Ecommerce angst

Recently, Flipkart faced severe flack due to their Billion Day offer. 6th October will be marked as the day Flipkart lost at least 100 customers to say the least.
There were many things that went against them:
1) Due to unpredictable traffic, the site crashed on many occasions.
2) Products went out of stock a couple of seconds after the sale.
3) COD seemed like the best bet as people who tried to use the online banking facility faced severe problems.
4) last but not the least, there were speculations of price inflation before the sale.

I am not much of an ecommerce guy. But I do shop. None of these seemed completely new as far as retail went. In a brick and mortar store, the same issues are faced but no brand that I know as had such a terrific virtual thrashing (maybe wise to not have ecommerce website when you have a retail space)

I have seen massive traffic jams outside the Oberoi mall during their biannual happiness sale.
To avoid the rush, members of Central and the Future Group loyalty program are treated with a preview sale. Same with other retail stores too.

And what that does is twofold. Knowing that products go off the shelf in lightning speed, the v privileged preview sale enables members to have an advantage. Even if one is not a member, these days, people around know when the preview will happen... Other clever cutlets even visit the store a day or two before the sale and shortlist their dress. This avoids the rush at the store and at v the billing counter.

No payment problem in these stores apart from the fact that sometimes, one ends up waiting in the billing counter longer that the time taken to shop. Other brilliant ideas to bypass this is to befriend a worker at the counter, hand him the shopping bag and come in later in the evening or next morning when the crowd is negligible.

This brings me to the last problem. Let me enlighten you that the price inflation before a sale is a generic norm. It's just that our memories are so short these days that we forget the price of our favorite shirt in b the store when we revisit it a couple of days later.

I was once a massive "sales" and "discount" shopper. But I soon realized that I ended up spending 10 grand on clothes which after a couple of months, never wore. So now, I avoid such impulsive purchases. But being married, it would be blasphemous to not visit a mall during sale!!!

So people online, stop venting your idiotic angst online and get a life. Stop sitting on that office chair and stop staring in to that phone and go and enjoy nature.

This online surge had  definitely made shopping easier for many but the shouts of those who are angry and pissed off and their barrage of online complaints via social media is getting louder and easier to voice and tougher to ignore.

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