A few weeks back I had ordered an electric cooker as a replacement for my rice cooker. There was a sale on at Amazon and I got a good deal. I ordered the product and got a delivery date a couple of days away. Then a notification popped up saying the product would be delivered the very next day ! I was thrilled.
The package arrived the next day. As is the practise during the pandemic, the Amazon Delivery guy left the package with the security guard in the lobby of our tower. We went and picked it up. The package seemed a bit distressed and shabby. I got Krishnan to video tape the unpacking. As soon as I cut the tape and opened the carton, I realised something was wrong because the thermocol packaging was reduced to being beads rather than a moulded piece.
Then I lifted the cooker from the carton and immediately we saw it was dented on one side. I repacked it and within five minutes I had put in a “return” request. Amazon offered a replacement and I accepted that. Amazon was to deliver the replacement and collect the damaged piece.
We received the replacement a couple of days later and a small drama unfolded. This time I went down to the lobby and we decided to open the replacement in front of the Amazon delivery guy to avoid any challenges later on. I took the damaged piece and we both went down to the lobby. The delivery guy refused to give us the replacement, till he had seen the damaged product. We were ok with that. He lifted the damaged cooker out of the carton and it had no bottom !!!!! I had missed seeing that the wiring underneath was visible because whoever returned the product earlier had obviously damaged it.
The delivery guy tried arguing with us, but then he called up the Amazon service centre and they authorised him to collect the damaged piece and to leave the replacement with us. We immediately opened the replacement piece and what a huge difference it was in the packaging !! It was a brand new cooker and had all the documentation intact besides two layers of packing.
I am a huge fan of Amazon and have been for more than a decade now. They always replace without too much fuss and I will never forget their gesture of refunding the extra dollars I had paid in 2009 for a Kindle in the US.
India is a tough market for anyone and Amazon delivery is faced with a lot of challenges. They still do a great job of it.
Precautions that a customer must take –
- Open the product as soon as it is delivered. Especially if its an electronic item or something expensive.
- Videotape the opening of the package, if its something that could be broken during transit.
- If the product is damaged, initiate a return instantly with photographs of the damage. New learning – check the product fully. If you find a side damaged take a pic and still check the bottom !!
- Don’t throw away the packaging material till you confirm that the product is working.
- Take pictures of the packaging and the barcode for your records.
- Any electronic item like a mixie or cooker needs to have a manual in the package. If it doesn’t, then return it.
- Sometimes you may return a product because the size went wrong or you changed your mind. Be mindful of how you return the product. Just because you no longer want it, don’t damage it. Obviously the first cooker that was delivered to us, was a returned product, but someone had damaged it.
- Take pictures of what you are returning. That way if some damage happens in the warehouse or during transit, you are not responsible.
Note to Amazon – please figure out a way to check the returned product before delivering it to another customer. Its not a pleasant experience getting a damaged product !!