From coffee coupons to kettlebells - buying stuff on-line in India

I recently started using foursquare. This is not to fulfill any basic need, I was just curious to find out if this was something fun, useful or both.

So far the first tangible benefit I've found in foursquare is with Cafe Coffee Day: if you check-into one of their cafeterias they'll give you a discount every third visit. In theory. In practice, they don't. The address they give where this discount coupon is to be collected is not responding and I am willing to bet money on the local barista having no clue about any coupon discount even if the address worked at some potential future date.

This is not a huge surprise, unfortunately. Bad consumer experiences are everywhere in India. Domino's pizza can be ordered on-line and a couple of times I've actually managed to do it. A couple of times out of many more when I tried and failed. Movie tickets are sold on-line by all major theatres but I've never completed the process with any of them successfully. Something is always, inevitably, broken.

This is why I've been so throughly impressed with eBay. Their service simply works and even when a merchant misbehaves they automatically refund the money. Most brick and mortar shops in India don't really have any meaninigful information in the Web and have pretty poor selections on sale, which makes the advantage eBay has vs. conventional merchants even bigger - I can choose from a big selection and compare prices between vendors. Finally, the competition inside eBay really seems to bring out the best in these entreprenours.

Earlier this year I tried to buy some kettlebells. On eBay there was just one local merchant with too light ones and due to the weight using Indian eBay as a proxy to the US one made no sense as the shipping would be too expensive. I sent a message to the local merchant to message me back when heavier ones became available. I continued searching and found this company, which manufactures kettlebells near Delhi. Only thing is, while they can make 'em, they sure can't sell 'em. At least to me. I gave up trying to make business with these guys after a few phone calls and emails. Fast forward to yesterday and I get a message from the eBay merchant I mentioned earlier announcing that he's got the sizes I'm looking for, some 6 months after I sent him the question.

It seems that there's still hope for on-line retail in India.