Just a couple of days after online retail giant Flipkart pulled off its biggest retail sale under the ‘Big Billion Day’ sale offer, traditional retailers have called for immediate government intervention to stop such sales in the future. Terming the ‘sale’ as unfair and monopolistic, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is said to be contemplating legal action against Flipkart for trying to control and dominate trade by selling below manufacturing costs. Traditional vendors have received support from Kishore Biyani, founder of Future Group, one of the biggest traditional retailers in the country. Online e-commerce portals have been accused of undercutting of prices to destroy competition backed by the influx of huge foreign funding.
Consumers unhappy:
While Flipkart has termed its’Big Billion Day’ sale as success with the company managing business worth $100 million mark in the first ten hours, the technical glitches owing to immense traffic on the servers made consumers face a lot of problems. The social media was buzzing with unhappy consumers who were unable to purchase discounted items due to the delay at the payment gateway for order confirmation. A lot of consumers had also complained of one sided order cancellations after the sale ended. Now with traditional retailers also up in arms against the ‘Big Billion Day’ sale, Flipkart is facing flak from almost all sides.
Things to know before ordering goods online:
While online shopping has its own share of advantages offering convenience to shop sitting in the comfort of one’s home or office and Flipkart’s’Big Billion Day’ sale may just be a starting point of many lucrative deals online, users should be aware of many things before getting into online shopping.
- Limited warranty: All online purchases may not offer manufacturer warranty which may be a deal breaker socially for electronic and digital products. A number of electronic product manufacturers including Canon and Lenovo have already announced lack of warranty for many products purchased online other than their official online stores. Before purchasing any electronic products online like Smartphone or Cameras, make sure to check with the seller about the warranty status for your purchase.
- Replacement and Return Merchandise Authorization: Online sales may offer users the convenience of purchasing goods easily but some replacement or RMS comes with a lot of problems for the consumer. The onus of getting any replacement lies with the buyer, as most online merchants offer limited period for replacement of goods. For RMA for electronic products, users would need to send the product back to the online merchant who would avail the RMA instead of sending it directly to the manufacturer’s RMA agency.
- Genuineness concerns: Most online purchase happen on mutual trust as the buyer trusts the company to sell original items, while the company trusts the seller to pay cash on delivery. In case of any issues like quality of products, genuineness of brands, various consumer protection forums and consumer courts are there to help you. Seek the help if you happen to be in trouble ever.
E-Commerce websites and sales tax implications: Most e-commerce portals do not offer any sales tax to the state of the buyer as they pay taxes only to the state which they have office, hosts their warehouse or sales point. Such a taxing structure is outdated according to various state governments who are calling for revision of GST.
Impact on the buyer: The sales tax issue raised by various state governments has been a raw nerve for various e-commerce websites and this has resulted in consumers of some states facing delivery hardships. Most e-commerce platforms including giants like Flipkart and Amazon have stopped talking cash-on-delivery orders from Kerala because of the sales tax fallout. Other state governments are likely to follow this by charging taxes from e-commerce companies operating sales in their states, as online purchase bring a loss of revenue to the state, if sales of traditional retailers dwindle.
Unless the taxation structure is streamlined, more and more states may ban the sale of online purchased goods unless they pay a minimum sales tax to the respective state. If they are likely to pay, this additional tax burden can be passed to the customers, which means decrease in attractive discounts in future. On the other hand, if the companies are avoiding such a tax payment and not delivering goods to residents of the states which are raising such issues, many consumers will be unable to make full use of online purchase and sales.