The Chinese Wuhan Corona Virus has wrecked havoc through the world. Four cities including Colombo, where I live, are in indefinite curfew because it's recognized as a high risk area. With no way to access stores ordering over the phone and online orders were life savers. Keels Super thought had a disappointing start, shows promising progress.

This is my experience placing an order in Keells Super online portal. I was happy then, but I am worried now!

• Date: April 1st
• City: Thalahena
• Website: https://int.keellssuper.net
• https://int.keellssuper.net/delivery-information

History

I do a lot of e-commerce, just not in Sri Lanka. I have bought electronics worth thousands of dollars down to washers for fifty cents. Every year I place over 200 orders. But I don't usually use Sri Lankan e-commerce stores. Partly its their lack of attention to quality of service provided. Then there is the security issue. I am not entirely sure given their lack of investment in the technology they could keep my card details safe.

How ever WuFlu made me change my stance. I am using a prepaid online ready debit card to handle payments.

The Order

On April 31st I got word from the Keells Facebook Page that the site will be live at 6AM. I decided to wake up at 5AM, top up my debit card, and give it a go. That is exactly how April 1st started.

I tried at 5:30AM, 5:45AM and then at 6:03. Bingo! I was in the login screen! I used my username and password and choose my city "Thalahena". I was in the home page and added the items to the cart. Adding items to the cart made the whole page reload. I didn't like what I saw, but I didn't care. As time passed the website became slower. Not using XHR (AJAX) made my heart burn and would have less impact on the server. I cursed the developers silently as mum got up when I turned on the lights. What a pain!

After the cart had 25 items I decided to checkout. This is where things got tricky. I added my details and proceeded but it told some thing like I hadn't selected the delivery method. Then I looked and noticed the wired element near the address. A shitty checkbox. I tried to check it and it took me to the city select page. I selected Thalahena and on submit there was this blank page (server error). I refreshed the page and I was back in the home page without my cart. Fudge!

Then I repopulated the cart and had the same fudging experience 6 more times. It was frustrating and exhausting. How ever I decided to try one more time and this time for some reason the delivery method was already selected. Oh boy was I delighted! I proceeded and I was taken to I believe a Commercial Bank payment gateway. I got a confirmation e-mail. I was happy as some didn't even get the confirmation e-mail even though their cards were charged.

Current State

Some got the order within hours. I was concerned, how ever I waited for the 72 hours to go by. Last night I decided to reply to the CC'd recipients of the order. That is when I noticed that the e-mail sent to duty manager (Arangala) bounced. Then I went to the Keell Super website with the hope of checking delivery areas. And now Malabe and Thalahena areas no longer in the list. I am waiting for their response.

I am a little concerned. I will keep this post updated.