Being one of the designers for the hometown chain of stores, i would like to put my comments on your views.
In our rapidly growing country, we understood the massive need of such a kind of store which would cater to building, equiping, furnishing and decorating a home. There were lots of studies on various stores across the globe and lots of analysis to provide a concept for indian context.
We always had in mind that the logistics is going to be big role in satisfying any customer. Today the customers entry to the store goes to a lakh across the 6 hometown stores in india on any seasonal day. Catering such a number is an achievement.
I know that there is gonna be a lot of back fire on this comment but still its my duty to put forward my opinion on this service related issues faced by hometown.
The back end operations team takes at most care to get quality products and timely delivery. The products are mostly imported. All your views and feedbacks are considered great on improving the store. After all it is just 18 months old concept and still evolving. But even today we know that the issues are less compared to the positive solutions provided by hometown. This shows that the concept is growing towards having more number of satisfied customers than unsatisfied customers.
We are still happy about providing something which is otherwise not available in this country in terms of value, style and range. Think about the time that we save when we get all under one roof.
Hope the operations team thrives hard in reducing unsatisfied customers.