In my younger days, there were only small neighborhood stores that you would go to get whatever provisions you wanted and there were really not too many different brands either. Over the years however, more and more variety of products started coming into the market accompanied by larger stores, leading up to today’s hypermarkets where you can get everything you need for your household and where you can easily spend thousands of Rupees. However, with all this convenience and speed of purchasing, there is a darker side that you need to be careful about. I will detail some of my experiences in points below.
In addition to these large hypermarkets, there are also many ecommerce sites available that let you purchase almost everything and get it delivered to your house free of cost, but there are certain problems associated with these, which one needs to be aware of. These are also detailed below, so please be careful.
1. Discounts: Discounts are one of the biggest problems and rip-offs that are present in stores, and the perception is there is a lot of problem with the concept of discounts. I ran into one such problem where I was buying a suitcase from one of the large hypermarts, and it was offered at a great 40% discount (for that day only). At billing, I made payment (along with some other items), and just out of some instinct, I took a closer look at the bill. The price did not seem right, and when I confirmed at the billing section, they stated that the discount in the system was 20% and that was what was given to me. It took around 30 minutes after that, including calling the salesman at the luggage section before they resolved matters and gave me the 40% discount. If I had not taken a closer look at the bill, I would have lost out at the 20% discount. Post this, when doing the billing, I always ask the billing person to tell me the discounts for each item.
Another major problem is about the rate when discounts are offered. It was laughable. I went to buy some jackets at a store that is in the business of offering 75% discounts. A typical jacket that would have cost Rs. 2000 was available at Rs. 1800, so I thought that after applying a 75% discount, it was a great offer since the final price wold be Rs. 450. Imagine the shock when they confirmed that Rs. 1800 was the final price, that price pre-discount was Rs. 7200. I was blown out, since a great jacket of a great brand would be less than that. So, before buying stuff at discounts, do keep in mind that many (not all) retailers increase the price of their products before they then apply a discount, which means that you are really not saving so much money.
2. Expired items. This is a real problem. It takes up so much time now, that one wonders whether the advantage of buying slightly lower priced items at these hypermarts are really worth it. You find an item with a good discount, but be careful that the expiry of the item would be close. So you could buy some sauces or dips or some other exotic stuff, and find that prices are lower, but be careful, the item would only have a month available before expiry. There is no way that you can finish off the whole bottle in a month, in which case if you buy the item, you will use for a month and then discard the remaining, which turns out to be more expensive. I have had similar problems with buying perishable stuff online. And if you start seeing the expiry of every item that you are buying (you should), it can end up increasing the amount of time needed by a significant percentage.
3. Broken stuff or exchanged stuff when buying online. A lot of people have had experiences such as this one. You spend some time identifying what you need, and then find that the stuff you wanted is delivered to you, but big disappointment. Either by mistake the stuff you wanted has not been delivered and something else has been delivered, or it is in a damaged state. I have had personal experiences and learned from friends that ecommerce retailers are not so good when it comes to customer relations. Imagine buying a phone, getting it delivered in a cracked condition and then the retailer disputing that there is a problem (and this happened with the largest ecommerce retailer). A lot of passing the buck between the retailer and the phone company, and it took a lot of effort to finally get the phone exchanged, enough to push the person away from ecommerce platforms.
