Turn Inwards...

You see a woman walk past in tiger print leggings and a mismatched striped tunic top and you think "Ugh! Faux Pas alert!" and exchange glances with your friends and snigger. Then next minute you feel contrite and berate yourself for being so judgmental and shallow.

If you have been in one such situation, you fall under those category of people who are genuinely flummoxed when they analyze their personality. Who are you really? This question haunts you. You are neither good nor bad. But then again - what is "good" and "bad" but a reflection of what is acceptable by different people, cultures and societies. It is a variable not worthy of consideration. So reality is the standard you set for yourself based on humanity and the morals and ethics that are laid down as universal laws. 

Pull on the strings of your soul, bring it up and outwards and look at it. Take a good clear look at it from various angles. Who are you, each part, even if it is just a fetus in development - look at it. What do you see within you?

Do some soul searching. Who are you when things boil down? If you listen to your heart, it will tell you what you need to know. If you are conflicted go by the truest emotion you feel and not by what the society thinks is right. Just to be accepted into the whole system sometimes people mold themselves into different adulterated versions of themselves and somewhere along the way forget their true form.

You are unique - good bad or whatever. See who you are. Dare to look inside even if it scares you. You are who you are. Just. Turn. Inwards. Take a good long look at yourself. If you don't like what you see, try to change - but this time with your eyes wide open, your heart willing and your soul trusting.

When They Met...

How beautiful Dawn and Dusk is, right? The symbolism of romance and adventure. It inspires you to write sonnets and love songs. Here's one such inspired poetry written by me at dusk, my muse, on a serene day :

Night and morn meet
In dawn's tender embrace
And again at dusk
Like secret lovers.

Fleetingly they touch
And give way to the other
In sweet surrender
As tendrils of sunlight
whisper over the night sky.

Review of Flipkart Women's day offers : The Discount Drama

Happy Women's Day people! If we women were not here on Earth, how dull and drab would it have been, right? Here's to all women who bring laughter, joy, support and inspiration to everyone's lives. Cheers!


Now onto my interesting discovery of the day. Flipkart has put up an amazing sale for women on this day as a Women's Day gesture. Yayy! all good. B.U.T..... anyone with an ounce of sense would cringe at the faux pas they did with the discounts :

( Click on the image above to enlarge )

Notice anything my wee little lambs ?

We customers aren't lambs and we aren't fools. Studies show that women make up a majority of online shoppers. And we women are extremely good at evaluating the price range of a product, have math skills, and also know what a product is worth on different markets.

If Flipkart puts up MRP of a mediocre saree as 5,99,999/- (Imagine that! lol) and with discount of 99% ..... do they think we are brain-dead to be so awed by the discount alone and go buy the product?
I mean, c'mon people. Does Flipkart actually think that if they quote an impossibly high MRP on a product , slash it write a huge discount and then put the original price next to it, they wont be caught red-handed? I had a saree in my wishlist which was 1,899 bucks. When I checked today, its MRP on the offer page is 3,99,999 and after discount .. voila! the price is 1,899/- only! Such a great discount offer! Rofl. This has been done to all other products like accessories, seasonal wear, other clothing items, etc. Extremely tactless. Tch tch!

Anyways this was worth a good laugh. Online shopping websites should be reasonable when they are playing the online marketing game since they should realize who their target audience is and approach in an "intelligent" manner.

Online Shopping - The Jabong Experience

I'm a serious online shopper. Name a website and I'd have bought something from there.. lol - I must admit , that is a slight exaggeration. :D

I follow the golden rule of never paying by cash in the first purchase , but opting for COD, so that I can analyse how they deliver, the quality of products, delivery lead time, customer service, etc. and not lose money and time on some scam. On well known websites which do not have COD (most websites have them, but there are good websites like Purpple.com, fashionandyou.com, Mirraw etc which do not have COD) I buy something which is less priced so that again I don't get to lose a lot of money even if the product is bad , and thus, I can decide on which websites to trust and be a loyal customer to and which to ignore and put in the blacklist.

