Discussion Are offline smartphone sellers ripping off naive customers?

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iDJ

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I have come across stupidity one on one today. It was my cousin sister's birthday. I promised her a new phone. She specifically wanted a Realme phone. I wanted to wait for couple of days and get a good deal. She didn't have patience. I ended up giving her the money. I came to know she bought a Vivo phone. I was excited because Vivo phones have good cameras. Today I went to see. Guess what happened. She bought a Vivo Y21s which is costing ₹9990 on Amazon for ₹13,999. Exactly the mrp from a offline retailer. I am wondering whether this is a stupidity of not researching before buying or offline sellers ripping off customers by being unethical.

How has your experience been with offline sellers?
 
It's not exactly ripping off. It's just that the process to sell offline involves a lot of people and so much commission for each step. So generally at the final store, most of them don't have the luxury of selling with huge discounts like online. Online purchase is always cheaper than offline. The only argument in support of offline store is the real world experience. By going to store which have real physical phones like Reliance digital or Apple store, you can use the phone before buying it. That is not the case with online. You will buy only by looking at specs. So if you know all the stuff about the phone like camera quality, UI etc, you should definitely go for online purchase.
 
It's not exactly ripping off. It's just that the process to sell offline involves a lot of people and so much commission for each step. So generally at the final store, most of them don't have the luxury of selling with huge discounts like online. Online purchase is always cheaper than offline. The only argument in support of offline store is the real world experience. By going to store which have real physical phones like Reliance digital or Apple store, you can use the phone before buying it. That is not the case with online. You will buy only by looking at specs. So if you know all the stuff about the phone like camera quality, UI etc, you should definitely go for online purchase.
Still ₹4000 extra is too much seeing that online seller is also selling with profit along with shipping cost.
 
If she specifically wanted a Realme phone, then why did she get a Vivo phone? Realme phones are available in Offline stores at almost similar price as Online.

Can't completely blame her tho. The people at offline stores are really good at brainwashing.

I feel really sad for people who buy from offline stores. I have been telling all my relatives to not buy phones from offline store and get it from Flipkart or Amazon instead, and it will be delivered to their doorstep. But they still end up spending ₹20k+ on some Oppo F Series, Vivo V Series phone with Helio P69 or G69 or some Samsung A Series phone. When they could've gotten a much better phone at less than ₹15k.

Some people still have the mindset that Online shopping is unsafe. They fear that the delivery guy might run away with their smartphone. 😝
 
If she specifically wanted a Realme phone, then why did she get a Vivo phone? Realme phones are available in Offline stores at almost similar price as Online.

Can't completely blame her tho. The people at offline stores are really good at brainwashing.

I feel really sad for people who buy from offline stores. I have been telling all my relatives to not buy phones from offline store and get it from Flipkart or Amazon instead, and it will be delivered to their doorstep. But they still end up spending ₹20k+ on some Oppo F Series, Vivo V Series phone with Helio P69 or G69 or some Samsung A Series phone. When they could've gotten a much better phone at less than ₹15k.

Some people still have the mindset that Online shopping is unsafe. They fear that the delivery guy might run away with their smartphone. 😝
Because I explained to her about Vivo phones having good cameras.

Offline is just rip off man. Try buying anything on EMI. They charge over the MRP. Recently my neighbour got some Vivo phone which has 2 GB ram costing 15k.

Delivery guy running away with new phones would be hilarious. 😂
 
I came to know about it today when I was trying to find about the pricing of offline models. It's just ridiculous.
Official Mi Stores themselves purchase several phones during Flash Sales (probably using extensions) and sell it at ₹1,500-₹2500 above the price. My cousin had this experience while purchasing Redmi Note 9. It's crazy.
 
Official Mi Stores themselves purchase several phones during Flash Sales (probably using extensions) and sell it at ₹1,500-₹2500 above the price. My cousin had this experience while purchasing Redmi Note 9. It's crazy.
Mi actually has offline variants of some models which cost more than online model. But hoarding flash sale products and reselling is straight up illegal not even unethical as products are sold for one's personal use only.
 
But hoarding flash sale products and reselling is straight up illegal not unethical as products are sold for one's personal use only.
It's more like a side-business for them. When someone goes to the store asking for a phone, they say that they don't have it, but they take your phone number. Then they Whatsapp you the complete list with all colour & Storage variants with changed price. And they tell you a specific time (usually early morning) to come & take the phone. It's like you are not buying it from the store, but from the person instead.
 
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