Healthkart.com : Review

Healthkart.com is one of its kinds. There are other online shops like Flipkart and Infibeam but they lack in the section of health and sports. Healthkart on the other hand is a website specially dedicated to this. It was founded in March 2011.

Here's what the website has to say about itself -

"  HealthKart is run by a core team of highly qualified professionals (graduates from IIT, Stanford, Harvard), with experience in India and USA and bringing in strong skills in Healthcare, Technology, Operations and Customer Management. HealthKart has grown from a humble team of 4 in March 2011 to strength of 100+, heading towards the cherished goal of becoming India’s e-health mega store. Our team of trained nutritionists, counselors and product experts help customers in choosing the right product/service via live chat, email and phone. We are backed by some of the most prestigious investors in the business – Sequoia Capital, Omidiyar Network and Kae Capital.  "

What exactly can you buy from this site?

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Healthkart basically leads to stuff related to health, sports, nutrition and cosmetics. Most of the things are available in local markets, still Healthkart seems to give more discount on them. There are some products which aren’t found, or are found in at very few places in local markets. These include Nutrition items like Weight Gainer, Whey Protein, Amino Acids and etc. Healthkart does its best when it comes to these products. It provides a large variety of these products making it easy for people to choose between. The website also has products for body fitness. There are machines and equipments which are used for exercises. I also found a treadmill which cost about 1,50,000 Rs. It would be kind of funny getting it home! There was a section for dump-bells, now, I don’t know how they were supposed to be delivered, taking in account their weight but the site displayed a variety of weights, including the ones above 25kg. Sports and fitness gear is shown in large quantity. The cosmetics are carefully selected and categorized. Some gadgets and electronic stuff which helps in knowing the health are also for sale. Most of these include Blood Sugar checker, BP wrist watch, Weight machine, etc. Recently the website posted a new ad of pepper spray. Maybe they are trying to do their bit for the Delhi Braveheart.

Pricing and Payment

★ ★ ★ 

Pricing is in a good shape. It means that the price is discounted on many materials or is the same of that of the MRP. Nothing beyond the MRP. Discounts aren’t much compared that to Flipkart and Myntra. However are worth checking for. There are also offers instead of discounts. Like they are giving a ‘Sugar Free™’ pack with every ‘Accu Check™’.
Payment can be done by many methods. There is Credit Card, Debit Card, NetBanking, and last but not the least Cash on Delivery. I would myself recommend Credit Card payment as it is more secure than net banking and Using Credit Card can avail you more offers later. Cash on Delivery is my second opinion as it is very easy to do.

Shipping

★ ★ ★ 

Shipping isn’t done by the website itself, a delivery company named ‘Delhivery’ which delivers items is appointed for this, unlike Flipkart and Myntra where the guys are from their respective websites. If the delivery guys fail to do anything then you can’t really complaint to the website. If you do find any misconduct by them, then you must report to ‘Delhivery’ the delivery company. However after the item is shipped to your respective address, then you are allowed to give a feedback on that. In that you can share your feelings, for or against the service.

Return Policy

★ 

The return policy isn’t convincing or we can rather say it is confusing. It is given that an item can be returned within 14 days of purchase. But can 14 days really give us the feel of the product? A 30 days policy could have been more appealing. Also the return policy is quite time consuming and a little sticky at times. It has many terms and conditions for this. First of all the item can only be returned if it matches one of these problems.

1. Damaged item(s) shipped
2. Apparel size problem
3. Wrong color or need a different color

Also for this you need to have the receipt with you, don't worry if you loose it, as it can be again downloaded and printed from the website itself. Next thing you need to do is that you need to call them or email them. Now this is the part of the website which I think would have been a way better than what it is now. After doing so they register a return application for your product. Then you must parcel the product back to them (address given in the website's help section). When they receive your product, they will give you the exact amount of the returned product + Rs. 100 as a token for your parcel charges in the format if e-money. This way they keep you engaged with their website. But if things go wrong, i.e. if your product wasn't eligible for returning, they simply delivery it back to you. Myntra.com's Return Policy can be very helpful and non-time consuming as well as easy to follow compared to this.
Nevertheless it was nice seeing this feature, which wasn’t there before on the site. It was introduced a month before.

Website Structure and Categorization

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Healthkart is one of the most well-categorized website for now. One can see that there are more than 200 categories. It can be easy to find an item with such a great specification given for each item. The website loads up quickly and has all the featured products, i.e. products having a big discount, products with interesting offers, products which are of excellent quality yet are affordable. The product page allows user to examine the product more carefully. It includes a written description on the product, a bigger image (click the image to zoom) and at times a video also to give the user the exact detail of the product. The search system is quite similar to that of flipkart, which I don’t appreciate much. Same as flipkart, the 'instant search' shows queries searched before. Which aren’t really needed. Instead of that, the instant search should be having the name of the category along with the names of the products which lie under that. That would be then easy for the user to browse in more carefully and quickly.Website is secured using an SSL certificate, making it comfortable for us to pay via net banking and Credit Cards. Click here for reading how to secure your web experince

My personal experience

I myself have been using this site as it gives me heavy discounts on Nutrition food recovered for Working out. I usually buy Whey Protein from this site nowadays. But I have also bought Weight Gainer, Fitness gloves, Weight lifting straps, 10 Pound dump-bells and pair of shorts perfect for working out. I found no problem in any of these. There was no return policy, the time I had bought this. So I kind of had to be careful while selecting these products. But still the website helped me browse thoroughly making it easy for me to select the product I need. The Whey Protein I needed was not in plenty in the markets. I has literally struggle to find the one I needed. Moreover it was quite costly in the local markets. Healthkart gave a me wonderful discount for the same. Also each and every item was in mint condition when delivered.

Here are some of the photos I took to show how the packaging is.

Healthkart's Delivery Box

Healthkart Sticker with hologram

Air-Bags for Stability of the content

Healthkart Receipt cum Tax-Invoice

Why should I use this site when I have the local markets?

The website provides a variety of the products. The products either have a discount or have an offer with them. Also finding these kind of products in local markets can be time consuming and costly. Here at this site you are getting that easily and moreover shipped right at your own home. I'd prefer this for gymnasts. As I personally know how difficult it is find Nutrition food.