IPMart.com Malaysia Review

In this day and age where online purchases are so prevalent, what sets one shop apart from another?

Having bought stuff from many online retailers, I recently bought a Fujifilm lens from IPmart.com as I found them selling it at a price that I cannot resist. This is the story of how of customer service and how they tried to cover up their mistakes and why a physical shop is still sometimes a better place to get your goods from.

Too good to be true.

Exactly 7 days ago, I made a purchase online with IPmart which they were selling a Fujifilm 55-200mm XF lens for around RM1305 (~USD400). I thought well, that's a good price and pulled the trigger. I was sent an invoice and asked to pay. First things I noticed about IPmart:

1. They charge for payment, no matter what kind. Bank transfer is RM1.50 and credit cards a whooping RM85. Not sure how they did the calculation for credit card, but it's definitely more than 3% and more than AirAsia's RM15/ticket cost.
2. They charge for shipment. Granted, they provide a lot of different kind of courier services and even COD. My item was supposed to be RM10, but they had a discount when I use GDExpress and it ended up being RM4.

After I paid via bank transfer, the problems began. After 3 days of waiting, I received an email from their customer service rep Irwan at 8pm on a Saturday night that my item has ran out of stock AND they had no plans to replenish it. They offered a full refund or asked me to purchase something else. Then I realized that this was a pricing mistake they made and they tried to cover their tracks. How? Here's what I found out:

1. On the day before I received the mail, I checked and saw that the price of the item has jumped up to RM22xx. Wow, I must be lucky to get it at such a good price then?
2. Right after I received the mail, the item was removed from their store. 
3. Interestingly, they had stock of every other Fujifilm lens accept the one I bought.

I then told them to double check as I am not happy with the way things are conducted. The following Monday, I received a mail which is basically stating the same fact, they will not replenish the stock, and I had better take my money back. Now, at this junction, there is another alternative I can see. They also sell the identical lens but with their IPmart warranty (i.e. parallel import) so I told them to just ship me THAT instead. Irwan replied saying he will send me a new invoice with RM800 outstanding amount. Woah, here onwards, I asked to speak to a manager.

Today, Tuesday, I received a call from Sylvester their assistant manager for customer relations. I basically asked him the following questions:

Q: Why do they sell something that won't have stock?
A: Apparently coincidentally many other people also made the same purchase as I did at the same time they ran out of stock when it came to fulfilling my order. 

Q: Why won't they replenish their stock, since they have so many other Fujifilm products?
A: Because their purchasing department decided that somehow this popular lens is not something they want to carry at the moment.

Q: Why can't they just send the parallel import stock item to me? They are the same thing!
A: Coz they purchased it from different supplier hence it's different price. 

Q: What then can they do for me?
A: They can provide refund or they can give me a little discount on the parallel import lens. How much discount? RM30, due to they razor thin margin.

At the end of the day, I asked for the refund. Sylvester was nice enough to give me RM10 token which I can use on my next purchase there.

Here's my take on this whole issue. 

1. It is obvious they made a pricing error. Unlike what we are used to in reputable retailers, they won't honor pricing error, instead they will make the item magically go "out-of-stock"
2. To me, it would be better if they came clean and told me that "sir, really sorry, but we made a mistake and we cannot cover the cost of the error due to our already low margins on all our items". I would have accepted that more than "out-of-stock".
3. Their first level customer service was robotic at best. Responses felt canned and cold.
4. They did get me someone in higher authority to call me, and was polite and tried to make amends in the end. But he stuck to the "out-of-stock" story. So even though technically they broke no law, but the moral code of trust has been cracked with all this cover up.

I have a hunch that right after they refunded my money (which they did), the item will magically come back to stock. Don't believe me? Do a search a few days after this post for "Fujifilm 55-200mm lens" and I bet ya it's there.

Ultimately, while I think my case is an isolated one and I'm not saying they are a scam company (they are 100% legit) but it just makes you wonder if they can cover up this kind of things, can we trust them with other things? Like warranty? Too bad my favorite online retailer Pentax2u.com doesn't sell Fujifilm products. Maybe they should open a Fujix2u.com too. :)