Flipkart, one of the best online sellers has now tightened its refund policy over some of its products. Popular products like mobile accessories, personal care appliances, computer and camera accessories, office equipment, games and smart wearable will not be offered with refund policies on Flipkart. It won’t even refund mobile phones, large appliances and furniture. “Refunds are not offered. All sales are final,” says the return policy.
It is believed that such major action is taken by the firm to reduce the operational cost. “This is all about reducing cost of operations and making every sale a final. There is a huge cost attached to return of any product and also in reprocessing or repackaging it for another sale. This is very similar to offline retail where the cost of return is on the customer,” Devangshu Dutta, chief executive at Third Eyesight, a consulting firm focused on retail, told ET.
30 days exchange window is open for products like clothing, footwear, eyewear and fashion accessories. It has also discontinued its no-questions-asked policy in June last year.
According to experts, this move can affect the traffic on the websites as refund polices and discounts are the main reason of so much hype of all ecommerce in the country.
“Flipkart’s new refund policy… can be best described as penny wise and pound foolish. This may temporarily reduce the burn rate, but will alienate customers in the long term,” said an ecommerce industry executive to ET.
“Our customers can request for refunds through the self-service option on over 1,150 product categories of the 1,800 available, which constitutes about two-thirds of all the categories on Flipkart. In fact, Flipkart processes about 25,000 refunds on a daily basis, 60% of which are instant, where customers don’t have to wait to get their money back,” the person said.
“Freight cost is becoming significant and Flipkart wants to improve margins by tightening return period,” another person said.
“If a defect is determined within the 10-day period following delivery, a replacement of the same model will be provided at no additional cost. Only in cases where the replacement product is not in stock or has been permanently discontinued, a refund for the entire product or part(s) of the product will be provided by the seller,” says the refund policy on website.
