Reliance Fresh is so not like the name of theirs. I am just referring to the Reliance Fresh at Mira Road (2, Harsh Plaza, Mira Road East, Mumbai- 401107, Maharashtra) and Bhayander (Salasar Bhoomi, Near Maxus Mall, 120 Feet Road, Temba Road, Bhayander West, Thane – 401101).
I usually buy all my monthly grocery from Star Bazaar, Thakur Mall, Dahisar Checknaka. Trust me it is the best when it comes to value for money and quality. On the other hand last two months, I had been to the Mira Road and Bhayander Reliance Fresh as both are near to my house and very convenient to get rickshaws after the shopping. The Reliance Fresh supermarket looks worse than a Ration Shop. The place is not maintained as it should be. Now, when we the mango people (Aam Janta) hear the word RELIANCE, we expect it to be good and posh like the school, like the electricity bill they provide, like the Reliance Footsteps (love it), but Reliance Fresh is STALE! It is sad and so not happening.
The moment I entered the Bhayander Reliance Fresh (near Maxus Mall) I was sweating. The A/C wasn’t working properly. I then started looking for a trolley, and finally found one after a detailed search and asking the staff for 20 minutes. The trolley that I got had problem that I realized later – the problem was; the moment the trolley has things in it, it starts shaking and I was about to drop the trolley two times during the shopping. So I started with the vegetable counter which was totally empty.
I had few lemons lying around and a few ladyfingers that were STALE! I dropped the plan of vegetables and looked for fruits. The only fruit I could see were mangoes. No rates were mentioned for the mangoes, so I decided to ask one of the people wearing the Reliance Fresh uniform, he said, “Madam, Nahi Malum… Ruko puchke aata hoo” He never turned back, I asked another female who looked at me as if I have done a blunder by asking her the rate for the mangoes, she then said, “Madam, mein vo counter ki hoo. Iska rate nahi malum.” I finally decided to drop the plan to buy mangoes from there. I moved further with my still empty trolley and then picked up a couple of ‘McCain Smiles’.
After my entire shopping of whatever things I found on their aisle, I was waiting in the never-ending line of their payment counter. Where there was a female too unskilled. She was trying to make a bill for the customers standing there since the last 15-20 minutes, it seems. Later as the line started to grow, their store supervisor had to take the cash counter and he started scanning the bar codes and preparing the bills. Finally it was my turn, and the entire billing took around 20 minutes as their system got jacked once while he was making my bill. I was already fuming with heat and this added to the heat completely. My mom managed to keep me calm.
Finally the bill was done and we reached home after a completely useless shopping. Later, when my mom started unpacking the things, she saw that there were small holes in the Aashirwaad Wheat Flour packet of 5Kg that were hardly to be seen in the low light of Reliance Fresh. There were similar holes in the sugar pack and tea powder. I was pissed and took out their bill and managed to get their store number, I called them up and blurted out all my anger on the person who took the phone. It was more irritating when the person whom I was yelling at said, ‘EK Minute Madam, aap zara Hindi mein bolengi.’ I disconnected the call and sent them an e-mail, on which I obviously I didn’t receive any replies.
This was the experience at Reliance Fresh, Bhayander. Before this, I had been to the Mira Road branch few months back and then I faced similar issues and hence left my shopping in the middle and left the store for Star Bazaar.
These supermarkets with big names like Reliance should provide proper customer service, good quality product and value for money. I was totally pissed with Reliance Fresh that I decided not to enter their stores EVER!!!