Online shopping in the Philippines and beyond

I have to admit it was the husband who introduced me to online shopping. Because we’re apart, we’ve gotten into the habit of sending gifts to each other (okay, he’s better at it than me, hehe). It was here that I discovered the numerous websites existing solely for the purpose of selling through the internet. For example, when I want to ogle at new tees, I go to Threadless even though I already have a closet full of ‘em. They have an active online community where artists can submit their designs and members can rate ‘em. If you’re a t-shirt lover, there’s always something new to admire each time.

While buying and selling through Ebay, Multiply and Sulit.com is popular in the Philippines, efficiency of service is still an art to be perfected here. Hubby, for example uses a local site called Makulay.com to send us fastfood like Chow King and Jollibee from time to time, but the food always turns out soggy and cold. It makes me think that they should stick with boxed chocolates, flowers and stuffed toys, instead of perishables. Uh huh.

One should be wary of transacting through Ebay as well, after an officemate paid much for a Lacoste bag which turned out to be fake. Probably her fault for not being too discerning. As I found out, overseas companies are generally more reliable. For instance, our wedding rings – ordered from Tiffany New York – arrived safe and sound via US Mail. So were our Macs and Bike Friday bikes.

The beauty of online shopping (at least overseas) is that you don’t have to be physically present to buy even those high-ticket items. Because their online reputations are at stake and have been built over time,web-based companies are ever so careful of bungling things. That’s why they always strive to be prompt, reliable and efficient, otherwise there would be no repeat customers

When it comes to shopping online for all sorts of products, Amazon leads the pack. It is up there, in terms of name recall. Their items are so diverse that the only thing missing is a house and lot, LOL. The prices are affordable too and families and friends have always ordered from their extensive catalogue of movies and books. Their wireless reading device called Kindle is highly-praised by geeks from all over, as well.

Now, what am I driving at in this post? Because I’ve just opened my own Amazon e-store! Please go take a look! Over the weekend, I’ve had so much fun adding my favorite items, so you might as well say the things for sale were handpicked by me. I’d have to say getting busy with the store beats playing Farmtown or Restaurant City, and I’ll make sure to update the product list from time to time.

The e-store is actually the result of an e-commerce seminar I took under Ms. Janette Toral who taught us how to go about the whole thing. It has been on my list of things to do, and am glad I finished it. Being an affiliate is still something I have to try and I really don’t expect to earn much, if at all. But since the whole WWW space is free anyways, there’s no harm in trying to add another extra button which you can find in the topmost portion of this blog.

Of course, the online store is just a prelude to the fab online shopping site I am going to introduce soon, so do watch out for it

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