Samsung not recommending buying from FLIPKART

[Nishabfss]

Read this...Not sure if it makes sense to buy from FLIPKART Now.

Nickname . :
Questiona 1 - Can I buy Samsung Plasma from Flipkart. Are they authorised to sell Samsung
Manish :
Sure Sir I will help you in this regard
Manish :
We recommend to purchase online from SAMSUNG E-STORE
Nickname . :
Tha does not answer my question
Nickname . :
Is flipkart an authorised dealer and will u honor warranty for products sold by them
Nickname . :
Yes or no would suffice
Manish :
We do not recommend to purchase from FLIPKART
Manish :
Or any other website
Nickname . :
So you will not honour warranty
Nickname . :
I am not concerned about recommendation. I just want to understand will you HONOUR WARRANTY OR NOT.
Manish :
May I know your contact number please to explain over phone

 

[haisaikat]

I do not know if FK is sourcing cheaper products of the same manufacturer from abroad or getting around import duties in some manner which may be causing this problems with Indian manufacturers of the same products. Curious to know what was the remaining conversation over the phone.

 

[Saket]

Online or not, it should be binding on the manufacturer to honor warranty on genuine products with 'pukka' bill. If not, I 'personally' will boycott the manufacturer. I think someone has to soon ring the consumer court option and then a law will wipe all these 'recommendations'.

Besides, there are many dealers who are selling both online & offline.

 

[elangoas]

I think they are Flipkart is cutting down their margins & selling at reduced prices....

 

[shuv]

Apparently, Samsung has a set price below which a retailer isn't allowed to sell. Maybe the online sellers don't follow that.

Most of the retailers I have spoken to claim that the online sellers are somehow out to scam the buyer. Hence they offer a lower price.

 

[haisaikat]

Apparently, Samsung has a set price below which a retailer isn't allowed to sell. Maybe the online sellers don't follow that.

Most of the retailers I have spoken to claim that the online sellers are somehow out to scam the buyer. Hence they offer a lower price.

The price is called MOP (Market Operating Price) which probably many manufacturers have and apply not only for TVs but also other products like Home Appliances, Cars, etc.

But its a pity that in the end customers are not getting the price advantage. Btw in my personal experiences offline retailers do more "do nambari" than online ones.

 

[elangoas]

Apparently, Samsung has a set price below which a retailer isn't allowed to sell. Maybe the online sellers don't follow that.

Most of the retailers I have spoken to claim that the online sellers are somehow out to scam the buyer. Hence they offer a lower price.

Right.... Recently Samsung faced this issue of price difference when the offline retailers threatened to boycott Samsung if Samsung don't fix the online Vs offline price difference...

The price is called MOP (Market Operating Price) which probably many manufacturers have and apply not only for TVs but also other products like Home Appliances, Cars, etc.

But its a pity that in the end customers are not getting the price advantage. Btw in my personal experiences offline retailers do more "do nambari" than online ones.

Flipkart & other online retailers are in nascent stages of selling TV online... Juz give them some more time & they should comfortably surpass the numbers....

I think Flipkart are genuine online retailers for Samsung televisions... Else they might have issued a statement that they will not honour warranty for TV's purchased online....

 

[greenhorn]

so how did that conversation end ?

 

[rajadeep]

