If only people knew what they would experience with HOUSEFULL before ordering! I will be happy if I can benefit at least one potential customer from the type of ordeal I have suffered. I ordered one dining set vide order No 1874470146 on 27th March 2014 through SNAPDEAL. They confirmed that the material was handed over to transporter and would be delivered to me on or before 3rd April. As I was not yet staying at the location of delivery and reliable on-line vendors delivers one or two days before the promised date, I was camping at the site to receive the material since April 02. The material never came on promised date. There was no communication either from SNAPDEAL or HOUSEFULL. They were not taking any call. Ultimately the material arrived on closing hours of 6th April after sending several e mails.
That did not end my misery. In fact it just began. On opening the boxes the same day I found that the product quality was awfully poor, but, more importantly, the package was not complete. The whole set of hardware including few other components were left out, God knows where! The same day both the companies were informed by phone and by e mails. Till today no one is able to say when the material will come. Only one achievement; I have become a celebrated Ticket collector. Every time I sent a mail, I got a new Ticket; their so called customer(un)care was not even aware that the same complaint was already pending. Unfortunately no Multiplex is prepared to exchange these Tickets.
As a on-line buying community what we should do? Should we stop buying on line? That will be a very backward step. For many of us on- line buying is a very convenient tool. We cannot abandon it just for the incompetence and treacherous acts of a few players like HOUSEFULL. We need to share our experience in Social Media platforms, become collectively wiser and weed out dirty players. Let me share the findings after getting the feel by interacting with various persons in these two companies:
SNAPDEAL: They are pure play traders and commission agents. Once they book an order and collect 100 per cent payment(mostly through Credit card and Debit cards), they consider their responsibility is transferred to the Merchant(in this case HOUSEFULL). The later is responsible for customer being satisfied or not satisfied. Their agents are paid on the basis of numbers and value of orders booked. Customer satisfaction? My foot!
HOUSEFULL: Although they sell expensive and volume products like furniture, they do not have any factory of their own. They have only large storage facilities. Their marketing executives regularly visit Malaysia(after all a Return Air Ticket between Chennai and Malaysia often cost less than that between many two Indian cities), go to the flea markets and do bulk booking of furniture in CKD kits at throw away prices. For them these are one time buys and you may not find the same item the next time. These items are shipped to an Indian port and then to their warehouses. They mark up the price 10 times and give you luring discounts of 30 to 40 per cent through their advertising bigwigs like SNAPDEAL. On the look of it we still find the products much cheaper compared to what our next door carpenter can offer us for all his diligence and hard work.
The product quality is so low that no one can give or will give any guarantee or warranty. The poor assembly can go thud any time. The concept is, when it gives away buy another piece. Anyway HOUSEFULL cannot give you the earlier piece(or any component thereof) the next time, as his Malaysian masters would have stopped producing it and they have not kept any inventory.
During the whole process: manufacturing in Malaysia, shipping from their warehouse, on receipt at HOUSEFULL warehouse in India, on shipping from the warehouse in Mumbai and on receipt at your or my door, there is absolutely no quality control or process control worth the name. If some of the parts of the assembly that I ordered is amiss, no one in HOUSEFULL can say where these were left out: In Malaysia, in the undercarriage of Flight MH370, in the docks of Mumbai, in the warehouse of Housefull or in the pick up van of the courier boy in Bangalore? Pray God you are not one of the victims .
So what do you and I do? I have removed all the items in the shopping cart (worth more than INR 1lakh) of SNAPDEAL and HOUSEFULL. I am preparing a complaint to be filed in the Consumer Court. Let us work together to weed out the online buying space from cheats like SNAPDEAL and HOUSEFULL without hurting the concept of Online buying itself.