Flipkart Denies Reports Of Change In Return Policy; Says Its Unchanged Since April 2016

Earlier today a report by a ET claimed that Flipkart has reportedly tightened the return policy for several popular items sold on its platform.

The report states that Flipkart “No longer offers refunds on popular products such as mobile accessories, personal care appliances, computer and camera accessories, office equipment, and game and smart wearables, apart from big-ticket items such as mobile phones, large appliances and furniture.”

However as per Inc42’s interaction with Flipkart, the changes have already been in place for over a year now.

The mail sent by Flipkart, confirming their policy reveals the same information as the one present on its Returns Policy page. However, Google search reveals a different story altogether.

Moments after this screenshot was taken the page seems to have been updated as one cannot see the text shown in the screenshot “Refunds are not offered. All sales are final.”

As per a company statement, “Flipkart’s returns policy is extremely customer-friendly and has been fine-tuned over the years. Our customers can do most of the tasks associated with requesting for a refund, directly on the website. There has been no change in Flipkart’s returns policy in over a year. The last time modifications were made to the policy was in April 2016 when the return window was reduced to 10 days from 30 days — a move that was communicated extensively to our customers and sellers at that time.”

Talking about the Flipkart return and refund policy the statement specified, “Of the 1,800 product categories, customers can ask for refunds on 1150 using the self-service option.”

The statement also mentioned that the ecommerce biggie processes about “25,000 refunds every day, a majority of which come through the website.” Out of these claims, 60% of the refunds are processed instantly.

Ranjith Boyanapalli, the Head of Customer Shopping Experience at Flipkart, in an interaction with Inc42 stated, “In most cases (specifically electronics), the products may have perceived defects and not actual defects. Our first step is to put the complainant in contact with the technicians on call. If the query is not rectified via call, we have a provision of sending a trained technician to the complainant’s house to rectify the issue.  This may take 24-48 hours.”

He also said that mobiles, electronic appliance and fashion apparel are a big part of Flipkart’s revenue.

Currently, the 10-day return/refund policy is applicable on watches, lingerie (top-wear), footwear accessories, travel accessories, beauty and grooming accessories, sport & fitness equipment, other precious jewellery, baby toy,s and books in the Lifestyle category.

Apart from this, the policy is also applicable for mobiles, tablets, laptops, speakers, desktops, monitors, cameras, camera lenses, headsets, other musical instruments, video games, air cooler, etc. among others.

In June 2016, Inc42 had reported about the said change in policy. As per the new policy, the time limit for exchanging a product on the Flipkart platform was 10 days. Earlier, the return was allowed within 30 days on most top-selling products. At that time, the company had also increased the commission charged to the sellers on the platform and had discontinued the Zero+ Commission Policy.

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