Flipkart vs Amazon: Consumer complaints on the rise as sales go up

The share of e-commerce complaints of the total NCH complaints is set to jump from 18% in September to 20% this month. Flipkart and Amazon have registered the maximum complaints.

The festive season sales spearheaded by e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart registered higher sales than last year. However, what also on the rise are consumer complaints. Since the past year, the e-commerce sector has seen the highest number of consumer complaints on the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) among all sectors, including telecom and banking. It is, moreover, set to spike in October because of the sales, a report in The Economic Times mentioned.

The share of e-commerce complaints of the total NCH complaints is set to jump from 18% in September to 20% this month. Flipkart and Amazon have registered the maximum complaints, as mentioned in the daily.  

In September, consumer complaints surged by 22% over last year, forming 18% of the total 47,000 NCH complaints. It means that the e-commerce sector registered 8,500 complaints, which is a rise from 6,908 complaints that were registered last September, when the sales were held.

There were 1,236 complaints against Flipkart, while Amazon saw 1,052 complaints between September 14 and October 15. Paytm Mall saw 765 complaints and Snapdeal saw over 400. According to the daily, Flipkart said that the number is actually 1,125, out of which 35% were queries.

It must be noted that the figure is rather negligible considering that there are about 1.2-1.3 million e-commerce shipments in a day. It must, however, be kept in mind that many consumers complain to the company directly or through social media and not through the helpline.

There have been 4,700 complaints in the first 15 days of October but is likely to increase because of the sales. Last October, the number was 8,944.

Experts believe that this spike could also be because Indian e-commerce is experiencing a surge in the number of first-time online shoppers. There could be a mismatch between their expectation and experience.

Additionally, there is a strong menace of counterfeit products sold online. Two surveys had earlier this year pointed that one-third of e-commerce customers receve counterfeit products

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Flipkart claims lead over Amazon in smartphones

Flipkart has kept its lead over Amazon India on smartphone sales, even as both platforms claimed more than doubling of sales in the category on the second day of festive sales. Flipkart claimed to have sold 1.3 million smartphones in the first 20 hours, double the number of orders as compared to the same period last year.

Flipkart had seen overall sales of Rs 1,400 crore in a single day last year during the smartphone sales day. The company did not disclose gross sales number. Flipkart also claimed an overall market share of 65% of online sales, and 75% in smartphone category since the start of its flagship Big Billion Day event on Wednesday. Amazon claimed a higher growth in sales in the smartphone category.

"We have already seen a 100% increase over previous Diwali, even before the end of Day One. For smartphones, we saw an even larger gain, that grew 150% over 2016," said an Amazon spokesperson.

Analysts tracking the sales are saying that gross merchandise value (GMV) on Thursday could have crossed Rs 2,500 crore. "Overall, on Day 1 of sales on Wednesday, the industry saw a GMV of Rs 1,000 crore," said Anil Kumar, CEO, RedSeer.

Among the best selling phones on Flipkart were iPhones and Redmi Flipkart were iPhones and Redmi Note 4 as well as Samsung S7 and S8, Flipkart's Smrithi Ravichandran said. Amazon did not respond to specific queries till the time of going to print.
Amazon kicked off its Great Indian Festival for all customers on Thursday, after giving an early access to Prime customers for 12 hours on Wednesday, in which it saw large appliances emerging as the biggest category.
Industry experts said both platforms changed prices on some products to match deals that did well on rival platform, especially on products like MacBook Air and iPhones. The trend during day two on cashback website CashKaro was that top players Flipkart and Amazon India were neck-toneck on their smartphone sale war, because of price-matching.

"When Flipkart started their sale at midnight, they had very good pricing on iPhone, which Amazon matched within the night," said Swati Bhargava, cofounder, CashKaro. "Alternatively, MacBook Air price was lower on Amazon, which was matched by Flipkart."

However, Paytm Mall, the third player in the ecommerce sales war, claimed to have the lowest prices across platforms. The company received smartphone orders from customers across 700 cities and town within 24 hours, with iPhones and Samsung Galaxy J3 Pro emerging as the top-selling smartphones, registering 12x surge in order volume over regular days.