“CrOma”TIC = trAumaTIC!. Review on Croma, Bangalore

“CrOma”TIC= trAumaTIC!

I have always trusted the Tata brand! I even think that their salt has just the right amount of saltiness(go figure!).Westside is of course my favourite store to shop for meself and now Cubby. They have the cutest message tees for kids!

So when Tata opened up a big electronic store, Croma with a tag We help you Buy -  Mayunk and I were quite happy. Our experience with Future Group’s Ezone was no good and till date local chain store of Viveks was finally where we went and bought our electronics.

One day we finally did make a trip to Croma located at EvaMall – Brigade Road. It was feast for techno freaks!Aisles of products starting for simple USBs to laptops to headphones to routers and Bluetooth. There were standard TVs and washing machines as well for the regular buyer. The prices were clearly put up near every product and not so knowledgeable yet helpful staff was there if you needed them. Mayunk said this was closest India had to huge electronics stores in the US of A.

Suitably impressed, but having nothing to buy really, we just picked up few DVDs(Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi!:) and walked out. Of course, you always have to be careful what you wish for!Soon our DVD player started troubling us. The Philips player that survived our extensive use for little over two years(we have no cable TV at home) now needed to be replaced. I am sure the cost of repairing it would have been high enough to warrant a new purchase instead.

So, off we went to the new Croma showroom opened at Koramangla. We carried our old DVD player lest they exchange it or something.Situated on topmost floor along with Star Bazaar on other two floors, Croma here was as pleasing to look at. We went to the DVD section and a gentleman came to help us. They didn’t have too much of range and mainly had Philips players along with couple of models of Onida and Samsung. We decided on a Philips itself which has a USB port to see photos or videos directly on screen or even play your MP3 songs. It’s cost was about Rs.3200, a few hundreds less than what was being sold in the market.

We asked him if they would exchange our old DVD player with zero expectations.To our surprise, they said yes and offered us 700bucks. Now 700bucks for a 2500rs DVD player bought 2 years ago is bloody good deal!:D We told them we will get the DVD player from our car and we can finish the formalities.

Of course little did we know that our happiness was going to be short-lived. When we reached with our old player, both the guys selling were gaayab. It took forever for one of them to be located and get a gate pass made to take it in. Then after what seemed like ages someone finally came and said OK sir we will check the player now. They did and worked good enough for them.

Another eternity( I am really trying to use different expressions for “long time”) and they said ok we will now bill your player. That tested and repacked, we went to the billing counter.

Guess what? At the billing counter, we are informed there is NO exchange for DVD players. Aaaaarrgghhh! By now we are really upset and its sheer greed that has still kept us there anyway. Now voices were raised and points were being made. We simply said why the heck did you make us go through the entire torture in the first place. We will just take it back.

They said the sorries and disappeared to talk to the seniors or whoever. Of course we waited for a loooong time and went to the guy who tested our player asking him if anything was going to happen or should we just leave. He said you can leave. Infuriated we packed our old player and were about to walk out when the guys who had gone into a huddle in some enclosure reappeared and said OK sir! We will give you the exchange.

We gave dirty looks, gave a piece of our mind for taking away the peace of it and got the dratted player billed.We really heaved a sigh of relief when we got out of the place.

I am still to understand why can’t the staff be trained properly and least know the basics of the products they are selling. They should be aware of the offers and discounts and disclaimers as well. I mean I would expect this much and little more from a Tata company.

We also bought some DVDs, which also turned out to be faulty! L And Mayunk made 2 trips to get them exchanged.

To their credit, the exchange wasn’t half as painless and they did stick to their word and finally gave us what was committed. But that will just not take away the bitter memories of what was supposed to be a simple enter, choose, swipe and take the product home experience!

I have no idea if this was supposed to be a regular feature or them just having teething troubles since the store was fairly new?!

I am not game to verify that! Though I do have an eye on the remote controlled Red Ferrari that they sell! L

P.s. The only good thing apart from saving some money? Star Bazar sells some really yummy Hawaiian chicken sandwiches!

PPS. Don’t even let me start on the state of Star Bazar!