My Jumia Experience

I had been having issues with my camera for a while, after those 300 shots indicated on the battery pack, it would die on me. I had to miss out on other awesome photo ops or take pictures sparingly missing out the randomness I love capturing most. I start looking for an alternative and as you know me, I am always looking out for the best bargain. So one day those pop ads with a crazy discount pop on my screen and I decide to try it.

I find myself a replacement battery that would cost be KES 300 less than in the shops, ‘woohoo o/’, I add to my cart and see a selfie stick which was on offer yeah yeah I’m impulsive some times and I also add it to my cart.

Collection

The order was completed fairly fast and in three days I am told I can go collect my items. I try the selfie stick before I leave and I find out it is incompatible with my phone, but it can work with a Samsung and Sony, I return it and I get a refund. I am left wondering, why doesn’t the supplier ensure they list all the phones compatible with their product to save buyers the agony of returning it? Later when I get home, I try out the new replacement battery and it refuses to power up the camera, I charge it and the charging lights starts blinking, since I have heard of how Li-Ion batteries are prone to exploding I decide no taking chances.

Return

The following day I return it to the Jumia guys, and I am asked whether I would like a refund or a replacement. I ask for a replacement. I am told it would take two days and I would be get a working replacement.

The disarray

After three days I call the customer care guys and tell them of my predicament, they tell me the battery had not been logged as a returned item, but they had done so in the system, I needed to wait for a day and I would get my replacement.

This one early morning I receive a call from Jumia and as I was thinking “finally” the lady on the other side begins telling me how it is policy that batteries are not covered under the warranty and they cannot be returned. I tell her that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, because if I were buying in in say a supermarket I would have carried my camera and if it is not working I return, it wouldn’t be forced on me. She says she understands oh but this is policy, I am now getting angry but since I understand she is probably following “instructions from above and can’t make a decision on the matter” I ask to speak to someone who is in charge. She says she cannot do that but will talk to her boss and get back to me at the end of the day. The getting back never really happened.

I make several other calls actually around five and nothing much seemed to be happening. I completely change my mind from a replacement to a refund, I would find somewhere else to get the battery. I go to their offices and I was spoiling for a fight, I’d cause drama even if security has to be called no way I’m letting my money go, I mean I work darned hard, for it someone cannot used a technicality hidden in terms and conditions/ policy which are not even communicated to the buyer to take from you what is not rightfully theirs no?

Customer care

The guy at the front desk tells me he has been waiting for feedback and goes to call someone from customer care who could help. This lady comes and asks what happened, I tell her and she tells me that they had returned the battery to the warehouse it had been tested and had been found to be faulty. I ask her then why the delays with my refund? Apparently I am told that the guys at the warehouse were claiming that the battery was deformed and not in its original state. But she had asked if when I returned it was okay and she was told it was so she would ask the finance guys to return my money. I would get it in the evening, she seems to have the questions I would have asked prepared and with ready answers. I leave with an assurance things would be ok, though still hesitant…

I did get my refund, not that evening though the following day.

My verdict

Jumia needs to work on some areas to avoid run-ins with customers. Simple things like showing what product works with what. Ensuring that they have tested all their products before dispatch, I mean even cars are recalled for faulty brakes or airbags. You cannot pull a ‘goods once sold are not returnable’ and you are selling faulty products unless you want to be a con/ unethical business. If you do not want to open and test it yourself (unsealed products may raise another problem with customers) ensure you have a way customers can test the product in your presence before they carry it.

The customer care is pretty organized and give good lip service like a majority of customer cares around here. If what they say was what gets done without my physical presence being needed they would be even better.

Will I buy anything from Jumia? I had taken a leap of faith, after a couple of people telling me Jumia was not reliable. Now, I have my own experience and business being mostly about trust, I think Jumia has used up the quota of trust I had allocated it, especially since it was my first purchase…

Have you done any online transactions here in Kenya or elsewhere? How was your experience?

 

Free shipping or is it?

