Shopping Site Reviews: Which to look for when shopping online?

ebay.in: It is a good site to check prices. Some good rated sellers have delivered superb. Selection is big. The quality of product is not reliable, sometimes I get products with duplicate parts. What you see is not what you get several times. Also, consistency is not there in terms of delivery, you have to babysit the vendor to get the package delivered. I do shop with them if I find a really good deal from a seller with great rating.

shopping.rediff.com: A very old site, they’ve delivered for more than a decade in India which is impressive. I’ve found them most reliable in terms of customer service. They have a huge selection too. For some reason their focus seems to be cheap low-value products. See the ads on the rediff homepage? I saw a promotion for 3-tshirts for 250 Rs and bought them. Turned out to be thin piece of cloth which I passed on for cleaning straight off. Their recent layout change is a big turn-off. I do shop with them once in a while.

shopping.indiatimes.com: Another old player like rediff. They are good in white goods but not so good in other products. Very cluttered. Looks like a newspaper, not shopping site. Also its a marketplace so when there is a problem in an order their CS rep will blame it onto a vendor.

indiaplaza.in: Another site that has been around for a long time (used to be called fabmall). These guys do a great job at marketing their site and creating promotional campaigns. Quite a few times they are good but most often they are just tricks to make consumer buy. I have read online that there were a few times when they did not honour their promotional commitments. In the past year or so the delivery quality has gone down big time. The layout is old world and its very difficult to find a product. The site appears to be stagnant because of which I’ve kinda stopped shopping here.

infibeam.com: A recent entrant in eCommerce space and my favourite. Their user interface is crisp and fresh. I love their navigation which allows one to narrow products of interest by user criteria. Their product selection is amazing – they say they carry 30 lakh books which is a huge and i am impressed with the coverage of electronics and gifts. Their customer service is prompt and cordial. I have placed several orders for books and gifts and the delivery has been bang on. Recently, my wife placed a rakhi order and they delvered along with a free gift for a special occassion. In the past I’ve found some of their electronics products to be high priced compared to rediff. I specially like their hot deals section where you find products at attractive pricing. Overall great experience and my current favourite for shopping online.

futurebazaar.com: I bought an air conditioner last summer from them. It took two weeks to deliver but the product was good. Now I see other brands like pantaloon on the site. Will have to try them again.

in.com shopping: They had multiple sites (compareindia, storeguru etc) which they are grouping into one site now. Overall I love in.com for its music and other ideas. However shopping wise they have a long way to go. Selection is limited. The YourAccount for tracking your orders is not professional.

flipkart.com: Since I shop a lot for books, I thought of mentioning flipkart which sells only books. I heard mixed reviews about them so tried them about 3 months ago. Ouf of the the two books, one book was canceled (they said out of stock) and the other one arrived within 3 days. But it was a used book – there were user writings inside which is pathetic. I wrote to the customer service and even tried calling them. I was able to reach someone after three days of effort which is very frustrating. The CS rep said publisher delivered defective goods. Note: It was used and not defective. The rep told me they a new copy of the book was being shipped which never arrived. Clearly the replied to me. Later, I heard that these same guys were telling people that flipkart is representing amazon in india which is again a LIE. This company has no ethics.

naaptol.com and other comparison sites: I use these once in a while to compare prices but not a great experience since they don’t have full selection.

Other than the above I’ve also shopped from indiangiftsportal.com and tolmol.com but those are mostly for gifting. Their selection is limited as they don’t carry books, media & electronics.