Wow Samsung would have their asses handed to them if someone takes them to consumer court over not honoring warranty on a vat paid bill of a product marketed by samsung india. Most of these products are not "imported" but rather bought directly from Distributors & sold by FK or SD etc. Why can FK sell it to you for such a lower price compared to the brick and mortar stores like Croma or VS? Well Basically they save huge amounts of money by not having to invest in huge stores and having to have dozens and dozens of appliances on display which is kind of a huge dead investment. Now how does this affect us as consumers. Well retailers love to scare people from buying online by using phrases like "Your warranty wont be honored" or this one which I love the most " They are selling you a fake product" etc etc. But the fact of the matter is that is a consumer case is filed a judge is gonna look at basically two things to validate the legality of the warranty.
a) Did Samsung get paid? Well yes they did coz their distributor didn't get the product for free from Samsung.
b) Did the consumer or retailer pay the correct amount of taxes which were supposed to be levied on the product? Well yes again coz you always receive a VAT paid bill with the product you bought online.
Not only is a judge gonna make Samsung honor the warranty, Samsung is gonna end up paying a fine to the aggrieved consumer. Also if such a judgement is passed that in turn makes is into case law which can be used in any other case all over India against any company trying to deny warranty citing similar situation. Also it would mean that retailers and companies might not be able to use these kind of scare tactics. I am pretty sure Samsung's lawyers have already explained this in detail to Samsung hence in that interaction even when you ask them a simple yes or no question they try to skip the question.
My personal take on this matter? Buy the product(TV Mobile etc) from online or offline, wherever you find it cheaper coz there is no way in hell Samsung or any other company can deny you warranty. Case n point check out this link Sony, Samsung and Canon ban stores from selling items via e-commerce sites - Economic Times It talks about how companies are going to ban dealers from selling online. No where does it even remotely suggest that they will deny warranty to customers.

 

[ausyz]

Last year I've bought Samsung Ultra thin laptop via Snapdeal. 2 days later I had some issues (rather doubts) about the processor temperature as I felt the CPU cores are running too hot. I picked up the Toll Free number and called samsung support. To my amusement, they had all the details of my laptop and directed me to the nearest service center. I was expecting that I need to explain them details about my purchase. But they just asked/confirmed my phone number (the one i used for online purchase), and from that they had all details.

So, they do honor warranty for devices bought online.

 

[RMCWS]

But the fact of the matter is that is a consumer case is filed a judge is gonna look at basically two things to validate the legality of the warranty.
a) Did Samsung get paid? Well yes they did coz their distributor didn't get the product for free from Samsung.
b) Did the consumer or retailer pay the correct amount of taxes which were supposed to be levied on the product? Well yes again coz you always receive a VAT paid bill with the product you bought online.

Not only is a judge gonna make Samsung honor the warranty, Samsung is gonna end up paying a fine to the aggrieved consumer. Also if such a judgement is passed that in turn makes is into case law which can be used in any other case all over India against any company trying to deny warranty citing similar situation. Also it would mean that retailers and companies might not be able to use these kind of scare tactics. I am pretty sure Samsung's lawyers have already explained this in detail to Samsung hence in that interaction even when you ask them a simple yes or no question they try to skip the question.
My personal take on this matter? Buy the product(TV Mobile etc) from online or offline, wherever you find it cheaper coz there is no way in hell Samsung or any other company can deny you warranty. Case n point check out this link Sony, Samsung and Canon ban stores from selling items via e-commerce sites - Economic Times It talks about how companies are going to ban dealers from selling online. No where does it even remotely suggest that they will deny warranty to customers.

Very valid point mentioned. I'd further like to add and simplify that you become a consumer once you have paid for the product and the seller has accepted the money for the product.

It is not really the headache of the consumer to find out whether statutory taxes have been paid or not. It is the duty of the seller to pay such taxes and also the duty of the taxing authority to supervise whether taxes have been paid or not. So this tax issue will not affect a consumer anyways.

But to be on safe side, make sure you are buying a product from an authorized dealer (whether online or offline does not matter). An authorized dealer is a person who is authorized to sell the product either online or offline on behalf of the company and once the product is sold buyer seller relationship is established between the consumer and the company and hence a company can be sued easily and if required the authorized dealer can be made a party too (but this will only increase the time span of the litigation).

They will 'say' anything they want but they will hardly 'write' anything as it can be used against them in Courts.

Long time back I started this thread, this might help others too - How to sue the seller for bad product/ services in India DIY

 

[greenhorn]

FK is a marketplace like ebay or amazon. depending on the seller, the sale may be authorized or unauthorized

 

[elangoas]

FK is a marketplace like ebay or amazon. depending on the seller, the sale may be authorized or unauthorized

I think television sold in Flipkart are under WS Retail (Flipkart)... Not sure if i have noticed other resellers there....

