Monday, August 29, 2005

My experiences with Baazee.com now called ebay.in

I am new to blogging so please bear with me. J This was the feedback I had sent to Baazee.com (now www.ebay.in ) & it might be helpful to some of u readers. While shopping online in

India some points should always be kept in mind.

1) The buyer should always remember the axiom 'Buyer Beware' .

2) Deal with sellers who r given a 'super seller' rating by baazee. Of course this is no guarantee, but something better than nothing

3) Try to deal with sellers from ur own city. I am from Mumbai. And all but 1 seller from Delhi who I dealt with, has tried to cheat me!!!!. I know this will anger a Delhi reader :) but that’s my experience & am only trying to highlight the dangers off buying from out station sellers who take the liberty of taking u for a ride. Also the cost of returning an item back to an out station seller may negate the reason of buying from the net.

4) Avoid sellers who give their address as 'elsewhere in India', some charge very high 'transportation charges'.

5) Care should be taken to see that sellers give their correct personal name AND NOT the name of their seller id as their personal name. They do this to hide from the buyer that they are operating in more than one name. They may be trying to net more buyers but its not in the best interest of the buyer. Maybe there should be a limit in how many name one can operate as a seller. eg: if I have a bad experience with a seller & I decide to boycott him. I might still end up buying from the same crook under a different alias. I have had the experience of ordering from a particular seller & his company and the item is delivered by another company probably his alias company!!!!

6) In most cases the so called 1 rupee auction are a big joke as even though the so called price is Re.1 the transporting charges are obscenely high, which makes a mockery of the whole exercise. But u could take a chance for if u observe a particular item over a period of time u can gauge the right price.

7) Also on the same topic of auctions, strong vigilance should be exercised on the first few 'so called bidders' in Re.1 auctions as many times the first few 'bidders' are dummy bidders created by the seller himself, just to boost the bid price of the auction. It's very easy to find out look at the first few bidders(maybe first 5 - 6 bidders) in a Re.1 auction see if they have only bought from that seller only, this then is definitely a dummy bidder created by the seller. Also the same names are repeatedly used by the seller. Again suspicious are the newly created buyer id's who maybe on his first bid, but in this case its not conclusive unless the same name occurs repeatedly. Such scamsters should be strictly avoided If this is mentioned on your site as a tip for buyers.Such stunts would not be contemplated by sellers.

8) Some sellers operate in somebody else's name but u cant come to know of this until u deal with them, I say this because many sellers I have dealt with operate in the name of their wife etc. The whole exercise becomes a part time job, many times these people are ignorant or indifferent of how to go about with the service, so service quality drops as also customer satisfaction. On many occasions I have seen that when you finish the buying procedure, you are requested to make the cheque/DD in a name other than the so called seller ?? Trying to save taxes !!!! Dealing with such characters is a dicey biz.

9) On the point of service. I have had the experience of buying torches from a seller who had offered batteries and a belt holster with the torches. These did not come with torch & when I gave a negative rating to the seller, he rang me from Delhi and admitted that there is no batteries or belt holster with the torch which by itself is of good quality. There were also many other tall claims of 10 yr warranty which were hollow claims. What was displayed on the webpage was something blindly copied from somewhere and he seemed to be unaware of the discrepancies !!!!! He then wanted to offer me a 'free gift' to get me to change my rating. I refused as I did not want to be saddled with something I didnt want. I told the seller that if he wanted me to change my rating he should remove the tall calims displayed on his page, but there has been NO change. So my rating stays. I mention this incident only to highlight thatsome sellers make tall claims out of ignorance or greed to lure a buyer & leads to immense frustation in the buyer. The rating system does not really help.

10) More training should be given or care should be taken on the Information Technology, aspect as many sellers are TOTALLY ignorant of how to go about selling on the net. They do not even know the basic etiquette to be followed in composing an email or keeping a buyer updated promptly etc, which makes buying from such a klutz very frustrating. eg: I had the experience of a seller given in the dispatch details given an incomplete consignment number, so I was not able to check the progress online, on the couriers site. In many instances the dispatch details have come AFTER the delivery of the item !!!!! all this makes one wonder about the seriousness & competence of the seller

11) Preferabley choose sellers who offer u the 'ATM drop' option where u drop a cheque in the ATM of his bank (even if he is a out station seller) as its the quickest & cheapest option for the buyer.

12) If u r a 'privilege club' member dont bet u r being offered lower rates by the seller browse around for that item on the site or even some other site. I have some times found a seller selling an item at a higher price in the 'privilege club' category than what he is offering to everyone else on Baazee !!!!

These are some of the points I thought worth mentioning. Hope some of u find it intresting.It has been culled from my email to customer care at baazee but the person who answered to my email except for 1 relevant point he made just tried to brush all my allegations as false even though I had given all proof necessary as attachments to that email I sent to them !!! Will update this as my experience with ebay increases. So happy e-shopping

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing you experience man