Category: Shopping

• Online Shopping

  08.09.09 |Shopping| Permalink | Comments Off on Online Shopping

  I love doing online shopping and I usually buy from ebay and Amazon.com. Weeks before I went to US, I did most of my shopping in Amazon.com. In Amazon.com, I get free shipping and no tax if I ship to Bay Area in US. It is better than physically shopping in Bay Area. Imagine 9.25% of tax added to your buying cost. Not fun!

  I managed to get most of my son’s transformer toys there and it was on special too. I couldn’t find the latest Fallen in the local stores. I am glad I made the decision to get it online. My boy and nephew are grinning from ear to ear to see what I got for them.

  
  
  

  I was also hoping to get a Spongebob Lego for my gal. I saw a couple of sellers in ebay having that product. However I didn’t win any of the bids. The price of the Lego was ok but the shipping cost was ridiculous. I managed to get it from Amazon.com at $37.90 without tax and shipping charges. The local store was selling from $39.90 + 9.25% tax.

  If you are in the US, do pay attention to Amazon.com. I wished they have free shipping in Malaysia. That will be so cool!

• Shopping At Castle Rock

  07.28.09 |Shopping, Travel| Permalink | 5 Comments

  I drove 35 miles to Castle Rock Factory Outlet on the day after I land. Fun starts before a busy week of work. They have summer sales there. You cannot imagine how cheap and how much I bought. There are many outlets there like Coach, Levi, Guess, Gap, Corelle and many more.

  
  
  

  Driving up there wasn’t too difficult because it is a straight road, just like Gilroy. However with Castle Rock, the shops are all in one place. I don’t have to drive from one zone to the other. If you are tired walking, there is a little nice food court for you to eat and relax. It has wifi too.

  
  
  

  Ok, here is the interesting part…..COACH IS ON SALE!!!!! It is not just sale but SUPER SALE. Yes, crazy price too. Most bags were like 50% discount and there are so many choices there. By the way, there is no queue whatsoever and not very pack with people too. Some bags were USD$99. See for yourself. You cannot believe how many I bought back. Now I am broke!

  
  

  

  
  

  Look at my Oshkosh receipt, clothes below USD$5. Back home, it is selling above RM40. Now you know why I have a problem packing. Not forgetting all the preordered toys that my children listed for me.

  
  
  

• Beware Of Cheats In Ebay

  06.21.09 |Internet, Shopping| Permalink | 1 Comment

  I am frustrated at some Ebay sellers. They think we are fools. They tried to abuse the system and we buyers have to be alert.

  A week ago, I had a bad experience. I was looking for a Lego Spongebob set in ebay for my gal. I bid and won at a very reasonable price. Guess what the seller did? First she quickly changed the invoice to include shipping to Malaysia. She was fast, she did it a few hours after I won the bid. By the way, she charged me US$42 and the box of Lego was US$26.

  
  
  

  I wrote to her to ask her to ship to a US address since I will be going there for business trip. She re-adjusted the invoice. I paid it after she did that. Later she refunded my money and gave a lame excuse that her bf accidently step on the Lego box, therefore spoiled it. You see Lego are made to be tough. Anyway, I asked her to take a picture for me, if it is not badly damages, I will take it at a discounted price. She didn’t take any pictures but offer to find another set for me. Until now, I didn’t hear from her. I sensed that she wanted to profit from the shipping cost.

  There were a lot of things in Ebay that is overpriced. I bought a Transformer The Fallen from Amazon.com for US$22.99 with no shipping cost. Ebay sellers are selling for US$30-$60. Are they crazy? Amazon.com is selling the Lego Spongebob for US$39 inclusive of shipping. Ebay sellers are putting at US$25-$40 but with a high shipping cost like US$14.70.

  
  
  

  There are some fake bidders that jack up the price of the goods. Bottom line, beware of these cheaters! I am better off buying stuff in Amazon.com. I hope Amazon.com accept non-US paypal in the future.

