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Comment by ahk | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, that's just wrong. Delivery systems in India are pretty good in most cities and online stores are a dime a dozen (nothing as dominant as Amazon however). There are even sites which deliver direct from the US (pretty much everything available there). Online payment systems are actually more advanced than in the US.

The real reason is due to a penny-pincher mentality. Even young highly educated people with well paying jobs tend to forego internet connectivity at home and scrounge about in internet cafés or libraries. The value and productivity gains of access is completely discounted. Laptops are still considered luxury items for the elite. Folks here consider actually paying for shipping to be stupid and will spend entire an afternoon walking about in the sun shopping for second-hand books at road-side stalls etc in lieu of forking out hard earned cash just for convenience.

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Interesting. The guy I work with lives/works in Pune but seemed quite familiar with Mumbai.

Do you order stuff online? If so, does it arrive as expected? What are shipping charges like for, say, a 5000 rupee (~ $100?) item weighing 1 kg? Is insurance included? I specified that price point because I think it's the maximum insurance payout included in UPS's basic pricing in the US. Just curious.

Yes, quite a few items this past year or so. No issues with any so far. Most items have been books, ps3 games or supplements in the 500 to 3k range, so nothing past 5k yet. Not too sure about insurance, but companies like DHL/BlueDart should have something I guess.

Shipping charges have ranged from free to Rs 50/ Rs 100 (for local items) to Rs 500/ Rs 750 (for US shipments). Shipment times range from a couple of days to about a month depending on if you're paying anything for it.

These prices certainly support your argument. Are online goods priced at least as competitively as in physical stores?

"a penny-pincher mentality"

I see this in the US among people who have limited opportunities to earn additional income beyond their current job. If you are an office clerk making $25K/year, your best means of "earning" an additional dollar might be to procure the same goods for $1 less. Unfortunately, way too many people in the US have few good ways to earn 10% more by working more.

1.You won't typically get "empty packets" but there can be mismatch between what you ordered and what you get. E-commerce sites(rediff, indiatimes) in India are usually terrible. But it is changing. Sites like flipkart provide excellent service.

2. Most payment services are also terrible (ICICI, EBS).They even have a captcha in the payment page!. Some like Citibank are nice though

Rediff and Indiatimes are the swamplands of online stores. Hesitant to even provide them my email-id leave alone banking details.

Not sure what issues you have with ICICI. I find them to be excellent. Not seen any captchas on their site. I think their number-grid security system is a decent one but would be happier with an SMS passcode system.

Are you talking abt ICICI's bank website or payment gateway? Their payment gateway is TERRIBLE. They have a captcha and the captcha code is apparently available in the source code

http://sushubh.net/2543-icici-bank-payment-gateway

I wouldn't trust ICICI with anything. Have found their systems to be typically poorly engineered. HDFC and Citi has been better

Hmm, I've not seen anything like that in payments I've made using them. Only used them for the past year or so and generally like their services (including their branch-less b2 service)

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