As online shopping takes off, we tend to forget that humans often hesitate to say a barefaced lie, whereas online behemoths have no conscience and can lie without the slightest qualm from the AI driven anonymity of their apps.
Does being big and rich give you a right to cheat?
Why are we putting up with dishonest behaviour by the online giants? What if a salesman at a local store tried to tell me a branded shirt costs ₹5000 when its price tag says ₹500?
I don’t know about you but I would raise my voice and create a scene to alert other customers to the deception and embarrass the store, demand to see the manager and ask him to justify the price hike, threaten to never visit the store, and generally make such a nuisance of myself that the store would think twice before they ever tried to cheat another customer.
But when an Amazon acts dishonestly, we quietly ignore it. Why? Does Amazon’s massive size and wealth give it the right to quietly break the law, walk all over us, and not worry about consequences?
It’s things like this that has made me go off Amazon. These days, I only buy stuff from Amazon if it’s not available locally or there is a substantial price difference. It doesn’t feel right to take away business from the honest (relatively) corner shop and give it to the blatantly dishonest behemoth.
The button cell and the behemoth
Let me illustrate with an example. Last morning, my TV’s remote conked off. I had never changed its coin cell battery in the five years I used it so it was the most likely culprit. I needed more info to order the cell on Amazon, so I opened up the remote and had a look at the cell. It was an unbranded Chinese piece with a model no of CR2032. However I needed the cell right away and ordering online involved a delay. So I decided to check out the local store.
The Corner Shop
Now, there’s a little shop near my house that sells electrical accessories. There was a possibility that he would have this battery. But I needed to carry change as it wouldn’t cost much and the small shop was unlikely to accept a credit card. I don’t carry much cash with me these days as India has been on a cashless drive, and using my card is my tiny contribution in support of it.
Info is money
Anyway to carry cash, I needed an idea of how the battery costs. So I fired up the Amazon app. I did realise that it might not be a good idea as Amazon’s business model of home delivery does not work for low priced stuff. The cost of couriering might turn out to be more than the cost of the product. So it only makes sense to order such stuff online if it’s not available locally. This probably wasn’t applicable in the case of this battery. But I optimistically tried anyway.
The ‘Save ₹379 lie’
Since I was an ‘Amazon Prime’ customer, I was entitled to free delivery. So I set a ‘Prime’ filter and searched the app. It threw up a pack of two cells of made by Panasonic, a reputed brand. Seems the original price (MRP) was ₹599 for a pack of two, which means that one cell cost ₹300. Amazon was offering a fantastic savings of ₹379 by paying just ₹220. That seemed a pretty good deal.
Turns out this is a blatant lie. An Amazon reviewer posted a snap of the back of the pack that he purchased from Amazon. The MRP is clearly mentioned as ₹40 per cell, which would make the MRP of the two pack ₹80, and not ₹599.
Now it can be argued that the seller is at fault, not Amazon. But this is an Amazon Prime product being sold on the Amazon website via the Amazon app. That is a published review so Amazon is aware of this issue, and can’t just wash its hands off it. In short, it’s a deliberate attempt to hoodwink customers.
It’s also possible that this is only happening at Amazon India as the discrepancy in MRP may have been overlooked only by the Indian government. But that only makes it worse. Amazon is clearly demonstrating it will exploit any loophole however illegal, if it can get away with it.
Apps can lie, humans can’t
Imagine if I were to step into that cornershop and pick up this product. The salesman would have to be very thick-skinned to claim the MRP was ₹599.
Apps have no such issues, and blatantly claim the MRP to be whatever they please. Though the Amazon seller’s MRP claim is an outright fraud, they have been able to get away with it because they are hiding behind a screen provided by Amazon, much like a troll who abuses you online.
Even If I accept this fraudulent price, there’s another catch. I would have to buy the pack of two cells. The original battery had lasted me five years. So why on earth would I need to buy two?
