So here I am again.
A week after writing my previous two articles on logistical operations at
Amazon India.
The first was on my embarrassing experience with Amazon India’s logistics
arrangements with its ‘subscribe and save’ category.
The second one was on how no one from Amazon, Amazon India and Jeff Bezos
responded to my articles even if I tagged them on Twitter and posted the same
on Amazon’s Facebook extensions.
You can find those articles on the hyperlinked words above.
The second article I had written on May 29. So its eight days to that
development now and no response so far has come from Amazon.
Meanwhile, I have had a similar experience with Snapdeal to add to the
developing contours of my writings on this subject.
And irrespective of whether I get response or not, I would again tag
Amazon (and this time Snapdeal also) and their bosses to see if they respond
now.
Additionally, I am sending a questionnaire to some professors of Supply
Chain Management to understand the logic behind this mode of delivery on the
most important aspect of any E-commerce business – its logistics operations.
To understand how duplication (and thus wastage) of resources (including
manpower hours) is justified by sending multiple items of a same order on
different days! It has been like - one order, one day - at a time. Whenever it
has been like more than two products were delivered on a same day, these were
by different people.
The same routine is being repeated even this month - that I wrote and
complained about last month.
There has been no change.
To make my points more reflective, I tried this today - I measured size
of the cartons and the products they carried. To put my point here, I am
attaching a collage photograph of the products delivered from Amazon and
Snapdeal.
What is interesting here that Amazon delivered two products of similar dimensions
- Colin and Lifebuoy Handwash, that you can see in the photograph - in
different cartons. The box size was 38*32 cms. The products dimensions were
28*15 cms and 28*9 cms. So, both products should have been delivered in the
same carton. That would have saved a box - with all its packaging material, the
inventory space that the raw material for it took and the cost it incurred.
Imagine the scale of wastage if the same is repeated with millions of
products!
Similar experience was there in store by Snapdeal.
I had placed an order for three items - three different products - but
all were from the 'food items' category. All three were delivered on different
dates. One of these orders was for three bottles of jam - strawberry, mango and
berry. The three jam bottles of same dimension were packed in different boxes.
One of these boxes had its bottle broken and its content was spilled all over.
I placed a return order immediately but there has been no update on it and its
three days now.
At least Amazon is miles ahead here. The 'return experience' has been
overwhelmingly good with Amazon India (so far).