In 2013 I had been trying to buy a replacement battery for an iPod I wanted to sell. I hardly listened to it anymore so why keep up things you don’t use right? Apparently all apple authorised dealers do not deal with spares for iPods this led me to go and start looking at alternative places to get my battery. Online stores. Several of the online stores with good reputation did not ship it to Kenya, this led me to searching alternative stores then I landed on DX.com which claimed it shipped orders to Kenya within 14 days. After three months of waiting I decided that I had been conned there is the time allowance when you have to decide to call a debt bad yes?
I was expecting something yesterday in my mail box and was pretty excited. I open my mail box and after sifting through a bunch of bills from previous owners of the box I find a brown padded envelope, you know those they mail things going long distances in? Surely what I expected was way bigger. On close scrutiny I notice it was mailed December 2013! It took a complete 1 year and 2 months! As I checked my merchandise inside it hit me, I had opted for free shipping. Well free is darned expensive, because I’m sure my iPod now has lost half of its value with things like PonoPlayer entering the market.
Well I learned my lesson, next time I’m clicking that free shipping radio button before checking out my cart I will be ready for a harrowing wait, and with patience not being one of my virtues I hardly see that happening… Don’t start preaching to me about the “we want it here and now” of the gen Y. That is just the way things are…

Free shipping? Beware!

Via WordPress android app

 

Shopping online part two

Sometimes this year I had some bad experience with dx.com where I bought a replacement battery for my iPod but never got to see it. After numerous complaints and automated responses I finally gave up. I was bummed, but I was willing still to try out other sites and see how it would go. I am not a gambler, but I think my archetype would be that of a connector. If I discover something good I am that one person who will refer their friends, I am not mean with information. So sometimes this leads me to try risky stuff at times, the things you start by saying “I’ll try this one time and one time only”. Case in point would be last week when I went to my barber and I was convinced to exfoliate, the experience was more of someone sandpapering my face, no way I’m recommending that hehe. Okay let me stop digressing. I recently tried shopping online again, I found myself on eBay since all the other stores do not ship to Kenya.

Enter eBay

I got myself an affordable phone and I wanted a screen protector for it. Those are cheap phone problems, you have to find a way to protect your screen from scratches. After many trips around town looking for the right fit I could not find any shop which had screen protectors for Lenovo. This made me go online to look for a solution.  I found this tempered glass I really loved, tempered glass is better than the plastic film screen protectors they sell, plus the price was basically the same. First I went to my good old amazon.com, I add it to my cart but on checking out I find that it cannot be shipped. That sends me to square one again. I go to eBay and find several merchants in China selling the tempered glass I wanted. I look for the one with the most stars for delivering and order my screen protector glass. They said it would take two to three weeks I would pass by the post office to check if my consignment has arrived. Finally after four weeks I found it tucked in my box. I was so excited I nearly jumped… I guess not all the merchants in China are shady after all 🙂

Ps. Did I mention that even the phone was bought online? Maybe I am a gambler after all, a tiny weeny little bit. Which means I have warranty from India not Kenya, but that comes with risk ey?

My colleague bought a phone on Jumia and got it delivered in a day! Maybe that is my next stop… watch this space.

 

Shopping Online

Slowly we are becoming a virtual world, things are slowly moving from the age-old brick and mortar to digitized versions. Being as curious as I am with trying out new things I have some experience buying stuff online. Some of it good and some bad;

Rupu

My first online purchase was through rupu, they had this amazing offer for some therapy by body contour. I decided to try it out and see what it is they had to offer. I bought the offer via Mpesa and I got an e receipt which I was to redeem at Body Contour. On the D date I went to Body Contour and surprisingly I got into the therapy (don’t ask me what therapy it was, I enjoyed myself though except for the steam bath, I hear such heat is bad for men who are still planning on having kids…)session straight away.

Rupu I must say really increase my confidence in purchasing stuff online, it set a good precedence.

Amazon

This must be the biggest online store for books, you now know where I am going with this. There was this time I was commuting long distances to work and I decided what better way to utilize those 3 hours daily than through reading. I read reviews about e readers and settled on the kindle e ink display reader. The day of purchase I ensured I had some funds in my account (living hand to mouth means the account sometimes has 0 balance, so quit looking surprised), When put my Coop Bank visa card number, they charged 89 shillings instead of dollars! Several trials later and failed attempts to link it with my PayPal account I called it quit. I ask a friend if they may have dollars in their PayPal account (people are making money online, I think am the only one who never learned the ropes!) and they say they had just withdrawn everything.  My cousin tells me they have a prepaid KCB visa card which I can use if I want, and I load it and voila the transaction is successful, you should have seen the relief on my face. After I purchased my Kindle I think it took three weeks to ship using USPS (these guys are very reliable from my subsequent purchases). USPS provide a tracking number which helps know the movement of your package and reduce the time you spent going to check your post office box. What I had overlooked is that it had to go through customs, it came at a time when I was away and a friend was to pick it up for me. They were told they had to pay custom duty which was quite exorbitant (almost half the damn thing!). Anyway I got my kindle in one piece and I was quite excited that I forgot about all that. My commute was really made interesting, I was doing 500 pages a week, that is four books a months, let me brag, okay am done!

