of sucks. I will place a fresh order in a few days, but I have lost a bit of faith.
 
I wasn't expecting this at all, after the stale response that I had got from Flipkart a few days ago. But, today, I received another response from their customer care, and this time they put forward a sincere response, which I am quite happy to accept. They should have sent such a response in the first place. Sharing here:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Flipkart Customer Support.

Order ID: [edited]
Product: [edited]

First and foremost please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you in this regard.

I can understand the frustration due to cancellation of your above order and it was not our intention to create such an awkward and embarrassing situation for you.

I realize how important this product was for you and I am sorry to inform you that as per the records due to some unforeseen circumstances, your consignment is being returned to us by our courier partner.

Unfortunately, we are unable to reinstate it and process it from our end. I’ve ensured that you receive an e-mail notification once the product is back in stock with our sellers so that you can place an order as per your requirement.

Trust me if there was any option with me, I would have taken the ownership and have processed your request as per your requirement.

Please note, this is not the usual way that Flipkart renders services to its shoppers, though the same has been failed in your case.

We agree that this shopping experience has not been a great one for you and we will make sure such instances do not happen again in future.

We value you as one of our best customers and hope you will accept our sincere apology.

I request your kind understanding in this regards and give us a chance to serve you the best. We value your presence with us.

------------------------

So, as stated in the email, I will get an email from them telling that the product is in stock. I then intend to re-order again. I hope they send the item this time without any such incident.

I am now satisfied with the response I have got.
 
HAHAHAHA! Friend's experience of flipkart just recently. He ordered a Lenovo K3 Note. Box was tampered with (there was an Airtel SIM inside the phone box) but he didn't know till i told him about it. He ordered the phone online and got it delivered to a friend in Delhi. That friend doesn't know much about these. He asked her to open the box to see if there was an earpiece (its not mentioned anywhere on the product accessories though so i assume it will not be there) but to all our surprises she told us that there was an Airtel SIM inside. How the heck did the sim got inside the supposedly-sealed box? Did FK/Moto and LOLtel signed a deal to put their SIM inside for promotion? I think that the seal was cleverly removed by someone on FK side, then the SIM was kept inside and then properly glued the seal back. She said that there was nothing wrong with the external packaging so i cant think of anything else but tampered package. Airtel 4G SIM was a promo offer and it was inside the shipping package and not inside the item box.
So i immediately sent off a mail to FK. A FK cc rep called him last night and told him to use another fk support mail which ended with "flipkartcsblabla@gmail.com". GMAIL! ROFL! Your billion-dollar IPO company uses a "gmail.com" customer support email. :hilarious:

ps: read my coca-cola thread for more company@gmail.com jokes. :p
 
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iPwnz said:
How the heck did the sim got inside the supposedly-sealed box?
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do you have any pics/videos to prove that the SIM was indeed inside the box?
iPwnz said:
She said that there was nothing wrong with the external packaging so i cant think of anything else but tampered package.
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i think nothing was wrong with the package... that new Airtel SIM is usually stuck on the outside of the phone box. flipkart doesn't tamper seals to put freebies inside :p
 
Most probably the SIM came because of an offer with the phone, that your friend might have missed. When I was ordering Moto G3, there was an offer from Airtel that came along with the phone. I don't exactly remember the offer though. But maybe a similar offer was there with the phone. As said above, retailers just dont put freebies inside.

BTW, just an update about my Flipkart experience... Flipkart customer service had told in the email (as in above posts), that an alert in email will be sent when the phone comes in stock. No such email was ever sent to me. This is really bad customer service by Flipkart. Either don't say it, or, keep up with whatever you say.
 
Criminal said:
do you have any pics/videos to prove that the SIM was indeed inside the box?
Click to expand...
No proof. But that was what we were told.
i think nothing was wrong with the package... that new Airtel SIM is usually stuck on the outside of the phone box. flipkart doesn't tamper seals to put freebies inside :p
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So getting free SIM cards with Flipkart orders is a thing now? Lol. Thats new to me. And even if that is the case the gmail.com thing reminds me of the damn fridge which i never got. Rofl.
Nevertheless it made my day. Had a shitty class in the morning in which our Tally teacher lectured us, specifically me, on philosophies.
 