• Ebay Save My Day

  05.31.09 |Living, Shopping| Permalink | Comments Off on Ebay Save My Day

  I have problematic skin but it has improved a lot after I have children. I used to get Dermalogica but the price had shop up sky high. I changed to Cellnique Seaweed cleaner and it is really good. However it is difficult to get the product. There is one beauty salon who sells this product. I depended on their supply for a while.

  However lately, the shop was closed. I was very curious so I called the mobile number and the one who picked up the phone told me the owner sold the mobile number to her. I wonder who would want to buy a handphone number. The number has nothing special and hard to remember too. I believed she may have lied for obvious reasons.

  Anyway, I was really disappointed and my last drop of cleanser is gone. So I tried to search on ebay. To my surprise there was a reseller and she sells in big size bottle and a very good price too with no shipping charges. I grabbed one big bottle. What do I do without ebay!

  
  
  

• Steam Up

  05.04.09 |Rant, Shopping| Permalink | 1 Comment

  
  
  

  Almost reaching boiling point, maybe it is the time of the month. Maybe not, 9 days more. I was shopping at GIANT Bayan Baru and saw a dual pack Dettol shower gel refill. It said SAVE RM8.90, I overlooked and I thought I saw RM8.90. It can be very deceiving with prices, be careful! Especially in hypermart, it hard to find the exact price on the shelf. You got to look for the check price scanner to find out how much it cost.

  Anyway, I checked out and the price stated on the receipt was 16.89! Not a good deal, so I went to the staff to return the product and told him I saw the wrong price. He directed me to customer service. In the customer service, I had to fill up the form and everything was done. The staff asked me to wait. I waited and waited while my 2 children were snacking. It was nearing lunch time.

  I heard the staff paged the cashier supervisor a few times, more than 4 times. No one came. 5 minutes passed, 10 minutes passed and 15 minutes passed. I had enough. I asked the staff a few times, she made excuses that the cashier supervisor was busy. Yeah right.

  I stomped away, looking for the store manager. Blasted at him, saying “I waited for 15 minutes for a cash return, your staff page the cashier supervisor at least 4 times and no one came. Futhermore, look my children are getting hungry!” He looked at my children, each eating a packet of honey coated cashew nuts. He then signal the cashier supervisor, guess what she was doing. She was chatting with other staff. *shake head* Probably deaf because she didn’t hear the page. By the way, the walk from the counters where she was to the customer service counter is less than 5 meter away!

  She returned back my money and I stomped out of there! If any of the GIANT management staff is reading this, please make your service a little more efficient for your customers and priced your goods clearly so that everyone can view.

  Once I saw the big sign stated the price as RM9.99 but at the shelf, it is stated RM29.99 for the same product.

• Top 10 Loser Vouchers

  04.27.09 |Shopping| Permalink | 1 Comment

  Don’t you hate it when a shop offers you a free voucher that is useless? I have received many of these vouchers and it a marketing scams. Too bad I cannot report them to anyone. Sometimes these companies think we are stupid or greedy.

  Here are the top 10 loser vouchers I received:
  1. Free $10, you can use it next month on certain range of books.
  2. Free $5, you can use it next month if you spend more than $10.
  3. 3 Free $10 vouchers, you can use it next month but a single voucher for each item.
  4. Free $10, you can use it on your next purchase next month.
  5. Free $10, you cannot use it on grocery items, cosmetics or promotion items.
  6. Free $5, you can use it on your next purchase expired end of the month.
  7. Free $10, you can use it if you spend more than $100
  8. Free $10, please collect the voucher in the nearest branch next month.
  9. Free 1 set meal if you purchase 2 sets.

  And the top 10 loser voucher is……..
  10. Free $10, you can only use it on 31st Apr 09. (Opps, there is no 31st in April)

  No wonder my wallet is always full of vouchers and I never know when which one expires on what date. Yeah they cannot make thing simpler for customers.

  However, I like Tesco because when they give vouchers, you can use it any day and any time with no condition. The expiring date is 2 years from the date issue.

