I recently had a pretty disgusting experience with Oxford Bookstore at Barakhamba Road, New Delhi.
I needed to buy a book on Management to make a gift to a friend. I had purchased two copies of the same book recently from Flipkart at for about Rs 800. When I saw the book priced at Rs 729/ at Oxford Bookstore according to their website(attached screenshot), I felt I should give it a try. I looked up the store locator and found this branch and sent a friend to purchase. When my friend went to buy the book the store sold it to him at Rs 850. There wasn’t enough time to buy it elsewhere and the book had to be bought.
I then complained to their customer care. I got a prompt reply saying that they have several editions of the same book and this store did not have the edition at the minimum cost that their website says.
I had seen their website 3 days before I actually needed the book and I wish I had checked out the facts the same day instead of waiting till the last day.
Why do I consider myself taken for a ride?
Why should the website display only the price for the lowest cost edition unless they are prepared to sell it at all their locations? If they do not stock all editions at all places, they should display the prices of all the editions. Which is, incidentally, what other online booksellers such as flipkart and amazon do.
In fact the customer care lady produced a screen shot of their internal application which shows prices of all editions. To prove to me that they are good guys. Only problem was it was shown to me only after I bought their book.
I don’t consider Oxford to be cheats. But they are definitely cheesy. Ethical cousins of most of the transport business guys in India.