Today I am going to share my online shopping experience with naturalmantra.com. There are now many online stores in India which claim to sell natural, organic, green and eco-friendly products. JoybyNature.com, naturalmantra.com, ecotokri.com, mygreenkart.com etc are some of the famous ones.
Coming back to the review, a few people had recommended naturalmantra.com in their comments on my articles and I wanted to shop from them since last year. But after my shitty experiences with joybynature.com (read review) and ecotokri.com owner (I could never shop and have no inclination to ever shop with them), I didn't have much expectations from naturalmantra.com either.
I had a long wishlist. But just to be on the safer side, I decided to buy only a few products in the first order.
Before placing the order, I read some reviews and all of them were from bloggers who were given shopping vouchers to shop from them and write about their experience. The reviews were very positive and it was mentioned that Natural Mantra packs the products safely in newspapers and packing is solid etc. This gave me some confidence to try out this site.
I received 4 discount coupons (45 days validity) in email, on signing up and making an account at naturalmantra.com. I decided to use the coupon with the least value, Rs 100 discount on a minimum shopping of Rs 500.
The coupon wasn't much helpful because I wanted to purchase only 2 items (total Rs 540) and when I applied that Rs 100 discount coupon, the order value came down to below Rs 500. Naturalmanta provides free shipping only on orders above Rs 499, otherwise, there is a Rs 80 shipping charge. So in order to use the discount coupon as well as avail free shipping, I had to buy products above Rs 600.
I didn't mind that as long as my shopping experience turned out good.
NaturalMantra.com Shipping Time:
Natural mantra takes 48 hours/ 2 days to ship items stocked by them directly, which is high as compared to most other online stores.
The order was placed on Jan 28, 2015 around 2 am. On Jan 30th late evening I was sent shipping confirmation. As it was shipped after business hours, the courier company moved it the next day Jan 31. So 3+ days for shipping alone!
The order reached me on Feb 5 evening. Even after mentioning the correct pincode, the courier company did not come to deliver to my home and I was asked to come pick up the parcel from outside our township. Since I didn't want to wait any longer, I went and picked it.
So total order processing time: 9 days... Poor, isn't it?
But that was not it. Let's talk about the packing. The box was sturdy and taped in such a stupid way, I couldn't find the opening even after 20 minutes. Finally I had to cut it open with a knife.
As I had read in other reviews, I was expecting some kind of paper stuffing or newspaper wrapping of the products. But there was NO wrapping or cushioning at all! The products were just thrown into the box along with a paper copy of bill.
What did I buy?
I had bought 2 natural lipsticks from the brand Young Discover Euthopia, (which only 2 websites sell online and naturalmantra was one of them) and a natural sweetner by the name So Sweet Stevia Tablets (100 in a dispenser).
Because of no wrapping/cushioning, the stevia tablets pack tore off from its cardboard packing and 40-50% of the tablets broke into little pieces and powder. The whole inside of the cardboard box was smeared with the fine white powder from the crushed tablets.
It even entered the cardboard packing of the lipsticks and the lamination on the lipsticks was also all covered with white powder. If the lipsticks were not laminated, it would have been an unimaginable mess.
The dispenser was already too big for 100 tiny tablets and was more than half empty. It is possible that some of these tablets were already broken inside the packing. But the powder leakage and further damage could have been avoided with proper packing.
It really shocked me to find such nonsense packing and no matter how crazily I was lured to see such a huge variety of products listed on their site, I don't think I would risk buying any of them through Natural Mantra. I am glad I did not place a big order like I am used to.
I have faced the same problems with joybynature.com, but that is several classes worse than naturalmantra on many grounds.
While most of these organic online stores are doing a good job in educating people and providing us safer lifestyle products to choose from, they have a long way to go in actually providing a good shopping experience.
I have shopped with some more bad businesses in the recent past and will be sharing more online shopping experiences to help you guys make informed choices.
If you have shopped with naturalmantra.com and had a better or similar experience, please share in the comments to help other readers.
The coupon wasn't much helpful because I wanted to purchase only 2 items (total Rs 540) and when I applied that Rs 100 discount coupon, the order value came down to below Rs 500. Naturalmanta provides free shipping only on orders above Rs 499, otherwise, there is a Rs 80 shipping charge. So in order to use the discount coupon as well as avail free shipping, I had to buy products above Rs 600.
I didn't mind that as long as my shopping experience turned out good.
NaturalMantra.com Shipping Time:
Natural mantra takes 48 hours/ 2 days to ship items stocked by them directly, which is high as compared to most other online stores.
The order was placed on Jan 28, 2015 around 2 am. On Jan 30th late evening I was sent shipping confirmation. As it was shipped after business hours, the courier company moved it the next day Jan 31. So 3+ days for shipping alone!
The order reached me on Feb 5 evening. Even after mentioning the correct pincode, the courier company did not come to deliver to my home and I was asked to come pick up the parcel from outside our township. Since I didn't want to wait any longer, I went and picked it.
So total order processing time: 9 days... Poor, isn't it?
What did I buy?
I had bought 2 natural lipsticks from the brand Young Discover Euthopia, (which only 2 websites sell online and naturalmantra was one of them) and a natural sweetner by the name So Sweet Stevia Tablets (100 in a dispenser).
Because of no wrapping/cushioning, the stevia tablets pack tore off from its cardboard packing and 40-50% of the tablets broke into little pieces and powder. The whole inside of the cardboard box was smeared with the fine white powder from the crushed tablets.
It even entered the cardboard packing of the lipsticks and the lamination on the lipsticks was also all covered with white powder. If the lipsticks were not laminated, it would have been an unimaginable mess.
It really shocked me to find such nonsense packing and no matter how crazily I was lured to see such a huge variety of products listed on their site, I don't think I would risk buying any of them through Natural Mantra. I am glad I did not place a big order like I am used to.
I have faced the same problems with joybynature.com, but that is several classes worse than naturalmantra on many grounds.
While most of these organic online stores are doing a good job in educating people and providing us safer lifestyle products to choose from, they have a long way to go in actually providing a good shopping experience.
I have shopped with some more bad businesses in the recent past and will be sharing more online shopping experiences to help you guys make informed choices.
If you have shopped with naturalmantra.com and had a better or similar experience, please share in the comments to help other readers.
Couldnt agree with u more... many companies nowadays just throw in terms like natural, 100% herbal even when it isnt so.... we need to have stricter regulatory bodies in our country.
ReplyDeleteyour shopping experience is worth sharing. the website should take a leaf out of this and improve it's logistics.. they cannot just take the customer for granted. i had shopped with NM just once, initially when they were launched and had a good experience then.. do not expect such an approach from a reputed website such as NM
ReplyDeleteI ordered Organic Blackstrap Molasses from Naturalmantra online on date 26/12/2015 and I received the same on 1/1/2016 and when I opened the packaged I was extremely disappointed to find the bottled leaked and even the lid was a little puffed. I had clearly mentioned while buying that I am looking for freshly manufactured product and a product with a year old manufacturing date. Since then I have sent them an email twice for replacing the product and have not received any reply from them.
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