Top 10 Worst Shopping Websites in India in 2022
Digitalization has paved its way in India. People of recent times are strongly dependent on the internet for their basic amenities.
From booking essential daily commodities to paying electricity bills, from ordering foods to buying clothes and accessories in a huge bargain, the internet has become an integral part of our lives.
Taking this progress in their favor, many companies have come with different e-commerce platforms.
Along with that, they have laid down various eye-catching deals so that the customers can not miss out on the offers and end up shopping from their websites.
When one buys from an online shopping application, the quality of the goods becomes an important topic of concern.
In the case of clothes, people often prefer commodities that are fashionable and made of good fabric.
In the case of electronics, the customers incline to the warranty offered on such goods and customer ratings.
While many shopping websites were able to pass the quality tests, other platforms did not stand much to people’s expectations.
Receiving delayed deliveries, quality of clothing or electronics not being up to the mark as promised by the website, and difficulty in returns and refunds make a shopping application a big turn-off for the customers.
Apart from that, selling duplicate copies of commodities belonging to a reputable brand makes the shopping website less preferable than the other competitive websites in the market.
“A friend in need is a friend indeed.” To prove the phrase right, I will be sharing a list of the worst shopping websites in India that one should refrain from purchasing.
Top 10 Worst Shopping Websites in India:
1. Jabong :
Jabong was an online e-commerce platform founded by Praveen Sinha, Lakshmi Potluri, Arun Chandra Mohan, and Manu Kumar Jain. The company was acquired by Flipkart in July 2016 at a worth of 70 million US Dollars.
According to the analysis made in 2015, the data found that Jabong was one of the worst-performing shopping apps compared to the lifestyle e-commerce platform Lazada and Linia.
It has been observed that the company was keeping behind in terms of net revenue growth and the actual revenue booked by the company.
In addition to being the worst shopping website due to its lack of revenues, it was evident that Jabong had the worst customer service. People found constraints in terms of returns and exchanges.
Delayed pickups of exchanges made it cumbersome for the customers to rely on the shopping app.
Apart from that, it was observed that the quality of the products sold by the e-commerce platform was not up to the mark and seemed to be overpriced.
The only good thing about the application is that it is no longer operational.
2. Snapdeal:
Snapdeal is one of the e-commerce platforms that offer great discounts on their products that people can not miss out on checking their website.
But, can the quality of the products match up with the discounts offered on such products?
Snapdeal is an Indian shopping website, which was founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in the year 2010. The company has used the face of Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh for its campaign.
But, despite using the big celebrities to promote the brand’s logo, Snapdeal could not make much of a more significant impact.
This is because the e-commerce platform gives less attention to quality, and it lacks a unique value proposition.
In such a situation, when competition is fierce in the market, Snapdeal lost to its biggest competitor Flipkart, and the market share fell from one-fourth in September 2015 to 4% in March 2017.
To cope with the falling market shares, the company has tried to include categories such as mobiles, electronics, and fashion that dominate the e-commerce industry.
Despite that, the shopping website could not make a huge impact. Snapdeal could not land on major partnerships as most of the popular mobile brands were taken by its biggest competitor, Amazon, and Flipkart.
Besides that, the customers have complained that the shopping application had problems delivering the products during the given time frame mentioned in the order status.
Selling commodities that are not up to the mark and that does not even bear an option of returns made the customer lose their trust in Snapdeal.
The customers have also faced issues with refunds calling out their customer service as worst in the world.
In such a scenario when the competition is getting severe for online platforms, who will give a second thought purchasing from Snapdeal?
3. Yepme:
Yepme is also an online shopping brand in India that is based in Gurugram, Haryana, India. The website was launched in 2011 and offered an extensive collection of apparel ranging from clothes to accessories.
Despite having its website, Yepme also sells its collection in Myntra.
The firm set up four offline stores based in Gurugram, Haryana.
However, they were shut down because of a lack of profitability. In addition, the company has resorted to the concept of an online store and made a cost-cutting process by firing its officials.
Yepme as a brand is the worst because of ethical reasons. Apart from cheating on the customers, the brand has deceived its officials by not paying their salaries on time.
It is evident because a group of Yep Me employees filed complaints in the Labour Commission regarding unpaid salaries. They have moreover stated that the company put mental pressure on its officials to resign from their position.
In a world where we talk about equality and mental peace, can one still give Yep Me a second chance after such atrocities to its employees?
In addition, the customers have also complained that the website sells low-quality goods compared to the price they charge for the same.
4. ShopClues:
While scrolling through the shopping website one may question “ How come to ShopClues sell goods at such low prices?”. But, the reason is mainly the fact that they sell low-quality products that do not even have a warranty provided. Most of their products are fake.
The deals on their commodities may seem attractive but trust me on the fact that the deals are not worth spending a penny for.
ShopClues is an Indian-based company that provides a marketing platform connecting the buyers, and sellers in India. The company provides services in 30,000 cities in India.
