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| FirstCry - Online Retailer for Baby Products! |
These days, the trend of online shopping is increasing by leaps and bounds. For those of us who value our time and effort, online shopping is just wonderful. Clearly, shopping online saves a lot of time that is otherwise spent on commuting through congested and jammed traffic - not to mention the wastage of effort hopping brick and mortar stores to find the products that we need. However, despite all this, it is not easy to find niche products through general online shops. This is particularly true if you are a parent and are looking for baby products. You can't afford the time and effort searching physical stores when your first priority is taking care of your children. And remember those parking worries for your vehicle! In such case, a niche portal for children like www.FirstCry.com comes in quite handy and convenient!
- FirstCry is a joint venture with the well known Mahindra Group.
- It is a niche retailer and has a huge collection of products catering to kids of various ages.
- For the convenience of the customer, the portal has an app as well for both Android and Apple Operating Systems.
- The website sources products from reputed international and domestic merchants and makes them available to its customers. These include brands include Carter's, Mattel, Ben10, Pigeon, Funskool, Hotwheels, Nuby, Farlin, Medela, Pampers, Disney, Barbie, Gerber, Fisher Price and Mee Mee.
- The portal offers pricing that is unique and quite reasonable. There are regular regular offers, discounts, coupon codes and card discounts on its website which makes prices quite attractive to customers. Additionally, if you are a new customer registering yourself, then you get certain special offers and coupon codes too.
- Further, for selective products, you get to earn loyalty cash for any purchases that you make which can be used to offset price of your future purchases.
- The products of the website are systematically arranged and categorised so that it is easier for customers to browse the portal.
- The web listings are propped up with product pictures and are fitted with a zoom feature. The listings are also detailed making it easy for the customer to make his choices.
- For those customers who know exactly what they are looking for, there is a Search feature to locate the products directly.
- One another feature of FirstCry is that you can have the products gift wrapped at the time of order placement if you wish to gift certain products to your near and dear.
- Unlike many of its competitors in the online and offline market, FirstCry is special since it has a presence not only in the online segment but also in the offline space. It has a network of brick and mortar stores spread across the country allowing customers a 'touch and feel' shopping.
- The portal offers free shipping and quick deliveries across the country though there are occasions when there are delays.
- As with any shopping portal, there is a tracking feature for customers to know where exactly their products are at any given point of time.
- In case you are looking to purchase selected items at a future date, then you have the facility to bookmark or wish list your choices.
- Shopping online on its website is also a seamless experience. It facilitates multiple payment options to suit different classes of customers like Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Net Banking, Cash on Delivery (COD), PayTM, Wallet, PayPal and UPI. EMI facility is also provided. Further, it supports multiple type of cards like Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, Diners Club and RuPay.
- For any online portal to be credible, it needs to be secure. FirstCry is just that - it is equipped with high levels of security to safeguard customer data and payment information.
- FirstCry also has a FirstCry blog and 'FirstCry Parenting' guide wherein there is a wealth of information for parents to care better for their children.
- Even with the best of online shopping portals, there are times when there are issues with the products. That said, for those rare occasions, FirstCry has an effective return and refund policy.
- The portal is also equipped with prompt customer service to address any queries or complaints that customers may address to it. You can email or call the Contact Centre of FirstCry so that your issues can be effectively addressed.
- The website also has a good presence on Social Media like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Google+ which can also be used as channels for customers to raise their queries or complaints. You can also prefer to look at their FAQs section which could potentially resolve most of your queries.
- Given that FirstCry is a marketplace, it provides opportunities to entrepreneurs to enroll on their platform or opt for becoming their franchisee.
From our own personal experience, the FirstCry portal is an excellent marketplace for baby care products. We have made purchases on it for our personal requirements and they have essentially turned out well. The pricing complemented by the discounts has been quite competitive vis-a-vis both online and offline competitors. It has an effective return and refund policy when customers are not happy with the products.
However, it must be noted that there are times when the prices of the products are falsely printed at higher cost and then a discount is offered thus misleading the customer to think he is getting a great deal (when that is not the case)! Once in our experience, we purchased a school bag from FirstCry around Rs.900/- post discounts which appeared to look considerable. Strangely, when we received it, we found a DMart label on it wherein the MRP was below Rs.700/-. This indicates lack of scruples in inflating prices, misrepresenting information and then misleading the customer. That is not a good approach to follow.
However, it must be noted that there are times when the prices of the products are falsely printed at higher cost and then a discount is offered thus misleading the customer to think he is getting a great deal (when that is not the case)! Once in our experience, we purchased a school bag from FirstCry around Rs.900/- post discounts which appeared to look considerable. Strangely, when we received it, we found a DMart label on it wherein the MRP was below Rs.700/-. This indicates lack of scruples in inflating prices, misrepresenting information and then misleading the customer. That is not a good approach to follow.
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