Indiaplaza Price Challenge Revisited
I had blogged about the Indiaplaza Price Challenge a while back. It looks like Indiaplaza was really serious about the whole thing. Blogger Bala has won cumulative prizes worth Rs. 22000 (via). He might probably spend more time deciding the books to be purchased than the time he spent on spotting the price differential. Although I spotted price differentials of more than Rs. 1000 on a few occasions, Indiaplaza has just sent me two gift coupons worth Rs. 250. I’m surprised that the maximum gift certificate was only Rs. 300 (which works to a price difference of Rs. 150). Something tells me that Indiaplaza might have capped the gift certificate at Rs. 300; eventhough people might have spotted bigger price differences.
Labels: Books, Indian Internet
posted by Kaps at
12:14 PM
12 Comments:
Kaps,
i just made an entire list of the gift certificates - there are ninety nine totally - and found there is a 800 and a couple of 600 GCs among them. (everything else is a 50,100,250,300). The validity is till March 28 2007.
Though they have given small denomination GC's the cumulative total works out to be within fifty rupees of my findings (i just made an elaborate worksheet to track this :-)).
Their main problem is with calculating INR prices for mass market paperbacks. There a lot of books priced at 474 Rs (with a 10% discount sometimes) which are priced at 373 or 365 at sifymall and firstandsecond.com. My guess is that they have a dollar priced catalogue for foreign editions with older exchange rates. Another purpl patch i hit was with Asterix books - all forty of them were priced 220 Rs above sify mall.
The biggest difference i spotted was 2500 Rs for a Chronicles of Narnia boxed set (this i remembered, as i had actually ordered this from sify a couple of years back)
===
Now that i am trying to use the certificates, i am driven to distraction. The 50rs ones are useless,closely followed by the 100 rs ones (with shipping rates at 25rs per item, i dont find anything below 50 with shipping costs included). I am buying up stephen king by the bucket load now ;-).
By
Bala, at 9:34 PM
Hello
is this website comparable to amazon in quality of service which includes proper shipping of items?
By
Anonymous, at 10:38 PM
As the entry acknowledgement / GC e-mail does not refer to the specific entry in respect of which it is being sent, it is difficult to track accuracy. Overall there is a tendency to send lower values than what is due. Often one has to follow-up several times to ensure this.
By
Anonymous, at 4:48 PM
The delivery against orders, quality of goods, customer service and response to issues on Indiaplaza are quite good. The range is somewhat limited but seems to be improving. Non-online customers can certainly give it a try. I have never used Amazon and therefore can't compare the two. I have also used my credit card several times in the last few years and have not had problems (so far!!).
The price challenge works well in respect of low to medium (upto ~ Rs. 500) price difference where the commitments are honoured as outlined in the scheme and usually in time. On higher values, there seems to be no response (hoping perhaps that you will forget about it)!!
However, the prices have not been reduced on the site in most cases, even after the entry has been processed. This is surprising.
I have seen some blog posts complaining about use, denominations etc. Come on guys, the rules are pretty clear! You can't seriously expect to be allowed to change the rules!!
I have several entries pending (regretfully, have exhausted further possibilities)!! Let's see what happens to those!
By
Anonymous, at 12:17 AM
The price challenge scheme is an eyewash. I had made many entries finding a lot of large differences in price. For around 25 entries submitted, I received one gift voucher and that also for much less than the value due. I think they pay in about 1 out of 50 cases hoipng to get traffic on the site. Probably they will calim their decision is final if you questioned them. Not that anyone asked them to run such a scheme. But it is pretty poor value systems to hot make good on commitments.
By
Anonymous, at 2:07 AM
The claim of Indiaplaza is unfair. They are not lowest priced but are getting undue publicity for the claim. Cheaper stores are strand, sifymall etc. for books. Many around the corner mobile stores are cheaper too. My uncle submitted several claims. He is a regular book buyer and knows what he is talking about. He tried to follow up but neither got a reply nor a gift certificate! The trick to such nefarious schemes, as I read in another blog entry, is to run it, get publicity and not pay up. They are counting on most people to treat it as a lottery and not follow-up. In the US market, they would have been hauled up in no time. But I guess in India we will put up with it just as we do with corrupt politicians, sloppy service and poor products.
By
Anonymous, at 2:12 AM
The price challenge on Indiaplaza is only a publicity stunt. They are counting on the fact that people will generally believe that a company will not make such a public claim unless it were true. The fact is that books are not the cheapest and there are significant differences in hundreds of cases. And they keep such a scheme alive by a simple ruse - not paying up. They do not honour their commitments in most of the cases. A cousin has promised to send a list of over 100 books with large differences in price together with all details. I intend to post it on the net. Let us see whether they continue to run the scheme with no intention to pay up or withdraw the scheme.
By
Anonymous, at 1:58 AM
Anand,
Dont even try to buy anything from this website, I had an nightmaish experience.
these guys are cheats they sent me a damaged camera and on relentlessly pursuing them, instead of replacing the item they repaired it and sent it back to me.
that piece was definitely damaged, even today the photos are not proper. after paying 14500rs I got such raw deal.
My honest suggestion please stay away from any of this.
By
Anonymous, at 4:14 PM
future bazaar has much better prices
By
unfuel the planet, at 5:49 PM
well this price wars are quite fake. btw is this site better than amazon or atleast close to it. future bazaar is a better option it seems
By
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By
Anonymous, at 4:55 PM
DON'T GO FOR INDIAPLAZA. I AM NOT SURE ABOUT THE PRICE CHALLENGE BUT ONE THING i AM SURE. THEY WON'T DELIVER THE ITEMS ON TIME. I ORDERED FOR A BOOK ON 25TH OCTOBER. IT WAS MENTIONED THAT THEY DELIVER IN 3 DAYS. i HADN'T RECEIVED MY ORDER TILL NOVEMBER 3RD. I POSTED A QUERY. THEY ASKED ME TO WAIT FOR ANOTHER 3 DAYS AND TOLD ME THEY ARE GOING TO SHIP IT. EVEN ON 12TH I HAVEN'T RECEIVED IT YET. WHEN I CHECKED THEY ARE ASKING ME TO WAIT FOR 3 MORE DAYS!!!! DON'T GO FOR INDIAPLAZA. THEY ARE CHEATERS.
By
Anonymous, at 5:16 PM
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