Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Saving Private Flipkart

foundingfuel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#11

Post by ramkalari »

s4chin wrote: post #7

On the basis of customer satisfaction only, Amazon is far ahead of Flipkart at least in India. If you search Quora for a Flipkart vs. Amazon, you will be amazed by the reviews (most favour Amazon). This is just one: https://www.quora.com/Is-Flipkart-better-than-Amazon-in-Indi... There are many more such questions on Quora. I've read a lot of reviews and this was the result: Amazon is more responsive to complaints, re…

Amazon is not doing a great job either. They shipped a Macbook Air when I had ordered a Macbook Pro. They didn't release my replacement until their supposedly superior system registered my returns. I had to contact their support to tell them that it was returned a week back. After all the song and dance, they shipped a Macbook Air again as replacement. How is that for a market leading performance!

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#12

Post by s4chin »

ramkalari wrote: post #11
s4chin wrote: post #7

On the basis of customer satisfaction only, Amazon is far ahead of Flipkart at least in India. If you search Quora for a Flipkart vs. Amazon, you will be amazed by the reviews (most favour Amazon). This is just one: https://www.quora.com/Is-Flipkart-better-than-Amazon-in-Indi... There are many more such questions on Quora. I've read a lot of reviews and this was the result: Amazon is more responsive to complaints, re…

Amazon is not doing a great job either. They shipped a Macbook Air when I had ordered a Macbook Pro. They didn't release my replacement until their supposedly superior system registered my returns. I had to contact their support to tell them that it was returned a week back. After all the song and dance, they shipped a Macbook Air again as replacement. How is that for a market leading performance!

True, I was a huge fan of Flipkart since the time it only used to sell books. Then the delivery charges increased, discount reduced and Amazon and Snapdeal looked like much better options.

Even now I look at flipkart to check out the price of stuff, but it is usually more than the rest.

Flipkart lost customers confidence, is what I think.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#13

Post by ajonit »

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be friendly is not welcoming either. On the other hand, Amazon India seems to be obsessed about customer service, they will readily offer you GV for a slightest of mistake on their part. Their product inventory is massive. Essentially Amazon india has become what FK used to be 3 years back and FK seems uninterested in doing business anymore.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#14

Post by jdnc »

ramkalari wrote: post #11
s4chin wrote: post #7

On the basis of customer satisfaction only, Amazon is far ahead of Flipkart at least in India. If you search Quora for a Flipkart vs. Amazon, you will be amazed by the reviews (most favour Amazon). This is just one: https://www.quora.com/Is-Flipkart-better-than-Amazon-in-Indi... There are many more such questions on Quora. I've read a lot of reviews and this was the result: Amazon is more responsive to complaints, re…

Amazon is not doing a great job either. They shipped a Macbook Air when I had ordered a Macbook Pro. They didn't release my replacement until their supposedly superior system registered my returns. I had to contact their support to tell them that it was returned a week back. After all the song and dance, they shipped a Macbook Air again as replacement. How is that for a market leading performance!

Often some stuff is sold by third party dealers and shipped by Amazon. I suspect that is probably the case for the Macbook. Amazon typically has much lesser control over such sales, and would need to adhere to the dealer's policies.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#15

Post by Rambunctious »

ved_a wrote: post #5

It is so easy to just throw in some vague ideas without any substantial data behind it. A more logical and researched answer to this article is - https://medium.com/@sumanthr/why-private-flipkart-doesn-t-ne...

The lynchpin of this "logical argument" appears to be a Business Standard article that references a Morgan Stanley report that says FK is 4 times as big as AMZN in GMV. While neither of the two authors (and us included) may have the "raw data" that Morgan Stanley supposedly has at its command, we don't need to be geniuses to understand that GMV via exclusive deals with one phone manufacturer after another can only buy so much PR runway.

What really matters is the bottomline. As Buffett would say, it's only when the tide goes out (or in this case, when the funding tap runs dry), do you discover who's been swimming naked. Having said that as a consumer, less competition means less deals. So, I do hope all the shopping sites have their swimming trunks on :)

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#16

Post by ramkalari »

s4chin wrote: post #12
ramkalari wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is not doing a great job either. They shipped a Macbook Air when I had ordered a Macbook Pro. They didn't release my replacement until their supposedly superior system registered my returns. I had to contact their support to tell them that it was returned a week back. After all the song and dance, they shipped a Macbook Air again as replacement. How is that for a market leading performance!

True, I was a huge fan of Flipkart since the time it only used to sell books. Then the delivery charges increased, discount reduced and Amazon and Snapdeal looked like much better options. Even now I look at flipkart to check out the price of stuff, but it is usually more than the rest. Flipkart lost customers confidence, is what I think.

I think it is really hard to compete with Amazon on cost. That is Amazon's strength and you will most likely lose that battle unless the government has some kind of protective measures in place or you get another titan like Alibaba or Google taking a majority stake. Flipkart still has plenty of mindshare but they need to innovate. They are not going to win based on prices alone.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#17

Post by kranner »

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

Customer service at FlipKart has really gone downhill.

The last couple of times I've reported incorrect listings on FlipKart for books (wrong cover image or wrong author name) I've actually been told "sorry, we can't help you with this."

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#18

Post by dingo_bat »

Flipkart was good, much better than alternatives. Nowadays I avoid it just because they wouldn't let me browse their website on mobile and at one point their entire desktop website was covered with "Download our app!". They even went so far as to show higher prices on the website than the app. Businesses should think 10x before forcing their will on consumers, specially if it makes no sense for the consumer.

On the other hand, I do find Flipkart to be a better organized marketplace for smartphones. You can filter by manufacturer, OS, price, color, storage, everything. Also, you get all variants of a phone on the same page. Amazon shows 5 different listings of the same phone, with different color and storage options, which is IMO lame.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#19

Post by dingo_bat »

ved_a wrote: post #5

It is so easy to just throw in some vague ideas without any substantial data behind it. A more logical and researched answer to this article is - https://medium.com/@sumanthr/why-private-flipkart-doesn-t-ne...

>Firstly, Haresh neglects to mention that the “app-only” strategy was attempted for Myntra and not for Flipkart itself.

This is inaccurate. Flipkart itself was moved to app-only on mobile. The move did not go well, and 6 months they created some sort of a compromised web-app kind of thing that lags and annoys the user.

So it was not just myntra where "app-only" was attempted. On a personal note, as I have mentioned in another comment, this single instance apathy towards the consumer means that I always visit Amazon first, and Flipkart second.

Re: Saving Private Flipkart

#20

Post by poc13bn »

ajonit wrote: post #13

As a long time customer and admirer of Flipkart, I have no hesitation in saying that there is something massively wrong at Flipkart. Earlier FK used to be my goto destination for buying anything online, since last 1.5 years things have changed drastically. Every single product, that i need to buy is either cheaper on Amazon India or is not available at all on FK- every single product. Customer service that used to be…

This is the exact reason for how I unknowingly switched from Flipkart to amazon.Now I think twice before making any big purchases on Flipkart.
Post reply on HN