India etailer’s top destination, but complaints abound

India is the favoured destination of many etailers as is evident from the increase in online sellers the past year, as also the entry of many foreign brands into the Indian market via the ecommerce market. However, with rising popularity, complaints about inconsistency in delivery of orders, customer service and quality of products are on the rise too.

2013 brought investment of around $542 million into the greenfield sector. While this encouraged and helped marketplaces and etailers to grow their businesses, Delhi-based grievance redress platform Ashoka recorded about 24,500 complaints against etailers in India, an increase of about 8,000 in 2012. Complaints included the following:

• Non-delivery or delay in delivery of orders (around 50% of the complaints)

• Delivery of damaged goods (around 9% of the complaints)

• Discrepancies between products displayed on the site and the actual delivered products

• Delay in processing refunds, sometimes even refusing to acknowledge refunds

Customers who face bad customer service may come back to the site only because of cheaper prices but they would probably advise others against visiting and purchasing from the site, thus hampering the strongest form of marketing, word-of-mouth.

With 31% of the complaints registered against marketplaces and 21% registered against other ecommerce models, it is evident that even the biggest players need to fine-tune their operations and manage customer service more effectively.

Although players like Flipkart and Snapdeal operating on the marketplace model are scaling heights, the model is not without its set of challenges, especially in the case of vendors. In the marketplace model, vendors have a lot of control. Quality of vendors and their ability to integrate into the system are important aspects and controlling them is essential, yet challenging at the same time.

Indian vendors require guidance to meet demands. In the race for scaling business, quality of product offerings cannot be compromised. Hence ecommerce players need to set down guidelines to enlist vendors on their portals and allow only those products to be sold which meet the quality standards.

Flipkart’s efforts to reduce complaints

A market leader like Flipkart has already realized the significance of decreasing complaints and has taken a number of steps:

• De-listed almost 50 sellers with high rate of returns, disputes, delay in deliveries etc.

• Established a Grievance Redress unit to handle customer complaints on behalf of vendors. The dedicated team handles customer queries and resolves them in 24-48 hours.

• Ensure all vendors meet and stick to the stringent quality standards.

• Upfront terms and regulations about refunds and exchanges.

How can an Indian Online seller benefit from marketplaces’ customer service unit?

• Take advantage of and implement the guidance given by marketplaces to ensure quality standards for customers.

• Be upfront about return and exchange policies and ensure these are strictly followed.

• Cooperate with the marketplace customer service team to ensure smooth handling of customer complaints.