  If you don’t want to give genuine vouchers, please don’t give it! I rather you keep it.

• Shopping Frustration

  01.22.09 |Shopping| Permalink | Comments Off on Shopping Frustration

  I went into Guardian Pharmacy during lunch and was looking for some vitamins for my children. Look!

  
  
  

  They expect us to see through boxes. Sigh, I would say a shop who does not want to sell their vitamins. It makes no sense. This is not the first time I am encountering this and I find this in a lot of Malaysian shops. I often find that stocks are all over the place, sometimes when I am walking into an aisle and I will find boxes right in the middle of the aisle. If you are not looking, you can trip over it. It can be very hazardous.

  Besides that, you find people pushing boxes of stock in and out especially when it is crowded with shoppers.

  Next, I hate shopping for vitamins because you get promoters coming to you and never leave you along until you walk away from the vitamins section. I really have phobia with promoters.

  Maybe I should start an online vitamins store for people who are like me. My friend just got 25 bottles of vitamins from the states. Yeah it is really cheap in the States. Those vitamins are FDA approved too. However he got tax by the custom. No escape for him.

• Made In Ireland

  08.28.08 |Shopping| Permalink | 2 Comments

  When I was young, I love to look for “Made In” label. At that time, I can find things made everywhere. Now most things are made locally or Made in China. China produces a lot of stuff and shipped worldwide. You can find “Made in China” things almost in every country.

  Last time, I had a friend who went to Hong Kong to get some electronic gadgets. He bought a Sony brand. The price was alright. Later he discovered that it is made in Malaysia. We called that “the return home” gadget.

  The other day, I was surprised when I saw this:

  
  
  

  Guess what is made in Ireland that I own and used every day? I am sure you have one too. It is the last place I would thought that this was made in Ireland. Reason is the cost of producing it will be high. Now that I know it is from there, I have the quality assurance.
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  Answer: My Dental Floss
  

  
  
  

• US Service Vs Asian Service

  03.20.08 |Service, Shopping| Permalink | 3 Comments

  The other day I was in Singapore Changi Airport getting some toys for my children. I picked up a couple of toys and paid at the counter. At the counter, the sales person was scanning the barcode and discovered there was a price difference. She told me that the price of the toy is wrongly tag. It should be a dollar more. I had to pay the extra dollar else no sale.

  I encountered a similar situation in US. I was in the Corelle Store and got a dinning set. The tag was wrongly priced. The sales person apologized and gave me the price that was tagged. It is so nice of them.

  You can see both have very different way of providing customer service. One is being too profit oriented and the other, customer centric. If the store makes a mistake, they should bear the cost and not frustrate the customers.

  The truth I love shopping in US because they are so focus on customers and yet makes a profit. Do you know that there was once, my meal came late and the restaurant manager apologized? He also gave it to me free of charge. This is what I called customer service!

  Here in Malaysia we are way below standard. It is no point hiring some phony managers in the restaurant that come around with fake smiles asking how the food is. Half they time they don’t take bad remarks and improve the service. I really think they are pretty annoying especially when they come around and interrupt our dinner and our conversations. Can’t they pick a better timing? By the way, I think they think too highly of themselves and not really serving the customers. Do you agree?

  Anyway, back to the wrong price tagging, anyone know any consumer rights in Malaysia that the store have to sell the price that the goods has tagged? They cannot sell any higher than that? If you do, please let me know.

• Cute Doggy Bag

  11.27.07 |Shopping| Permalink | 5 Comments

  I got this fabric bag from Penang QueensBay Mall. It has a cute little dog sewn on the bag which I love so much. In my humble opinion, it is worth much more than the I M Not A Plastic Bag.

  I kind of like the store, the bags they are selling has either a dog or a cat sewn on it. It is really cute. The store is call pet shop. It has backpack, shoulder bag, purses, handphone pouch and all. The inside of the bag has lining which is water proof. The quality is not bad. I am not sure where this bag comes from but it is pretty. My children love it too.

  Anyone know where is it made?