If I didn’t have an option of a local shop nearby, I could easily have been conned into an act of wasteful consumption by that amazing 63% discount. There was no way I would be using that second battery. Nope, this wasn’t a good deal. Prime was trying to con me into spending more than I needed to. This would negate any savings I made from Prime’s free delivery.
This also made me wonder if the seller was being pushed to hike the price to cover his extra cost of listing it on Amazon Prime.
The Fantastic ‘70% Off’ offer
Accordingly, I removed the Prime filter and searched again. This time, I managed to locate a pack with just one cell, for an amazing 70% discount. Here again, a reviewer points out that the actual price is ₹40, and he actually bought it for that price at a local shop.
So it was not Prime at fault. It was Amazon being completely lax about policing their platform. I suspect their philosophy is, “If we can get away with it, why worry about ethics?”
The other catch in this case was a delivery cost of ₹49 so the cost to me for the piece would work out to ₹154. It would still cost me less than the previous deal which would have set me back ₹220.
We were making progress.
At this point, I asked myself, what does Amazon recommend?
When ‘Amazon’s Choice’ is a bad choice
Amazon’s recommendation was a pack of five branded (Maxell) batteries for ₹299. That would make it about ₹60 per cell. Though this seems fair, it’s again a ripoff as I have to buy the whole pack, which would set me back ₹300.
My original battery had lasted for five years. So with this pack, I could run my remote for the next 25 years, always assuming that I will be using the same set top box forever, and the batteries that are not being used will retain their charge for all those years. Both assumptions make no sense at all.
That’s when it clicked. ‘Amazon’s Choice’ meant the best deal for Amazon. Not for customers. Anyway, I had learnt some ‘Amazonspeak’, which could be valuable as this company looks like it’s going to take over Planet Earth.
I decided to keep scrolling down the app.
₹26, with a ‘Buy 2, Get 1 Free’ offer
By default, Amazon shows the higher priced offers on top of the search results. So just to confirm, I scrolled down the list, and there it was.
The real McCoy. The unbranded Chinese button cell, with an unbeatable, take it or leave it ‘Buy 2, Get 1 Free’ offer.
The only issue was a ₹70 delivery charge, which was like three times the price of the product. Never mind, all that hard work had been worth it as I now knew the actual cost of the cell.
I had one last thing to check before I left for the cornershop. Is Amazon the only online retailer who makes these fraudulent claims?
False claims on MRP is widespread online
Amazon’s biggest competitor, Flipkart, is doing the same, and so is Snapdeal. Flipkart claims the price of that ₹40 cell is ₹399, and they are giving me a 77% discount by selling it at ₹89. They do have a delivery charge of ₹36.
Snapdeal claims the same MRP but gives a smaller discount of just 55%.
All in all, I must say it’s extremely generous of Flipkart and Snapdeal to sell the battery to me at twice and thrice the market rate, respectively.
No offers, No deals, No false claims
Anyway, armed with my knowledge of the actual price, I dropped in at the little electrical store around the corner from my home. He had the unbranded Chinese battery cell in stock.
It cost me a princely ₹20.
All that glitters is not gold
The razzmatazz of online shopping with its mega deals and massive discounts often blinds us to the reality.
We think we are saving by shopping online, but often end up spending more.
In the process, we also buy stuff we don’t need, and can’t possibly consume.
Think Small
What’s worse, we are killing off a whole fragile economy of corner shops who actually give us fair prices despite having overheads like rents.
Time is running out for these Mom & Pop stores. If they don’t get enough business, they will shut down. And we all will be at the mercy of Amazon, a company that demonstrates its lack of ethics in every sale on its site.
Pride goes before a fall
I have been observing Facebook’s fall and the #deletefacebook story. In a way, I find Amazon’s ignoring of the MRP just as arrogant. The best way for us to trip up Amazon, is to put the spotlight on their fraudulent actions, and avoid giving them business until they fix it. As for the Flipkarts and Snapdeals, I think it will be a case of ‘follow the leader.’ Once Amazon corrects this behaviour, the rest of the market should fall in line.
#boycottamazon
