Dukaan CEO's Sarcastic Response After Facing Backlash For Introducing Service Fee

Dukaan, a popular DIY platform that enables merchants to set up their e-commerce store, is being slammed on X after it started levying service charges on its services. It all started when an X user complained about the fee and questioned Dukaan's commitment to affordability. The user also informed that Dukaan started this practice on October 10, 2023. Many users chimed in and shared their opinions on the platform's newly implemented move. 

A user named Harsh Punjabi wrote, ''So @mydukaanapp has started charging a service fee per order. This fee wasn't there before and has been levied from 10th October 2023. This effectively makes Dukaan expensive now. Their initial promise of a low-cost ecom platform is vanishing away.''

He also shared a screenshot of the service charges that have been set up for different plans on the eCommerce platform. 

See the tweet here:

Several users questioned the move, with some calling it ''really bad,''

One user wrote, ''Damn! Glad I didn't go with them. Services fee as high as 5% on top of gateway charges.'' Another commented, ''They are also charging 4 Rs per cancellation even if you cancel it after 10 seconds or even if you don't accept the order and someone cancels it. For every flow testing you need to pay them which is really bad.''

A third said, ''Just a natural course of any startup. Once it steps into corp mode, its a corp now. Deal with it. pay up or wait for a new player to enjoy all the low cost/discounts and the cycle continues.''

Amid all the chatter, Dukaan also dived in with a cryptic response to one of the comments by a user named Shantanu Goel. The official X handle of My Dukaan App shared a screenshot of its website, and wrote, ''Well. No wonder you don't have to worry about your transaction fees. Cannot set properties of undefined (setting 'cart')''.

The user responded with a touch of sarcasm, ''Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dukaan's great 'AI' customer service trying to be a budget-friendly Wendy's. No wonder they need to cut costs everywhere, all their customers probably already left.''

That was not it. Seems like Suumit Shah, the founder of Dukaan, also couldn't resist. Poking fun at the user, he shared a new logo for him that read ''something went wrong.'' He also wrote, ''Here's the new logo for you - OF COURSE designed by AI.''

Meanwhile, a lot of users who were invested in the service charge debate were shocked by Mr Shah's ''sarcastic'' and ''immature'' responses. 

Rebuking him, one user wrote, ''Instead of bantering on Twitter, maybe focus your energy on the betterment of your app? Don't know about operational costs, but your ratings are going down Funnily enough, the major complaint is management  So look inward, maybe?''

Another said, ''Like really? And this 'kid' has been called a legendary founder. Much wow!''

A third had a word of advice for him. He wrote, ''@suumitshah, Instead of a passive-aggressive tweet, focus on your work.You literally got the money when it was abundant in the market. if you're such an amazing founder why don't you go ahead and raise the money now.''

Previously in July, Mr Shah faced the anger of social media users after he announced that his company had replaced 90% of its customer care crew with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. The CEO tweeted a justification of his decision and added that this challenging move was done to achieve profitability.