I got Moto X Play recently which also had the Airtel offer. The Airtel SIM was in a separate pack inside FK's box. The phone's box was sealed (means had a circular sticker which one has to open).
 
CapriAnupam said:
BTW, just an update about my Flipkart experience... Flipkart customer service had told in the email (as in above posts), that an alert in email will be sent when the phone comes in stock. No such email was ever sent to me. This is really bad customer service by Flipkart. Either don't say it, or, keep up with whatever you say.
Click to expand...

This feature of theirs is hit or miss. I usually find the product back in stock on my own and I get the mail few days later. If the product is frequently going OOS, the notification is useless.
 
random2 said:
This feature of theirs is hit or miss. I usually find the product back in stock on my own and I get the mail few days later. If the product is frequently going OOS, the notification is useless.
Click to expand...

Well, the product is in demand for sure. It came into stock after 15-20 days after my episode. It does not seem to go out of stock since then. So, I guess they should have kept upto their promise. It's a think of keeping up to what they say. Otherwise, I can also check manually myself, not a big deal.
 
The WTF moment with Flipkart arrived at last. Have been hearing that Flipkart service going downhill for some time, and it was my turn to experience the same. Ordered a Samsung microwave on 5th Nov. hoping that it will be delivered during Diwali time (as it was mentioned on Flipkart that delivery will be on or before 13th Nov.). Did not get delivered during the 5 days of Diwali, so rated a query to know the exact status when it will be delivered. Did not get any specific answers rather than usual templates replies of "Sorry for inconvenience.. blah blah.. Bear with us for 2 days.. yada yada". I am sure they must have not even checked with the Delivery partner (some equally unprofessional company called Safexpress), because when I checked on Safexpress portal, it shows that it reached my city hub on 16th Nov itself, but they seem to be waiting for next auspicious day for the delivery. Sent the mail in reposnse to Flipkart Customer care about the same and asked them to deliver it by today morning. Marked a CC of the email to their CEO also (hoping that CS would take it more seriously as it is marked to their Boss), but looks like their CS cares hoots for either customer or their boss. They did not bother to reply or even acknowledge my concern. Finally cancelled the order out of frustration.

I hope the refund process get through fast. Need to reorder from Amazon or snapdeal. Had been thinking of staying away from Flipkart after they went the App way. Looks like that moment has come now.

Note: If anyone thinks, things can't go wrong if you buy only from WS Retail, that no longer holds true. I bought from WS Retail, but the Courier company goofed up and Flipkart does not care to set things right. They would rather have the order cancelled as easy way out.
 
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dennis_nail said:
Need to reorder from Amazon or snapdeal. Had been thinking of staying away from Flipkart after they went the App way. Looks like that moment has come now.

Note: If anyone thinks, things can't go wrong if you buy only from WS Retail, that no longer holds true. I bought from WS Retail, but the Courier company goofed up and Flipkart does not care to set things right. They would rather have the order cancelled as easy way out.
Click to expand...

Same applies to Amazon man especially for Tier 3 towns like mine. Even cloudtail/Amazon is screwing up orders. Mine is three times in a row now. Last order is now 3 weeks old but no sight of the ordered item. Email conversation isn't helpful either.
 
iPwnz said:
No proof. But that was what we were told.

So getting free SIM cards with Flipkart orders is a thing now? Lol. Thats new to me. And even if that is the case the gmail.com thing reminds me of the damn fridge which i never got. Rofl.
Nevertheless it made my day. Had a shitty class in the morning in which our Tally teacher lectured us, specifically me, on philosophies.
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That offer was on since the launch of k3 note. A 4g sim was bundled along with the phone. This was the case with similar 4g phones via flipkart namely the mi4i.
 
Looks like flipkart is more adept at cancelling orders lately? After I cancelled my order, got a reply that the item which was already shipped would take 4 days to return back to their warehouse.. Wonder how this works when it took more than 16 days to reach the destination and return trip takes just 4 days..?
 
Superbad said:
That offer was on since the launch of k3 note. A 4g sim was bundled along with the phone. This was the case with similar 4g phones via flipkart namely the mi4i.
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Ye, I forgot to slash out my post.
Did others get a bluetooth headset as well because my friend claimed that he originally got one.
btw he applied for returns and replacement (LOL) because of the misinformation and misunderstanding and I have no idea how it is going. I haven't been to my classes for over a week now.
 
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