 But I went wrong somewhere and overlooked a major factor that is easy for anyone to overlook. The following experience I had with Jabong.com is being cited here for the awareness of the general public. Customer awareness is an important factor while purchasing online.

Now, Jabong.com is one such website that I trusted. I have been buying stuff from the big players like amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, fashionandyou.com and the rest and had included Jabong as one among them.

Continuously I have faced issues with Jabong.com. They gave me damaged products, I have had to return items multiple times, they sent me a different product from the one I ordered, their quality check was poor and so on. Still I went back to purchasing from Jabong on and off, thinking they had good offers once in a while, especially on branded products. This time however I found out something shocking,  from my order history.

I bought 5 items on COD (Cash on Delivery) with COD charges of Rs. 49. Others like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal do not usually charge shipment and delivery charges (*certain conditions applied, they state all charges upfront, if any), but Jabong.com charges that for all its products. Now the site said 50% off sale, and taking the example of one of the products - it was 650 Rs on the product landing page, then it became 715 rs on the order page (the breakdown was not stated. The plus sign next to the price just shows MRP and the discount deduction).

Same way, the other products also showed one price after discount and when it reached the order page, it showed an additional amount. an overall tax collected was stated, but things didn't really add up. I had initially not paid attention to this matter, since with other similar websites I had not faced such a thing - I was unaware. I had just looked at the final amt and final bill where no such tax was mentioned.

 When my husband asked about the delivery charges I just casually checked my order history and discovered this whole thing. Each item of the order had an additional 50Rs, 30 Rs and more added to it and then the total amount was calculated, and added to it all is the COD charges. The breakdown is not clearly stated anywhere.

To find an answer to this confusing billing process I called up the customer care. The executive explained that a "tax"is added to each product. One item had tax 50/- , one had tax 29/- etc ans supposedly it varies product to product . Now where the hell was it mentioned separately? He said it is mentioned in the billing page - but there is no clarity on tax per product beforehand. This is a hidden charge.

To check, I added one product to the cart it shows tax collected  xyz, add one more, still it shows same tax - rs. XYZ in the overall bill. But once in the order page, tax is different for the two products.

Point to clarify - I am ok with taxes if there are any. What I'm not ok with is if these additional charges are not clearly stated, and I'm not aware of what additional costs I'd be paying for my purchases. If I knew about the taxes beforehand I would have opted for other websites which do not have such "taxes" on the same products and are offered on similar discount. I guess this is why this additional cost wasn't put anywhere on the product page in Jabong or clearly mentioned in the order page. These additional charges should not just show up when we are paying for it, but beforehand so that the customer can decide whether or not to buy the product based on price.

The product price listed is different from actual price of product shown

Other websites like amazon, flipkart, etc. clearly state all their charges - MRP , Discount, shipping charges, Taxes per product, COD charges if applicable and so on . There are no hidden charges. I repeat :  it is mandatory that these additional charges in whichever form, should not just show up when the products are being billed and we are paying for it, but beforehand in the product page, so that the customer can decide whether or not to buy the product based on price.  As a customer I want to know how price of each product I am buying is affected by the tax. Not a round figure in the end of the order billed.

Jabong.com having such charges which customers aren't easily aware of and which are not clearly stated upfront, and placed in such a way that it can be easily overlooked, is indeed an unethical practice. Why should the customer have to go to FAQ's page if you just state the tax upfront? It is a more transparent and straightforward way of doing business if you include additional charges while the customer is on the product page, or if the product is added to cart then if it is at least shown in the cart directly next to each item. But no, that has not been the case here and overall, I am a highly dissatisfied customer who has decided that she is never ever going to purchase from Jabong.com again - it is a matter of trust once broken. 

High time they changed their policy and if they have various "taxes" they should mention that in the product landing page and not vaguely in a corner while billing (at least an accurate one should be provided) and try not to take their customers for a ride. Dear readers, kindly watch out for such things when you are buying from such online websites.

Happy Shopping!