Amidst the curbs on the online sale of non-essential items, some smartphone e-commerce portals such as Xiaomi, Samsung, and Vivo have started taking pre-orders. A notice that is now up on Xiaomi’s Mi.com/in says that pre-orders are now being accepted.
While it is unclear when these pre-orders started being accepted, Xiaomi clearly mentions that orders will only be delivered once the lockdown gets lifted. Vivo India and Samsung are also taking pre-booking orders currently while Xiaomi’s arch-rival, Realme isn’t accepting any orders right now.
Xiaomi also makes it clear that it has the right to cancel “any and all” pre-orders, though such cancellations will be communicated to customers. And when deliveries begin, they will be subject to state-level and local restrictions” in addition to the availability of delivery partners.
E-commerce portals have been barred from online sales of non-essentials until the lockdown ends. This includes smartphones as they are not considered “essential goods”. However, it doesn’t appear that pre-orders would also be banned under the order and hence this looks like a non-issue. Amazon and Flipkart recently started taking pre-orders on smartphones and other electronics but stopped after the government gave out an order stopping sales of non-essentials.
There have been repeated requests from organizations such as ICEA and e-commerce portals to resume smartphone sales and services operations in particular, as broken and failed handsets pile up.
The lockdown that began on March 24 is currently supposed to end on May 3 if the government approves it. However, some states have announced a further extension already.
