Buying Experience in Bengaluru - Home Appliances and Electronics

Evaluation Parameter / Shopping Places	Home Town, Marathalli	Croma, Brigade Road	Reliance Digital, Residency Road	Pai, Indiranagar	Giriyas, Marathalli	Flipkart
First impression of showroom, range of products displayed	Good	Good	Good	Average	Bad	Can't say. Didn’t browse a lot.
Display Price: Is it quite competitive?	Good	Good	Average It was a mixed experience; some were priced higher than competitors, some were priced lower.	Bad They try to attract customers by mega lottery/prize schemes, but their display price is slightly higher than competitors.	Very Bad Price not readily displayed for most products, big turn off.	Good Display price looks quite good with a attractive discount on MRP.
Additional Discount: Is it possible to get?	Very Bad People working there seemed to be powerless when it comes to additional discounts. They simply say no.	Good The first response you get is "Please select the products, then our manager can decide and tell you final price/discount". On hard bargain, manager agrees upto 8% discount on displayed price if purchase exceeds Rs.1 lakh, and 5% otherwise. No special discounts of any kind for Samsung and Sony brands.	Average I didn't like the attitude of manager; there was no eagerness to do business and no enthusiasm to woo me even after I explicitly mentioned that I want to buy many things together.	Can't Say Didn't bother to check.	Can't Say Didn't bother to check.	Finally I found that Croma offered better overall discount on MRP compared to Flipkart.
Evaluation Parameter / Shopping Places	Home Town, Marathalli	Croma, Brigade Road	Reliance Digital, Residency Road	Pai, Indiranagar	Giriyas, Marathalli	Flipkart
Explanation about products	Good-Average I mainly talked to them regarding TV. Their explanation was satisfactory at times, but they didn't have options to show performance of TV using various kinds of inputs - analog cable, digital, HD etc.	Good-Average Depending on the support person your experience can vastly vary. Some people mislead you or provide grossly incorrect information, you need to be alert and use your common sense and judgment.	Average	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say
Availability of displayed item	Can't Say	Average We selected a washing machine and TV after good amount of analysis. But when we decided to place the order, we got to know that the item was not available. By that time we were tired of shopping and ended up selecting another product within few min without proper research! This proved to be a bad shopping experience.	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say
Evaluation Parameter / Shopping Places	Home Town, Marathalli	Croma, Brigade Road	Reliance Digital, Residency Road	Pai, Indiranagar	Giriyas, Marathalli	Flipkart
Billing speed	Can't Say	Very Bad Can you believe that it took almost 45 minutes to get the bill after swiping the card?!! It was pathetic and frustrating. Can you believe that they didn't have Domlur as the area in their dropdown? After tremendous research they found that Domlur is Dommasandra and were able to complete our bill. Entering discounts was another major task they had, thus extending the delay.	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say
Credit Billing Available?	Can't Say	Very Bad They expect entire payment at one shot and they assume that you know that very well. You will be taken by surprise at the very end and will stand wondering what to do. How many cards (even debit cards) can swipe huge amounts in India? They don't even bother to give alternate suggestions and look at you with a blank face. In addition they try to argue that its same everywhere - in ezone, Reliance Digital etc. and insist that Giriyas, Pai etc. are different 'kind' of shops (i.e. inferior). We finally had to make alternate arrangements ourselves and left with bad taste.	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say
Delivery	Can't Say	Very Good Most items came within 18 hours of placing the order.	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say
Evaluation Parameter / Shopping Places	Home Town, Marathalli	Croma, Brigade Road	Reliance Digital, Residency Road	Pai, Indiranagar	Giriyas, Marathalli	Flipkart
Installation	Can't Say	Very Bad Store folks didn't inform technicians for almost 2 days about installation and customer address. Moreover, they gave wrong customer address (which the billing person had temporarily entered when he couldn't find Domlur). This further delayed the installation process leaving us furious and frustrated. Contacting Croma folks didn't help much. They already got full payment, why would they worry now? Isn't it?	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say	Can't Say
Verdict	Can't Say This was the first shop to visit, and I got some basic information. I just didn't get a chance to visit again and double check things here as I had finalized my deal in Croma. So, can't really give a verdict.	BIG NO Maybe everyone might not have bad experience, but after all that I went through I am definitely going to try some other store/website for my shopping before I even go back to this store.	May be worth trying, why not? One attraction they were trying to highlight was that if I purchase it from them, their own technicians will come and install everything together and I don't have to wait for separate people from separate companies to come over and install things at home. After Croma experience, this does sound quite attractive to me. Who knows? With hard bargaining they might offer quite good prices as well.	NO If you feel too lucky maybe you can try to win prizes they offer, but after paying slightly higher prices for the products :-) To be frank can't really comment on overall shopping experience because I rejected this shop after seeing higher prices itself.	NO I don't know what their strategy is. Who would want to buy from here where they don't even display price properly?	May be worth trying, why not? Shopping experience can vary a lot when we consider various kinds of products. Buying books, furniture, electronics, home appliances - all are different ball games. Not sure how good is the overall experience with Flipkart when you buy electronics and home appliance that needs installation and support.