It was 2012. I was at Flipkart, heading communications.
And because I was in Flipkart, I was hyper-clued into the e-commerce sector in India (I still am, though).
In July 2012, I had ordered a pair of shoes from another e-commerce site called Yebhi. The site remains even today but is a pale imitation of what it once used to be – a remnant of a hubris-filled time in India’s e-commerce history.
Why did I order from Yebhi, instead of Flipkart? It was to test their new feature – ‘Try & Buy in your home’. Yebhi was the first to allow you to order 2 or 3 sizes of the same product, get all of them delivered to your home, let the delivery personnel wait as you try all variants and keep the one that fits!!
I had ordered a pair of Salomon shoes on July 21, 2012. I had tweeted about it too, back then!
Size 10 and 11 arrived a week later and I decided to keep Size 11 after trying both as the delivery guy waited in our living room, sipping tea 🙂
And because of my Flipkart connection (and PR connection, of course), I clearly remember in news in October 2012.
It was much ridiculed back then (understandably so) and perhaps explains why the site is largely dead now, while Flipkart is alive and kicking.
Last week, I came across this piece of news!
From Try & Buy in your home to Buy and Try, we have come a long way.
One of the best features of Amazon is the no-questions-asked return policy. It removes any worry on your part and forced even offline shops to follow suit. I wonder what would happen to such generous and useful trial and returns features in the aftermath of coronavirus.