Flipkart Fake Discount?

It is pretty funny to read about this the first thing the morning and also to read the comments on it. According to TOI, this image was posted by a FB user on his page. Flipkart was selling the above shoes at Rs.399/-. As all the rates on the site go – it shows an original rate scratched to show the final discounted rate to make the customer realize how much they are saving.

In this case, it so happened that Flipkart overlooked a simple aspect while posting this particular image or dealing with this particular seller. The price on the shoes says Rs.399/- whereas the marked price is claimed to be at Rs.799/-. Granted that the end customer is not paying more than the marked price on the shoe, the issue is still that people are enraged that Flipkart is cheating its customers.

Why Customers are Angry

For an end customer, flipkart is the seller and the customer is the buyer. The customer doesn’t want to be bothered by the nuances of how things work. All he sees Flipkart as is a BIG SHOPPING MALL which sells its own products. It doesn’t matter who the seller is or the producer is. All that matters is Flipkart as a brand and the association of trust with it. The moment someone realizes that something we trust so blindly can commit a mistake, it kinda pisses them off.

I guess the same thing has happened here as well. As for the question – Who is to blame? We shall be answering that very soon below. But for the moment, it is completely justified that the customer is angry.

On a simplistic note, every customer has the right to be angry, but at the same time we have a responsibility as a buyer as well. There have been times where Amazon has offered a much better deal than flipkart for the same product and the quality of service has been greater and vice versa as well.

For a responsible buyer, we have the onus to make the market research accordingly. If we need a product, we have to ensure that a due diligence is made from our end before doing that. Blind trust can not only be a bad thing, but also a horrible financial mistake one can do.

Who is to blame?

Well, who is at mistake in that case? Who cheated whom? Flipkart has upheld its role as an aggregator. Flipkart does not make any products of its own. It simply provides a reliable platform for sale. It also ensures that the quality product is delivered and the promise made to the end customer is kept intact.

But the issue here is that the promise made is pretty shady! It certainly opens up a doubt in the customers mind whether he is being taken for a ride and in this case it certainly appears so. It would be wrong of me to blame just flipkart for this issue. But it will be wrong to exonerate them completely off the responsibility. If a seller is posting something on their site, they ought to perform the due diligence on the same. They can’t simply transfer the responsibility to the seller and say that he is wrong.

Granted that the seller screwed up and it is his mistake. But for an end user, the face is still of Flipkart and the buy is because of the trust on Flipkart and not on the seller. They may provide seller ratings and seller trustworthiness and they may even ban the seller from further interaction. But flipkart certainly needs a quality control to check that out. It may be a one off mistake but people seem to have taken it very seriously.

Not that people will stop trusting flipkart from now, but it makes perfect business sense for flipkart to act on the due diligence aspect before the end customer does!