tech2 News Staff

E-commerce website, Flipkart, recently revised its return policy and brought down the return window from 30 days to 10 days. Sellers have also been told to pay higher commissions, which will result in an increased cost to the customer.

The move comes in the wake of Amazon's revisal of its own return policy, where returns windows for some items were brought down to 10 days and electronic items (among others) could only be exchanged. The original 30-day return policy was apparently unpopular with sellers as they were responsible for all charges, including return shipping. Especially so as sellers felt that many customers were unfair in their expectations from them.

While alleviating this burden from sellers, Flipkart is also reportedly demanding a higher commission from sellers. These changes will come into effect from June 20. There is still a 30-day return policy on some items such as clothing, footwear, watches, jewelry, etc.

Talking to some sellers and Flipkart, The Economic Times discovered that these changes would result in a 9 percent rise in prices on Flipkart. Flipkart claims that these changes will help sellers gain more control over their logistics and expenses and to encourage sellers to offer a "better customer experience."

Another unfavourable policy that's been dropped is the Zero+ commission policy. Under the policy, a select group of sellers were allowed to advertise on Flipkart, for a fee, and would only offer free shipping. In return, Flipkart would not charge a commission. This policy will be replaced with a revised free structure. Sellers aren't happy with Flipkart's proclivity for revising policies at random and are apparently getting frustrated, saying that it's hard to keep track of so many different transactions.