 

[Nishabfss]

I think they are Flipkart is cutting down their margins & selling at reduced prices....

This is how it works. BIG DEALERS buy in bulk and for say every 20 TV they get 5 free.

This is precisely why companies push for minimum selling price else small dealers will loose.

Big dealers I know few cases in earlier years sold discounted products to the envy of small dealers.

Now whats the benefit to Big dealers than....Offcourse they are getting the product free and can sell these at MSP still making HUGE Margins.

 

[gauthamnaidu]

I had visited the samsung store in coimbatore for buying the Plasma 5500...they quoted a bill price of 86500 and a discounted price which would come to 80500/- then i started checking out other brands.. and finally ended up in reliance digital.. where i paid 70800/- for the same tv.. my guess is if samsung is not going to honor the warranty offered by flipkart for their price cutting by reducing the margins.. i think samsung should be more worried about the Reliance stores too ... just saying... im glad i got it for the price though

 

[Saket]

There is simply no way they can avoid the warranty clause. What they can do is to scare out customers by these informal and unclear statements when they buy products online. The scam that one can face while buying such products online is that an average buyer can be easily sold demo pieces stating them to be new.

On the other hand, I am sure that there is still a very small percentage of people who are buying these expensive stuff online. Most of the old-school students are still going to authorized retailers for stuff like TV, music system, etc. So, the situation is not as grave as it may become in future for the physical stores as e-commerce develops more. So, they need to come up with a better cost-efficient business model and evolve with time. Enough of fleecing done in their hay-days.

 

[elangoas]

I had visited the samsung store in coimbatore for buying the Plasma 5500...they quoted a bill price of 86500 and a discounted price which would come to 80500/- then i started checking out other brands.. and finally ended up in reliance digital.. where i paid 70800/- for the same tv.. my guess is if samsung is not going to honor the warranty offered by flipkart for their price cutting by reducing the margins.. i think samsung should be more worried about the Reliance stores too ... just saying... im glad i got it for the price though

There was a similar incident that happened to me when i was enquiringabout Samsung 51F4900 Plasma...

While the bigger retail outlets like Reliance Digital, Tata croma & Samsung store refused to budge the price, Vasanth & co said they can offer me at competitive price.. It was abt 5K less than the bigger brands....

 

[manniraj]

Government is contemplating changes to the laws on ecommerce bringing them under the consumer law. E-tailers may come under consumer protection law - The Times of India

 

[suga49]

I bought Samsung 32H5100 FULL HD LED TV 5 months back from eBay under manufacturer warranty. 3 months back a black spot appeared in the TV and i raised a complaint with Samsung. I just quoted my mobile number & they had all my details including address and they sent a service person and he confirmed the issue and they replaced the display panel in 3 days at free of cost. A month ago, the same problem occurred and now they initiated refund since that model is no longer available. And now I am looking to buy Sony Bravia.

So my point is You can surely buy Online but you have to make sure that the product covers under manufacturer warranty.

 

[god2007]

It not correct that items bought online does not have warranty. Sites like ebay have a lot of sellers selling cheap and offering sellers warranty, not manufacturers warranty. On Flipkart, I have not yet found any item with sellers warranty. Here is one such item on shopclues today (16.11.2014) and the seller is frank enough to tell the reason.

Samsung 48H5100 48 Inches Full HD LED Television Joy Series

But as online shopping is in nascent stage, buying from brick and mortar store have some advantages even now, despite paying higher price. To cite an example, a few months back I bought a tablet through amazon, that gave an advantage of nearly 25% lower price. I got a piece whose, display was slightly defective. The seller was ready to take back the item and refund the money. But they were unable to replace it. Mean while the Had I bought the item from a shop they have policy of product replacement if returned within a week. ( I was aware of it at the time of purchase). But the warranty was still valid and they agreed to repair it.

Thus in case of large and fragile items like TVs, it is still make sense to buy from brick and mortar store when the price difference is not too high.