The common practice is that the delivery is completed, on the average, in a week
after the campaign is over. While all the private shopping sites are trying to reduce this time period, it is observed that this period is acceptable by users. We should not forget that the waiting period is not one week if the user bought the product in the first day of the campaign. So, overall waiting time varies between 5 days to 15 days. What shouldn’t be
forgotten is that speed is an important feature for online customers whose retention is
difficult. During 5 to 15 days waiting period, members’ get increasingly excited. The
longer the delivery time, the higher the possibility of negative feelings aggregating is. In
the era of social customer, the negative feelings are shared and spread out on Internet as
strong dissatisfactions.
Private shopping sites in Turkey are all using standard Delivery Service software offered by a firm. This software allows sharing some basic information about the shipment company like “the package is expected from vendor”, “the package is in Cargo Company”. However, they do not offer the opportunity for customers to follow every step of the process. Since from the customers’ perspective, it doesn’t matter who caused the problems either the vendor, or the shipment firm, they put the blame on the site and cause the image of the site to suffer. Problems caused by the vendor or Shipment Company should not be attributed to the private shopping site. With the existence of a transparent system the experience of the customer can be improved.
For example, suppliers are required to send the items within two days. However, if
the vendor misses the terms of agreement even though this is vendor’s fault the customer
will accuse the shopping site. A transparent approach will help the Private Shopping site
protect its image also.
In CIS countries, there is another execution. Some Private Shopping sites have their
own delivery teams that can also accept payments at the door.
When we do a little bit research on Internet, we access to several comments about
both Limango and Markafoni’s delivery policies. There are insightful comparisons. First
interesting comparison was about the shipment costs of both sites. In Limango shipment
cost is 6,95TL and in Markafoni it is 4,9TL as of this writing. Here is an example customer
review expressed in EkşiSözlük: When he received his product from Limango, he saw that
on the shipment receipt of Yurtiçi Kargo the cost was 2,15TL. The user very disappointed
about the remaining 4,85TL and he has announced that he will no further carry transactions with Limango. Another interesting determination was about the timing of the delivery. According to his experience, Limango didn’t ship the product after 7 days from the campaign’s ending, but probably after 10-15 days, while Markafoni shipped his product right after the end of the campaign.