Shopping -- Things to Note

I suck at shopping. More so at bargaining. And the way it hurts is more prominent when the vendors out there are desperate to rip you off.

I was planning to purchase my new cell phone. A simple one. I wanted to move back to Nokia. I was having a Samsung phone and I tell you it sucks. Even before the end of an year, my network failed badly and I cant even make calls. Yeah it has nothing to do with AirTel. It had to do with my phone. So when I decided to buy my new Nokia, the next question was where to buy from. I am somehow nervous about dealing with these "Authorized Nokia Dealers". They are freaking clueless folks manned by clueless personnel. They come running to you showing as if they are desperate to help you. After first question, they lose steam and start looking elsewhere. All they tell about the phone is, "It has FM", "It is Rs. 16000". Nothing more. No clue about more specifications.

After filtering out the "Authorized Nokia Dealers", I went to this "Nokia Concept Centre". Thought it might be genuine Nokia store. I might be wrong. The guy there was soft spoken and explained everything. He quoted me a price for the phone. Next day when I went, all kind of dancing was done, such as "extra commission on credit card use" etc. only to give me the phone at the same rate. No discount etc. This is ridiculous I feel. I think there is a general lack of percerption about customer mentality. I finally managed to not buy from there and ended up buying from Chroma in the Eva Mall. And I got it from Rs. 50 less. Its not about Rs. 50. Its about this flip-flopping that is absolutely irritating.

Nokia can avoid caring anything about this but they should be very careful about how these folks are marketing their products and influencing their reputation. Lot is at stake. This is the problem of non-direct sales.