Fabbitt – Not Fab In Any Way

Yesterday, I hosted somewhat of a high-school reunion at my place and several of my classmates were there. We all had a lot of fun reminiscing old times and cursing the numerous pitfalls of adulthood. Some where in between all that, we saw the much-hyped launch of the multi-brand online store “Fabbitt” on tv, and we were all excited to have another player in the online world here in Pakistan. The success of the launching ceremony sent our expectations flying high, so me and my friends decided to pay the website a visit. Little did we know that the sheer hideousness we were about to witness would be unlike anything else we had ever experienced before. Here’s a list of the blunders on the site which we found.

Firstly, the website has several broken links. If you are on the Home page and if you click on Blog, nothing happens at all. Although the list of designers is pretty long, several individual pages have absolutely no products at all. The list is just populated with names in order to project the image of a truly big multi-brand store.

Additionally, some of the clothes are ridiculously over-priced, or maybe the person who input all the prices on there was just high. PKR 675,000 for a top? And no, its not a gold-plated/diamond-encrusted top. We are not mentioning the name of the designer so that our friends in the fashion industry do not get offended.

The make-up section is empty. A lot of images all over the website simply do not load. The text has a lot of repetition. It also has endless spelling mistakes, such as “productus” and “sing in”. The logo is not even clickable, which is a no-no in the world of websites. Ideally, clicking on the logo should always take you to the Home page of that particular website. The “Sign-in” feature has errors. It just disappears after you enter your details. The “Make-up” section is empty. The “Bags” section is empty. Like, are you serious?? How can someone launch an incomplete website??

The platform just leaves a lot to be desired in regards to both, the design and the development of the website. Anyone can tell it was just hastily put together. There’s more. The phone numbers listed on the “Contact Us” page are – wait for it – fictitious. What would a customer do if they wanted to inquire about their order status, or if they simply needed to speak to somebody for various customer service related queries? The “Returns and Exchange” tab on the top of the website simply does not work. If you click on “About Us” it takes you to the relevant page but the title of the page says “Contact Us”. The same goes for the “Returns and Exchange” link on the bottom footer.

At this point, we were actually beginning to get tired of pointing out so many mistakes but much to our despair, the most serious ones were yet to come. The “Search” functionality does not work – like at all. So if you were to try and search for a particular designer or a specific product, you would have to scour the entire website manually in order to do so. Even then, if you searched for Fahad Hussayn and clicked on any product in his collection, the description would be that of a Deepak Perwani ensemble.

Now, we get to the part which really…..ummm…..pissed us the heck off.

The Shopping Cart sucks in so many ways that its not even funny. If you select an item and wish to pay for it using your credit card (which we would not recommend at all – reason below), you might not even be able to do so. And that’s not because your card’s limit is maxed out, its because the damn thing crashes again and again.

Now the reason why we do not recommend shopping on this particular platform online is because the site does not even have an SSL / Secure Certificate, which is a must as per the regulations of the PCI (Payment Card Industry). For our not-so-tech-savvy friends, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a client—typically a web server (website) and a browser; or a mail server and a mail client (e.g., Outlook). SSL allows sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and login credentials to be transmitted securely. More specifically, SSL is a security protocol. Protocols describe how algorithms should be used; in this case, the SSL protocol determines variables of the encryption for both the link and the data being transmitted. If your site collects credit card information you are required by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) to have an SSL Certificate. If your site has a login section or sends/receives other private information (street address, phone number, health records, etc.), you should use SSL Certificates to protect that data. Your customers want to know that you value their security and are serious about protecting their information. More and more customers are becoming savvy online shoppers and reward the brands that they trust with increased business.

Now that we had gotten to the point where we were so frustrated with everything that we wanted to smack the founders of this supposedly hip-and-happening multi-brand e-commerce website courtesy of the innumerable mistakes on their site, we decided to check out the website of the company which built this platform. And that’s where we started thinking that all this is just some kind of a joke. Their website, namely www.pulsartechnologies.com.pk, is not even up and running. It has not even been launched yet.

P.S    We are not giving this article a formal conclusion. If we havent gotten our point across yet, nothing more we say or do will get it done.