r2i forum

I am in the US for the past 10 years. Moving back to Bangalore in 3 weeks. I am renting my friend's apartment in Outer ring road/Sajjapur road. It's called "Shoba Daisy". The things I am looking to buy after I go there is:

1. Washing machine
2. Dryer
3. Fridge - may be Samsung two door
4. Dish Washer
5. Microwave
6. Oven

I have heard that Girija's and VGP is a chain of stores that I should go to buy these things. My question is what are the good brands for the above appliances and where is the best place to buy. I am not sure if there have a place to fix the dishwasher like we do in the US .

Dear Dumbeldore,

welcome to bangalore aka bengaluru!

I do not think you will have a place to fit in the DW in a all ready apartment. you can make the provision if you are building your own modular kitchen.
You need a dryer if you do not have a balcony. but that is a personal choice. we do the good old clothes line way in one of our balconies.

We did quite a bit of window shopping when we had moved. Girias is the best. They do have some delivery issues but they do not waste your time like ezone by promising wrong stock details.
Also, you might want to haggle a bit when you are buying all appliances from one place.
other places are-Croma, Reliance, Adishwars, Vivek's. Croma might be another good choice. Skip ezone completely.

Good Luck!

We relocated to BLR, 6 weeks ago and bought all my appliances in ezone ( fridge, washing machine) and Adhishwar (Oven, rice cooker, iron box, TV). eZone is pretty good with price matching however, they delayed our delivery by 2 days becoz of back log. Adhishwar is very good and awesome customer service. I like both of them

Which area are you moving into in BLR?
-supermom

supermom;276234We relocated to BLR, 6 weeks ago and bought all my appliances in ezone ( fridge, washing machine) and Adhishwar (Oven, rice cooker, iron box, TV). eZone is pretty good with price matching however, they delayed our delivery by 2 days becoz of back log. Adhishwar is very good and awesome customer service. I like both of them

Which area are you moving into in BLR?
-supermom

supermom, appreciate your time to come back to forum and help people who are attempting the move. This is the true essence of the forum, R2I club.

Keep up the good work.

We will be moving to Bangalore mid-may. My appliance brand research led me to the following brands..
Refrigerator - LG (Top freezer model)
Washing Machine - LG, IFB
Dryer - IFB (If required)

Supermom,

Would you mind sharing which brands you got for your appliances.

Hi everyone,

We r2ied to Bangalore and are now in the process of setting up our house could anyone help me out with the brands for the below appliances:
1. TV
2. Washing Machine
3. Microwave Oven
4. Fridge
5. Wet grinder and a blender
6. Rice cooker

Would really appreciate your help.
Thanks.

returnhome10,

I have purchased the following after comparisons:-

1. Tv - Samsung (LCD 550 series . LEDs are not worth the money IMHO). Considered both Sony and LG. Was a Samsung owner at US.
2. A/Cs - All Samsung. Got carried away by their advt. of not requiring a stabilizer and having a tropical compressor.
3. Fridge - LG two door. Samsung had no "features" to me. I'm hating the ice maker in LG. Its a joke !
4. Microwave - Samsung. Convection,grill and microwave combo for around 10k.
5. Blender - Picked up Panasonic at Spencers. I was looking for a "Magic Bullet" replacement for small portion dry and wet grinding and this one fits the bill.
6. Washing m/c - a tie between LG and Samsung. Bought Samsung's top model for delivering all the features as LG but at a much lower price. Its a direct motor drive, makes minimal noise and they advt. the drum to be less damaging to the clothes due to the way holes have been punched. I didnt like IFB at all and read enough service complaints on mouthshut.

BTW from a service perspective (at Gurgaon) - It took one week for the LG guy to show up at our house finally to set up the fridge. For all purchases Samsung called me within hours of purchase to set up time. Also my microwave wasn't working right out of the box. Placed a call and the guy showed up next day morning and fixed a minor wiring glitch.

Do we have a one shop stop in Bangalore where I can buy all the appliances instead of hopping around to multiple shops for each item. I have seen Croma which appears good and they have got decent collection of all brands and appliances. Please let me know if there is any other Applicance Store in Bangalore?

Currently I am only interested in the following:
1. Washer
2. Dryer (may be optional)
3. Fridge
4. Microwave/Toaster.
5. Gas Stove

Kindly let me know what brand should I go with for the above? I just want to go one day to one shop and order all items to avoid running here and there in the traffic as the traffic over the weekend near shopping complex is pretty bad and I am planning to take a day off during the week-day to complete these purchases. Is CROMA a good store from price perspective?

Yes, CROMA is a good store.
Another store u may try is, 'Reliance Digital'.

We have purchased most of our appliances from these 2 shops only. Even we wanted to buy everything from one shop but due to unavailability of certain models with Croma, we had to approach 'Reliance Digital'.

In case of any issues within(or out of) warranty period you can contact them instead of chasing individual appliance manufacturer.
For us this was a major factor and till date we are satisfied with their customer service.

Many of my friends purchased appliances from other shops which may be good but in few cases they got an impression that they were delivered display items whereas in our case 'Reliance Digital' guys told us transparently that they might give us more discount if we opt for display items but won't deliver display items if we opt for normal stock. I don't think we were sent any display items.

Apart from these 2 shops, we bought only one item(Printer) from Staples(Koramangala) and our experience wasn't good.
So considering our experience till date, we'll prefer Croma / Reliance-Digital for any major appliance purchase in future.

About prices, everything is negotiable so you may have to visit few shops to get some idea.

We had used
http://compareindia.in.com/
to minimise our visits to other shops.

hth