Despite the fact that ShopClues has a huge base of the biggest number of merchants, the e-commerce platform could not make its name in the market.
As an additional fact, the shopping platform was banned by the Delhi High Court for breaching its earliest products and still continuing the sale of Rayban products.
The site has also received a large number of complaints both from customers, and even other businesses stating that their products on the website are fake.
5. AliExpress:
AliExpress is an online shopping platform that is based in China. The shopping website was launched in the year 2010 and offers a wide range of products to international buyers at a very cost-effective price.
The website is eye-catching in a way that it attracts most female customers because of the fashionable clothing, and accessories inspired by the Chinese fashion industry. Moreover, the prices they charge for the clothing make you want to buy all the clothes for yourself.
But, not to get deceived by such extraordinary deals, they sell awful products. Thus, they have a terrible reputation outside China.
Ordering from the website tests a person’s patience because at first, the order takes a long time to arrive. Apart from that, the goods often come out to be defective or the quality is degrading.
Returning goods top up to the list of troubles as their returning policy is troublesome.
Shopping from AliExpress on a small scale does not seem to be much feasible in a broad way because the tax paid on the goods is quite high.
6. Street Style Store:
All the shopping sprees and hauls we come across on YouTube often talk about the affordable fashion range in Sarojini Nagar and Janpath Nagar i.e. in a nutshell Delhi.
For the people who are away from Delhi, visiting the place and getting their hands on street shopping seems a far-fetched dream. This is where Street Style Store comes to the rescue.
Street Style Store is an online e-commerce platform that deals in clothing apparel for her. It was co-founded by Vishal Puri.
The store also operates offline with two of its stores set up in Delhi and Assam.
The online store has some exciting deals that can not be escaped from. They offer deals on shoes to clothes.
But, when we talk about the quality, it puts a big question mark.
The clothes are decently fitted but the fabric quality is a bad choice. In addition, the shoes are of questionable quality too. But, the site does not compromise on fashion.
The other shortcomings of this website are that the goods take a long time to deliver, and not many apparel options are present for him.
If you are someone who puts quality over design, Street Style Store is a big NO for you.
7. Shein:
This is one of the controversial websites being included in the list. Shein does not compromise on the quality and the design of the clothing, but the company has been included in the list of top shopping websites in India because of ethical reasons.
Shein is an online fast-fashion retailer that is based in China. The shopping platform was founded by Chris Xu in Nanjing, China in 2008.
The clothing brand was banned in the country in 2020 as the clothing brand was found to be detrimental with regard to the nation’s security.
But, recently the clothing brand was relaunched on Amazon.
Clothes from Shein should be banned because the brand focuses on the fast-fashion concept. The concept is nothing to be blamed on, but their approach is at fault.
Shein focuses on cutting the cost price of the merchandise by using synthetic textiles like nylon, and polyester. Clothes made from such materials do not decay, causing real harm to our environment.
To worsen the situation, Shein has been accused of stealing ideas of clothing from freelancer designers without giving them their much-deserved credit.
Now, the question lies on you “Would you purchase from a brand with such red flags?”
8. eBay:
As the name suggests, this app should definitely be kept at the bay from purchasing any kind of goods. The shopping platform made its entry into the Indian market in 2005.
The website was able to solve one of the biggest problems of the sellers by providing them an opportunity to sell their goods in the market without any capital. However, the idea did not work well for the website.
One of the major problems was that the auction mechanism was troublesome and it took many days to materialize. Because of the primitive payment mechanism, it lacked the attention of the interested sellers.
As for the goods, many customers have opened up about the scams they faced on eBay. Issues between the sellers and buyers are also common.
The fact that eBay provides a platform for the sellers to directly communicate with the buyers has been one of the major reasons for the scam.
Apart from that eBay could not leave a mark on its quality and therefore, was eliminated from the race.
9. Flipkart:
Flipkart has deteriorated its quality in recent years. Customers have complained about the quality issues. According to various sources, many buyers have complained that the products they have received had defects, and no action was taken by the customer service.
Flipkart has also been alleged for selling duplicates of branded products.
This has made Flipkart in the top 10 worst shopping websites in India.
10. Amazon:
Amazon has been criticized immensely as it was listed as one of the tax offenders, and for its behavior towards the customers and the staff.
According to various sources, it has been revealed that Amazon does not pay the workers their salaries regularly in the pandemic. This is despite the website making a huge amount of profits in the same year.
Amazon also has a record of selling unsafe products to customers. The electronics purchased from Amazon were reported to catch fire and explode.
Are not these reasons enough to make Amazon one of the worst shopping sites in India?
Verdict:
With the severe competition of e-commerce platforms in the market, the companies should ensure the proper delivery of goods, improved quality of commodities, and accessible customer services.
One must carefully go through the reviews to purchase goods so that they can get an idea of the quality.
For example: when you purchase Flipkart, try to select products from the F-assured section. This ensures that the products have undergone numerous security checks.
I hope the article helps you make a choice and good luck with your next shopping endeavor.
Edited and proofread by Ashlyn