NationHela

When Nation and DTB launched this card they mentioned that it could be linked with PayPal, that basically sold it to me. After the hustle I had gone through making payment with Visa, NationHela was Godsend. In my subsequent purchases I usually load the card and purchase via PayPal and has served me well. Their customer care is superb, there is always a guy on the other end when I call to have my password reset (yes I forget it quite often) or have him tell me my balance, however of late they cannot do that. I find it odd they never tell you your balance amount once you top up the card, you know like the way Mpesa does it, telling you your new balance.

Xfountainpens

I was just browsing stuff, when I came across this cigar barrel fountain pen. I loved it and two weeks later I had it in my mailbox.

Deal extreme

I bought a replacement battery for my iPod last year from these guys, they had a sweet deal with free shipping to Kenya. Well to date I am yet to see any package in my mailbox. They customer service is automated and a bit crappy. After reading reviews on the internet it seems several people have lost packages after buying products from DX.com. I was to expect my package on 28^th December 2013 from my inquiry with one of the online robots but that has kept on changing. They also don’t provide tracking for goods below a certain value ($12 I think), also it being based in China they do not have strict laws to protect consumers therefore you can get screwed, which I think I did.

Olx

After I moved into my new house last year, I did not have much in terms of furniture and having a laptop sit on my laps for long hours was burning my thighs, I also hear that the heat is bad for sperm production. This set me out to find a nice laptop table, after window shopping everywhere(read supermarkets) without finding anything to suit my needs I went online and started searching. I came across this portable and foldable laptop table which I instantly liked, I could then work from the bed comfortably. I called the guy who was selling the item and we agreed to meet in a public place, just incase, this is Nairobi you know, sure enough the laptop table was as he had described and I bought it. It has been quite handy since then especially due to its portability.

N-soko deals

These guys had these amazing offers on blu-ray home theaters with tall boy speakers that really got me interested. I decided to test they efficiency before getting myself screwed again (refer to deals extreme above). I booked something on offer too but of a lesser value. I bought the item later only to realize they do not have the items with them and their prices are not always updated. Now Nsoko deals works this way:

• You place an order;
• Nsoko deals receives the order and they send you a booking fee;
• You pay the booking fee;
• Nsoko deals contact a merchant who delivers the product to their offices;
• You are given an option to have it delivered or go to pick it from their offices; and
• You pay the balance when you get your item.

It took them one week to liaise with the vendor to get what I had ordered and at some point the guys at Nsoko deals confused me with the vendor and called me, that is how I got to know they had some loopholes in their Just In Time(JIT) system (I can’t explain what JIT at the moment but you can Google if it is jargon to you). When I got my product the balance I was told to pay was more than the price indicated on the website, after complaining about it and the IT guys going through their system they admit they hadn’t updated their pricing, another loophole. And with that I quit any thought of buying a home theater from Nsoko deals

And that is how my experience has been shopping online, both good and bad. How about you?

 

Shopping Online in Kenya

Slowly we are becoming a virtual world, things are slowly moving from the age-old brick and mortar to digitized versions. Being as curious as I am with trying out new things I have some experience buying stuff online. Some of it good and some bad;

Rupu

My first online purchase was through rupu, they had this amazing offer for some therapy by body contour. I decided to try it out and see what it is they had to offer. I bought the offer via Mpesa and I got an e receipt which I was to redeem at Body Contour. On the D date I went to Body Contour and surprisingly I got into the therapy (don’t ask me what therapy it was, I enjoyed myself though except for the steam bath, I hear such heat is bad for men who are still planning on having kids…)session straight away.

Rupu I must say really increase my confidence in purchasing stuff online, it set a good precedence.

