Online shopping has finally caught up in India, thanks to Flipkart, ebay.in, amazon.in and the list goes on.While most of them are committed towards consumer satisfaction, there are few online shopping websites which are present to exploit the consumers.After our research and talking to customers we found Naaptol to be one such company.
Naaptol is famous for running its ads on popular TV channels and they advertise products and claim to be giving them off for a cheaper price than anyone else in the market.Initially, no one doubted their marketing claims but soon they started advertising products that were available on other platforms for about half of the price quoted by them.This has been happening for some time and Naaptol did face *raids but their business model enables them to pass the buck to the 3rd party sellers.(acting clever uh?)
Case Study
Waterproof Aluminium Wallet – Naaptol’s AD of an Aluminium wallet :
They Claim the MRP to be 2,999 INR. A quick search for the same wallet on other online shopping websites reveals the fact that it does not cost more than 200 INR.
- Rediff [Link]
- eBay [Link]
This one is from a customer who had to undergo a nightmare thanks to Naaptol, he has raised his issue on an online forum handling consumer complaints. He has given more than enough proof to bust the unfair pricing.
arun2404 on May 25, 2012
Although Naaptol support responded, they never spoke about the product being sold for double the MRP. This sort of fleecing doesn’t stop here, almost every product that is being highly advertised price the same fate.
We definitely believe that Naaptol is using 3rd party sellers to stay clear of the laws , no market place comes up with ads like that of naaptol that show no clue of who the seller is.
A few months ago (June 12, 2013 to be precise) Times of India reported that Legal metrology officials raided the godown of the online firm Naaptol.com in Bowenpally, Hyderabad and seized Rs 1.26 crore worth goods.The goods included 55 different commodities, including various electronic goods like laptops, cameras, home appliances and toiletries.
The raid did confirm that the goods were purchased from China for a far less price and the price tags were manipulated.
“In newspaper ads, the company claims that they will be selling a product worth Rs 2,000 for just Rs 500, whereas the actual price of the product would be not more than Rs 200.”said a legal metrology official who was a part of the raid.
Naaptol stood completely busted. The legal metrology officials booked 54 cases against ‘Naaptol.com’ and Pentagon Logistix who were the stockists.
Naaptol claims to be a marketplace model, but the question remains who is actually selling to the consumer? Naaptol promotes its products without mentioning the real sellers and acts as a main point of purchase for consumers.
Also, if is really marketplace such fleecing would not be actually possible and moreover the current set of AD’s being telecasted show no trace of Naaptol being a market place. Consumers are tricked to believe that it is Naaptol who is the actual seller which is far from the truth, the customer realises this only when there is an issue since Naaptol refuses to take the responsibility of the vendors involved in the above activity.
Not so surprisingly, Naaptol also has some really poor after sales support, complains show that they sell duplicate products and refurbished ones. We have spoken to the guys who left the reviews and can agree the fact that Naaptol does pass off refurbished products as new ones.
While checking Mouthshut.com for reviews of Naaptol, It was found that 89% of out of 410 reviews gave 1 star rating. Few screen captures of the reviews written by users.
Quite a few people have actually realised the unfair trade practices being used by naaptol and here are a few tweets from various people about their products.
Inspite of all the above wrong doings and selling poor quality products, there is not a single negative comment on the entire Naaptol website.
Strange? We think not. The comments made are highly moderated, no negative comment gets through. If Naaptol were really a 100% genuine market place, this wouldn’t be happening. eBay is also a market place but the consumer has the freedom to publish his review whether positive or negative.
Adding to all this is the fact that you CANNOT unsubscribe from Naaptol’s mailing list, many users complained about it and when we tried it, we faced the same problem. We have no clue if it is intentional or just a technical glitch which had been left unresolved since a long time.
We have reached to Naaptol and their investors for their comments and will update once they reply.
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