The final book of Harry Potter is releasing tomorrow and even though I am not a Potter Maniacs some of my friends are so crazy about the name and I thought of gifting them the book.
Being lazy to go to the local brick and mortal book shop I searched for an online book shop and found an exciting offer from IndiaPlaza. You can pre-order it and it will be shipped on 21st July, plus 35% discount in prize.
I immediately added it to my shopping cart and clicked proceed checkout. I was asked to signup and I filled the registration form and after that I logged in using the new username and password. But now the shopping cart was empty. I went to the homepage again and added it to the shopping cart. When I clicked the proceed checkout, I was logged off and asked to signin again. I was doing the same steps for quite a few times. My firebug extension showed lot of JavaScript errors and only then I realized that the site is broken in Firefox. It may be there wish not to support the second mostly used browser but they could have given a warning message when I logged it or at least given a message in their footer that the site is IE only. I may be bit overboard here, but that is the problem in being a web developer because you know that a simple browser sensing would have solved this.
I opened a new instance of IE and did the steps again and proceed to checkout. There was an option where I can select that this is a gift and can include a message. I selected it as a gift and typed in the message, but it didn’t allow me to choose July 21 as the delivery date. I badly needed it to be delivered on July 21st and so I choose it as normal shipping and paid using my credit card.
(Personal Message to my friend: If you received the book from me without the gift message then this is the message which I wanted to be delivered and don’t forget to tell me the whole story. 😉 )
At the end after confirming the order there was a feedback form and I have entered about my experience there together with my mobile number. Let’s hope that someone actually reads it. If I get a reply I will post it here.
Update (22-July-2007)
My owes with them still continues. I choose it as a non-gift only for the reason that it will be delivered on 21-July. I got an email from them yesterday (21-July) night with the consignment number and a contact number from DTDC. More over they have missed out the address2 field in the address. I called them up and gave my consignment number and he said that he is yet to receive the goods from India Plaza. I am now hoping that it gets delivered at least by Monday.
Update (30-July-2007)
At last the book has been delivered. But it has taken a couple of emails and a dozen or more calls with India Plaza. But was it worth pre-ordering the book? A big NO. I pre-ordered the book so that it will be delivered to my friend on July 21, the day it was released. But it took them nearly 10 days to deliver the book after it was released and in the mean time my friend has almost finished reading the book. Even the surprise element which I planned for my friend has gone in vain. So the very purpose of me pre-ordering the book was defeated 🙁 and let me see whether someone from IndiaPlaza comes forward to take up the responsibility. I have also sent a mail to their CEO Vaithee with a link to this article.
Missing out address2 seems to be very common. Same thing happened to me and a consignment of books sent to me was stuck in the post office for a month. Thankfully, they included the phone number 🙂
But really, you too should be reading it…
P.S. Tagged. Respond when you have the time to.
Hmm …
Don’t you really hate it when you get shoddy service?
I have decided to completely stop doing business with Indian companies – and whenever I have been foolish enough to go back and try something, it has always ended up in misery …
(I’ve had really terrible, horrendous experiences with Reliance, BSNL and Tata Indicom for broadband. IndiaTimes for hosting and Rediff for shopping. Very, very horrendous!)
Companies and people offering decent service in India is such a rare occurrence. The best service I get here is when the garbage can I leave out at night gets cleared in the morning by the building garbage people.
I’m sorry for all the India bashing, but I have yet to get decent service anywhere 🙁
At around 7 PM on 21st July I found that Indiaplaza.in was advertising that it has successfully delivered 15000 books across the country on time and it kept me wondering how that was possible when numerous other customers like me had complained on the internet
I ordered this book in India plaza and they delivered it through DTDC courier in Time.