What Goes "Wrong", When Everything is ‘Right’

My name is Pankaj, I am a regular guy and I wanted to share with you about my experience with e-commerce. I hope this experience can serve as a case study of the situation millions are in when it comes to e-commerce.



I work in an IT company and since my home is far from my office, I used to travel a lot on daily basis. I rarely get an opportunity to go to stores and malls, so I prefer online shopping.

I am a regular buyer from an online shopping giant. It offers me family packs, festival discounts, special combos and a lot of other options that I came to rely on. Most of the time, the experience is great and that’s why I stick with this store, however my last experience with this online store was something i would not like to remember. I bought a combo of a 4GB usb drive with a 2GB memory card. When I received the products, I found out it’s defective. Despite the replacement guarantee and money back assurance the website boasts, i couldn't get anything from them.

Let me briefly summarize what happened:

1. The call attendant of the shop was unavailable most of the time to pick the call. 
2. The product replacement process was terribly confusing. I had to call a couple of phone numbers to verify the process.
3. No one was available to collect the defective product. The store informed me that they hired a courier company for the purpose, and when i contacted them they simply declined to provide the service since the contract with the store was expired.
4. If that was not enough, i found myself spending my own money trying to get answers as there were no toll-free numbers.
5. Not all credit cards were accepted. It has happened with me once when i made a payment with my CC only to be taken to a blank page which reads - “ Sorry, the product couldn't be delivered this time. Try again.” I actually get confused whether transaction is successful or not !!

    It could have been more thoughtful if it was something like - “ Sorry, no transaction have been made this time.”
                        or,
    “We couldn't delivered the product. You are safe on your money”

Such things can happen happen with anyone. If websites could sort the issues with post product delivery process, they really do have a better chance of making people life better.