The worst part about online shopping is the waiting!

With the ease of Online shopping , does the GSS mean anything anymore? Why not just shop at the comfort of one's home or office? Well the truth is, nothing beats seeing, feeling & trying on the real thing. Shopping online could be fun, but you'll never really know what you'll get.

The worst part about online shopping is the waiting! Yup.... the shopping the browsing through the numerous pages is fun Once you paid up, the waiting is terrible. With physical retailing, you just go in, grab the item, pay up & you leave with it, immediate ! You know & you get what you paid for.

With online shopping, at the back of your mind you always worry you might end up with something inferior. Well ... news has been circulating that online shopping is on the decline. I guess the major factor that contribute to it, is the huge number of sites of sellers pouring into the already saturated market.

Needed a break badly

I'm catching a late flight to BKK later. Needed a break badly. We 4 girls are going to have a great weekend of shopping, eating & pampering, massages maybe. Just thought I give a shout out here since I've not blog for months :)

Lessons learnt from the hacking of Sony

The recent Sony Hack took us by surprise - it's major & it was rumored that it was triggered or caused by the movie "The Interview" starring Seth Rogen & James Franco. If you have not heard of it by now,

I'm sure you have been to Mars & only got back like today ...lol...

Anyway it seems big corporations need to spend more serious money & time on cyber defenses.

And yes... whatever you said online, there will always be a record of it somewhere. So if you want to bitch about someone the next time , please do it verbally & make sure no one is recording it ...lol..

My laptop died on me today! And Happy New year all......

Tried to save a document but there isn't enough memory? Seriously??? I turned it on & off , delete all the nonsense from hard drive, update operating system, but nothing works. Well I need to see Arjun the IT guy.

I used to see Doreen calling Arjun into her office to ask him how to underline words & attached files to emails & I swore I'd never degenerate into such technological senility. But no choice today, surely it wasn't too much to ask the person we employ full time to look after them to help.


I worried Arjun might see how long I'd spent googling online shopping sites, so I delete the history before going to his office. I found Arjun playing a game where you have to kill the ninjas in a castle. He looked up & I handled him my laptop. He bashed some keys & his only comments were, "i see you deleted your history" & he winked ....omg..... I smiled sweetly to stay on his right side till he fix it.

After a couple of minutes of clattering around, he said the hard drive is screwed & handed me a brand new laptop ! I walked back to my office in astonishment. Could it be possible there was someone even lazier than me in the office? ...lol... Not that I'm complaining, this new computer runs 4 times faster !  :))

Christmas hangover

Nursing a hang over from last night's Christmas celebration.
Is it worth it?

Oh boy not at all.
I'm recording it here so that I'll not forget, & never do it again!

Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder tops Asian's rich list

Mr Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of China's Alibaba Group, has become the richest person in Asia. The 50-year-old founder of China's biggest e-commerce company surpassed Hong Kong property tycoon Li Ka Shing, who used to hold the top spot, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has a US$28.6 billion (S$37.6 billion) fortune, according to the Bloomberg ranking. Mr Li has a net worth of US$28.3 billion -

Mr Ma has added US$25 billion to his fortune this year riding a 54 per cent surge in the company's shares since its September initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.

 At that scale, Alibaba is on the verge of becoming one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. Alibaba, whose online marketplaces - Taobao and Tmall - had 307 million active buyers in China as of September, saw revenue rise to 16.8 billion yuan (S$3.6 billion) between July and September, according to Bloomberg

He may now be China's richest man, but he has admitted in a United States television interview that being so wealthy is actually causing him "great pain". "This month I'm not very happy - I think too much pressure," he told the broadcaster. "Yeah, it is good, but not the richest man in China. It's a great pain because when you're (the) richest person in the world, everybody (is) surrounding you for money," he told CNBC. He added that people now looked at him differently when he walked down the street and added: "Spending money is much more difficult than making money.

His remarks echoed what he told state media in early October when he said being named China's richest man is "meaningless". "My happiest days were when I used to earn 90 yuan (S$19) a month," Mr Ma once told state media. He is looking at the possibility to establish a foundation to spend money "in a business way" and may even compete with United States billionaire Bill Gates in the field of philanthropy, according to CNBC.

Mr Ma was ranked as China's most generous person after he donated a 1.4 per cent stake in his firm to set up a charity focused on the environment, health care and education, according to a survey by wealth publisher Hurun in late October .

Well as long as he is being generous to charity & hopefully cleaning up the environment , I would say keep on making the money Mr Ma :))

Did you know Skincare brand Fancl will be closing its stores in Singapore and Taiwan from March 2014.

Why? Because the company has been losing money in both countries. New marketing plan would be to re-enter the Singapore market as a wholesaler after April 2014. It will also be expanding into the US market with some of its brands.

What actually went wrong? Sources said they have been struggling with the Singapore consumer. Simon Bell, executive director strategy, Southeast Asia & Pacific at Landor said that marketing alone will never guarantee the success of a brand – instead a single compelling idea that resonates with the consumer is required.

He said that the brand did not differentiate itself. “Whilst the Chinese consumer seeks brand attributes of esteem and knowledge in the skincare category, Singaporeans search for brands that are relevant yet differentiated from the competitor set, and that’s what Fancl overlooked.

However, the shift from retail to digital for its businesses may be just what Fancl needed. Re-entering the brand as a wholesaler will help the brand cut the costs associated with having physical retail stores, the constant issue of staff turnover and the need to provide good service while keeping costs low. The battle ahead is about personal preferences, about being there, all around the clock and about building lively communities online.

As part of its future strategy, the brand will target the middle aged to elderly customers and raise its brand loyalty by further expanding its Mutenka (additive free) cosmetics market. It also plans to build on its mail order sales channels and online. The new target market might be ‘traditionally’ known to be more loyal as compared to the younger consumer, but will this group be accustom with buying online? That's the big question.

Well good Luck to Fancl, will miss seeing their very nice retail shops around, but I’m sure someone very soon will fill up these physical retail spaces.