Happiness is an online store for kids and mums (and dads). For our test order (Play-Doh) they delivered the same day (within three hours, actually), so color us impressed.
Sri Lanka is seeing a lot of online stores coming up, which is a good thing. They tend to be for niche markets (alcohol, electronics, etc) and you can add kids items to that.
The Company
What really makes the difference to online ordering is the company behind it, ie, do they have authentic stuff, deliver it on time and have staff on hand to correct mess-ups. As far as we can tell, KTI – the company behind Happiness.lk – is the legit agent for Farlin, Kids Joy, Fisher Price, Mattel, LEGO, etc. They seem to be a stable offline business moving online, which is usually a reliable combination.
Happiness has physical stores in Bambalapitiya, Borella, Pelawatte, Negombo, Kandy, Kurunegala and Matara.
The Website
Happiness.lk is a solid site which seems to be running on a customized Magento platform. This probably means nothing to you, but it basically means that they’re using an industry standard backend which is less prone to weirdness. You can find what you want by section (diapers, toys, maternity, clothes, etc) or by end user (baby, kids, moms). Alternately, you can also browse by brand.
Selection
They have a lot of branded stuff. Barbies (Rs. 1,725 upwards), decently priced LEGOs (still expensive, but some 50% off stuff starting at Rs. 1,500), Softlove diapers (Rs. 525 up), Heinz baby food (Rs. 320), etc. Basically whatever you could want kid related. The only thing they don’t really seem to have is books, though they do have plenty of DVDs, VCDs.
We took a look through and ordered a Mini Party Pack (Rs. 594) of Play-Doh, cause we wanted to have a mini party. Shipping was an extra Rs. 60 (they have free shipping on orders . Finding and selecting the item was pretty simple.
Payment
Checkout, however, was a bit buggy. We got stuck in a loop while trying to enter our delivery address, which was annoying. It kept saying “”City is a required value”” and refusing to accept our input of Colombo 5. Finally we somehow got it working but it printed the address as “”Colombo 7″”, which it wasn’t. Wasted about 10 minutes there, so hope it works out.
Payment wise, they accept credit card Ez Cash and cash on delivery. Also bank transfers or deposits to their account, but we assume that slows down delivery.
Delivery
This is where having an actual company behind the scenes helps. Someone called within an hour to tell us the order was getting ready and I was able to tell them the correct address. Then someone else called about delivery. That may seem like a lot of calls, but it helps with ordering stuff online, where you give your money and then wonder what’s going on. Then, in quite short order, the actual delivery guy called, I gave him directions, and the stuff was there.
Same day delivery is something Amazon is just now rolling out in America, and it’s considered revolutionary. Perhaps it’s just because the site is young and they have capacity, but it’s pretty awesome that Happiness can deliver kids stuff the same day. They say 2-3 days usually, and faster if they can. For us they could, though that was beyond our expectations.
Conclusion
Happiness works, which is the main threshold for an Internet site. They deliver authentic, quality kids and mums stuff and deliver it fast, same-day for us. The checkout process is a bit buggy but it’s backed by decent customer support, so we assume that’ll get fixed.
Overall, Happiness is a well done and comprehensive kids shopping site backed by a company which has good stock and delivers it fast. If you’re a busy parent or gift-giver, this is an excellent alternative to the sweating it out on the streets.
