I wanted to buy a bookshelf to arrange my loads of books properly. I personally feel that it is always a good idea to have a look at the quality of the wood being used in the furniture before buying it. In online shopping you rely on the information provided in the site and reviews if available. We went to Housefull, Royal Oak and a few other shops and had a look at some of the boo cases there. After about a week I wanted to see some more designs and the first site that came to my mind was Pepperfry.
The site is very fast to load. They have a vast collection of furniture which includes a variety of things like sofas, dining tables, recliners, beds, book cases, kitchenware, etc. While browsing for book cases I saw a book shelf of Housefull which I had seen in the shop and had liked. I decided to shop from Pepperfry and see how it goes. I typed in my pincode to see if Cash On Delivery was available. It was not applicable for my location but Pepperfry has something called as PartPay which was applicable. PartPay means you pay a small amount while ordering and pay the rest on delivery. I chose to pay the full amount and ordered the item on 22nd December 2015 and the delivery date was given for two weeks later on 6th January 2016. After about a week on 30th while checking the status I saw that the product was delivered to the warehouse in Bengaluru and would be delivered 30th. I contacted the customer care to confirm the same when I was informed by them that due to some strike by employees in Bangalore the delivery would be delayed by about 4 days. I was going out of station on 2nd jan so I wanted it to be delivered before that. I did not find any information regarding the strike so I decided to tweet to Pepperfry regarding the same. After about 30min after I sent the tweet I got a call from a manager in Mumbai and she informed me that the strike was internal and she would personally try and get my order delivered before I left on 2nd. On 1st Jan I got an SMS that my order would be delivered and 2:30pm my bookcase was delivered. Once its delivered you have to request the customer care to send carpenter for installation. I requested the carpenter to be sent on 11th. The carpenter came on 10th and when he came and opened the package unfortunately the planks of the book case was damaged. It was cut into 2 halves and there was nothing he could do to fix it. He said that it could have happened in transportation since quality checks are done before loading them into vans. He took pictures and immediately sent them to his supervisor and to my phone. I then contacted the customer care who got in touch with the supervisor and in about 15min he and received the pictures from him and said that they could either replace or refund the full amount. I asked for a refund and he told me once the damaged item is picked up the refund would be initiated. Again there was delay of 2 days in the pickup but since it was from their side they initiated the refund on the 4th day. You get an email from them once the refund process starts and it takes about 3-7 working day for the money to get reflected in your account. I received the full amount in 2 working days.
I was disappointed that it did not work out because they were really professional. The customer care are very well trained and I always got answers to my questions from them. When the strike happened I was surprised to receive a call from their manager and was impressed with the way she managed to get my item delivered before I left for my vacation. Also happy with their return and refund process and the personal attention given to you if there is some problem. Its all organized and there was no confusion about it. The customer care did not have to consult me at all regarding the damage. Once it was verified that the damage to the furniture was done from their side the refund was immediately initiated once pick up was done.
Will definitely go for it the next time.