Update 3 : 12-2-2014

So Flipkart has sent my order.

Your shipment will be delivered by Friday, Feb 14, 2014

Great date to be getting the phone I must say, perfect timing ?
Shall wait and see now :)

Update 2 : 10-2-2014

I sent an email to Flipkart that I am yet to receive an email confirming the number of delivery days:

Message:After my conversation with senior official, Mr Praveen yesterday evening, I was told that I will receive an email from flipkart within 24 hours that my order will be delivered within 7 to 10 days. I am yet to receive this mail. Kindly oblige.

So I receive a call sometime after from a sweet sounding lady who was kind in her words for my experience and that she will see to it that I will get the email confirming the number of delivery days and Flipkart's commitment for the same for me.

And Yes I did receive an email confirming that I shall have this order delivered before 17th February 2014.

I appreciate the turnaround I am seeing towards my new order and hopefully delivered well within the timeframe.
But all this maybe because I took time and am writing my experience in a Blog.

I am not sure of all the folks who's orders were cancelled just like mine.
A simple visit to Flipkart's facebook page gave me the answer to that I guess.

But hey, a customer's voice can bring some change I guess, maybe in a small or maybe a larger way, time will tell but it sure did in a personal way for me.

My Experience of Ordering the new Moto G phone through www.flipkart.com

PS:

This blog address & email has been sent to to many people and companies who are either directly or indirectly associated with Flipkart & Motorola, now or in the past through email or social media not just to bring light of a bad online shopping experience in India which is all too common nowadays sadly but also to hopefully bring about a change in the way companies operate, ethical business practices & customer care.

Indians love to work and shop. They have started to enjoy shopping online too. So after a 51 hour week of working from Monday to Saturday ( Many of us work on Saturdays in India ), I took some precious time on my one day off, Sunday to write down my experience of shopping online on www.flipkart.com  ( Flipkart ) for Moto G 16 GB Phone.

I enjoy shopping online and have enjoyed to shop on Flipkart since 2011. I have been an admirer & follower of Guy Kawasaki on Facebook. Since he is or was the Advisor to Google for Motorola ( not sure of the current status ), he has been posting about this phone and other phones and I had followed it up regularly.

So, finally Flipkart announces that they are going to sell the Moto G through their portal. I was impressed and thought why not, I will order this phone.

Flipkart had initially started 1 round of orders and had to stop taking further orders cause I guess the  phone stocks being over. So they then announce they will start taking orders again on 6th February 12 pm onwards . So with my assumption that they will have phones back in stock and I since trust Flipkart, so at around 12.30 pm I go ahead and place the order for this phone whereby I made full pre payment through netbanking. My order gets approved and that the phone will be delivered by Monday, 10th Feb'14.

Now this order was no ordinary order for me.

It was an order for my mother in law cause her anniversary was coming up and I wanted to surprise her as she loves my android phone and wanted one for herself. So the order was placed in her name, shipped to her directly.

So I get the confirmation through email that my order has been processed and I was looking forward to getting this phone.

Then surprisingly, I get another email in 2 hours from Flipkart that:

This is to notify you that we require an additional 7 days to ship the following to you.Due to reasons beyond our control, we had to revise the delivery timeline to 17-02-2014 from the earlier 10-02-2014.

OK, this is surprising but understandable considering a lot of people must be buying this phone for themselves or their wives and girlfriends, husbands and boyfriends as valentine's day is coming soon. Fair enough, I let this slide and continue on with my life.

Now Flipkart is generally quick in moving through its order process and shoppers are happy to see the quick progress on their order page  from :

APPROVAL > PROCESSING > SHIPPING > DELIVERY

So the next day, on 7th February when I login to my account, my order is still under 'Approved' category on Flipkart order page and with no sign of moving to 'Processing' category, I send a tweet to their twitter account asking when they are going to ship the phone. So after a shockingly long 7 hours, I get a reply

We're working towards a priority shipment/delivery of the order. Shall keep you posted with progress.

