Selling online is much more than a website

Faisal Kawoosa

Recently, I ordered a gift to be delivered to someone in Delhi. It was a marriage gift and I wanted that it be delivered around the date of marriage. I had several options to choose from but, decided to go with KashmirBox.com about which I had heard a lot in media.

I ordered a handmade rug on March 4^th, expecting that it would be delivered within 7-10 days as was mentioned on the website. I thought if they cannot make it at least on or before the marriage day, which was 10^th of March, at least it would be delivered a couple of days after.

To my surprise, I received an email after 5 days on 9^th of March informing me something that was really shocking. The mail read that due to a technical glitch, some of their ‘Made to Order’ products were marked as ‘In Stock’. It further said that the order will at least take 10-12 days for artisans to making the piece and then could be shipped and delivered.

Now, what shocked me most was that KashmirBox.com discovered it after 5 days that the item I had ordered is a ‘Made to Order’ item. Typically and very logically, one would expect that immediately after placing an order the store would realise that the product has been categorised wrongly due to a technical glitch. Just for ascertaining this it took them 5 days to conclude. Had they informed me in a day or two, as one fairly expects from an online store, I could have looked for an alternative or probably asked them to process the order even if its delivery is delayed now. But, informing when half of the expected delivery time had already gone was simply crazy and highly unprofessional.

After exchanging some unpleasant mails with them, I, as any furious customer would do, asked them to cancel my order and refund me same day without any further delay on 10^th of March. Again, handling unprofessionally they replied saying that the refund will be done by the day end and requested for the bank details. On the same day, I replied with the bank details expecting that at least they will do this immediately as claimed and at least have a happy exit experience for me.

But, to the height of their unprofessional handling, they replied on March 12^th informing that my bank details have been shared with the concerned department to initiate the refund and the process will take 3-4 days. What an irony!

Though KashmirBox.com might be dealing with a niche product line, but for a customer like me, they are in competition with the seamless user experience providers like Flipkart, Amazon, et al. I have been buying from these stores as well and have never experienced anything like this. In fact, have seen how painstaking they are to make your experience a wonderful one and really surprise you with the resolution of such bad transaction, if any.

Now, after this episode, I can see that KashmirBox.com has changed the delivery timelines of the product I had ordered along with many more and categorised them as ‘Made to Order’. I don’t know whether such a category even existed before or it was just after my ordering they realised this ‘technical glitch’. After all, it becomes easy to scapegoat technology in such cases, while it is the technology which is enabling such a business model.

This episode has led to a very bad experience about KashmirBox.com, at least for me. Its not just about gifting and the timing of the gift. I was sort of adamant that I wanted to gift the newly wed couple with something ethnic and original from the rich art and cultural treasure of Kashmir. I believe that being someone from the valley I can also contribute humbly by promoting and encouraging Kashmiri products and brands at such instances and KashmirBox.com was one such platform I was eagerly looking forward to. But to my dismay, the experience has been very bad.

So while, the thinking behind this venture has been innovative and one must laud the efforts put in by the KashmirBox.com team to make such niche products available online and bring the artisan and the customer in close contact by reducing the intermediaries, it has to work seriously hard to put in more professionalism end-to-end and strengthen its back end as well across the functions – be it customer relations, finance or any other sphere that makes the total experience.

Coming online is very simple by just creating a platform that allows you to sell and provides you other functions required in due course, but what is important is that, the logistics behind are tightly and professionally managed. This is the key to success. So, while, for a customer website is the only presence and interaction point, the team behind has to work out meticulously each and every aspect so that the overall experience is as easy as buying online.

Such unprofessional handling is not perhaps only with KashmirBox.com but many other entrepreneurs who try out this space, and eventually are not able to evolve. Surely, there would be many such instances faced by several other people with different online stores. I am just presenting the KashmirBox.com incidence as a live case study and experience I have first hand account about.

Players like these need to take the online space much more seriously as they try to do a wonderful thing of connecting small but unique clusters of art and craft and other such ethnic products with the potential customers available globally. But, the work does not stop by just enabling the window. One has to stand up to the expectations of online buyers for whom the entire transaction matters and not just the actual buying steps which are just the stepping stones.

The author is Telecoms and SemiTronics analyst, CyberMedia Research