Amazon

This must be the biggest online store for books, you now know where I am going with this. There was this time I was commuting long distances to work and I decided what better way to utilize those 3 hours daily than through reading. I read reviews about e readers and settled on the kindle e ink display reader. The day of purchase I ensured I had some funds in my account (living hand to mouth means the account sometimes has 0 balance, so quit looking surprised), When put my Coop Bank visa card number, they charged 89 shillings instead of dollars! Several trials later and failed attempts to link it with my PayPal account I called it quit. I ask a friend if they may have dollars in their PayPal account (people are making money online, I think am the only one who never learned the ropes!) and they say they had just withdrawn everything.  My cousin tells me they have a prepaid KCB visa card which I can use if I want, and I load it and voila the transaction is successful, you should have seen the relief on my face. After I purchased my Kindle I think it took three weeks to ship using USPS (these guys are very reliable from my subsequent purchases). USPS provide a tracking number which helps know the movement of your package and reduce the time you spent going to check your post office box. What I had overlooked is that it had to go through customs, it came at a time when I was away and a friend was to pick it up for me. They were told they had to pay custom duty which was quite exorbitant (almost half the damn thing!). Anyway I got my kindle in one piece and I was quite excited that I forgot about all that. My commute was really made interesting, I was doing 500 pages a week, that is four books a months, let me brag, okay am done!

NationHela

When Nation and DTB launched this card they mentioned that it could be linked with PayPal, that basically sold it to me. After the hustle I had gone through making payment with Visa, NationHela was Godsend. In my subsequent purchases I usually load the card and purchase via PayPal and has served me well. Their customer care is superb, there is always a guy on the other end when I call to have my password reset (yes I forget it quite often) or have him tell me my balance, however of late they cannot do that. I find it odd they never tell you your balance amount once you top up the card, you know like the way Mpesa does it, telling you your new balance.

Xfountainpens

I was just browsing stuff, when I came across this cigar barrel fountain pen. I loved it and two weeks later I had it in my mailbox.

Deal extreme

I bought a replacement battery for my iPod last year from these guys, they had a sweet deal with free shipping to Kenya. Well to date I am yet to see any package in my mailbox. They customer service is automated and a bit crappy. After reading reviews on the internet it seems several people have lost packages after buying products from DX.com. I was to expect my package on 28^th December 2013 from my inquiry with one of the online robots but that has kept on changing. They also don’t provide tracking for goods below a certain value ($12 I think), also it being based in China they do not have strict laws to protect consumers therefore you can get screwed, which I think I did.

Olx

After I moved into my new house last year, I did not have much in terms of furniture and having a laptop sit on my laps for long hours was burning my thighs, I also hear that the heat is bad for sperm production. This set me out to find a nice laptop table, after window shopping everywhere(read supermarkets) without finding anything to suit my needs I went online and started searching. I came across this portable and foldable laptop table which I instantly liked, I could then work from the bed comfortably. I called the guy who was selling the item and we agreed to meet in a public place, just incase, this is Nairobi you know, sure enough the laptop table was as he had described and I bought it. It has been quite handy since then especially due to its portability.

N-soko deals

These guys had these amazing offers on blu-ray home theaters with tall boy speakers that really got me interested. I decided to test they efficiency before getting myself screwed again (refer to deals extreme above). I booked something on offer too but of a lesser value. I bought the item later only to realize they do not have the items with them and their prices are not always updated. Now Nsoko deals works this way:

• You place an order;
• Nsoko deals receives the order and they send you a booking fee;
• You pay the booking fee;
• Nsoko deals contact a merchant who delivers the product to their offices;
• You are given an option to have it delivered or go to pick it from their offices; and
• You pay the balance when you get your item.

It took them one week to liaise with the vendor to get what I had ordered and at some point the guys at Nsoko deals confused me with the vendor and called me, that is how I got to know they had some loopholes in their Just In Time(JIT) system (I can’t explain what JIT at the moment but you can Google if it is jargon to you). When I got my product the balance I was told to pay was more than the price indicated on the website, after complaining about it and the IT guys going through their system they admit they hadn’t updated their pricing, another loophole. And with that I quit any thought of buying a home theater from Nsoko deals

And that is how my experience has been shopping online in Kenya, both good and bad. How about you?