Nice. So another day goes by and no movement on this order till 7th night, on 8th Saturday very early morning,  while I have just stepped into my office , I get an email stating -

We've just been informed that Moto G (Black, with 16 GB) in your order is unavailable with the seller - WS Retail. As there is no clear date when the Seller will have it back in stock, we understand any further delay wouldn't be ideal. 

So we've gone ahead and cancelled the item.

Shocked, I logged into my Flipkart account and conveniently, the company has decided to cancel my order cause this phone is unavailable with the seller.

Hey, wait a second. I thought:

1.   When I placed the order, your order page stated IN STOCK.

2.   So if it's not in stock, It will be soon someday so did I tell you to cancel my order ? No. You went ahead and did it on your own.

3.   You had earlier sent an email stating delay in delivery and I didn't cancel the order  so why did you Cancel the order ?

4.   Shockingly, I see Flipkart still taking orders from customers while they have cancelled my order. How ethical I thought!

5.   Wasn't WS-Retail, their seller in this case a part of Flipkart. Then I found this - http://www.quora.com/Flipkart/What-could-be-the-reasons-behind-Flipkart-selling-WS-retail-to-Rajeev-Kuchhal

WOW, I was left stunned. No wonder, I had to question the ethical nature of this company and just what had happened to me.

Angry & disgruntled, I made a call to their customer care who had NO logical reason to explain why the company has cancelled the order and how they continue to take orders. Why did they take the order in the 1st place if they couldn't handle taking orders and continue to do so.

To advise customer care to apologize repeatedly to customers is not going to solve the problem or get my phone delivered or lower my anger towards you. Cleaning up your business practice, working ethically toward providing customer satisfaction is what is going to make your company survive, or I guess millions of dollar funding while you continue to make losses.

I have had the experience of failed start-ups personally but I rather shut down my company than to run it unethically or treat clients or customers badly.

So, as I write this piece, I head over to Flipkart and see they are asking customers to 'reserve' this phone and that it

 * Will be shipped in 10 - 20 days

So you still take money from customers on one hand and cancel orders from the other.

In regards for my refund the email from Flipkart states

The amount of Rs. 13999.00 towards the order/item will be refunded to your bank account by 

Thursday, 20 Feb'14.

So you cancelled my order on 8th and I have to wait upto 12 days to get my refund.

After this experience, I am not sure if I will buy from Flipkart ever again. I am a Capricorn and one of our qualities is that we are forgiving. Maybe I will maybe I won't.  7 positive orders in the past and 1 negative order does this to a customer. My tweet to Flipkart owner, Sachin Bansal on 8th Feb in the heat of anger on realising my order has been cancelled, does sum it up for me:

@_sachinbansal Loosing a customer wouldn't mean the world to you, but loosing a good company where I've ordered regularly hurts me #Flipkart

Update:

As I was writing this piece, I receive a call from Flipkart customer care ( on a Sunday evening ) who informs me that since my order was cancelled because of a "technical" glitch, I can go ahead by placing the order again or they can take the order also.

1.   The guy 'commits' that my order will be delivered with 7 to 10 days and not 10 -20 days which is stated on their Moto G order page on Flipkart.

2.   He states that the earlier payment has been refunded from their end but since it's not reflecting in my bank account, I cannot state if this is the truth or not.

So I gave Flipkart another chance to redeem themselves. So immediately, I get an email stating confirming my order but,

There is no sign on 7 to 10 days delivery commitment on the email and it actually states :

Will be shipped once in stock

I immediately call the customer care stating the same and the guy says " They can't mention on the email 7 to 10 working days. I ask to speak to a senior and now I am speaking apparently to a senior Mr. Praveen who confirms with the person who took my order Mr. Ben Johnson (How Ironic !) that he had committed to mention 7 to 10 days delivery time and so I now have got a confirmation that I shall receive a mail within 24 hours that my order will be delivered in 7 to 10 days.

Should I have trusted this company again or I have sunk deeper in this mess, time will tell.

Will Update soon !!!

PS:

This blog address & email has been sent to to many people and companies who are either directly or indirectly associated with Flipkart & Motorola, now or in the past through email or social media not just to bring light of a bad online shopping experience in India which is all too common nowadays sadly but also to hopefully bring about a change in the way companies operate, ethical business practices & customer care.