Business and I Part 3: E-commerce

Hi all, quite a long time since I posted  about the 2nd part. So How is everybody? Its 2011 already and its coming to 2nd quarter of 2011. So where did I stop last time, digital point……online business…….bal bal bal………ok for this part 3 of this entry I would like to tell you guys about my first fully functioning online shop and guess what I’m selling? Tudung….yes its tudung bawal to be specific. Why? Girl buying power…

After some searching works , readings and discussions I decide to name my online shop www.tudung-bawal.com (this is not my first domain). It is very straight forward, everybody will instantly what is my business all about when looking at the name of my website(this is part of the many tips you can find in the internet). For this e-commerce website I have decided to use OScommerce

To make things more interesting, starting from designing, coding, testing and promoting was done by myself(actually no budget to hire people).  So from this activity I learn alot about PHP coding, photoshop, SEO and so on. Every tips and tutorials I followed from the internet in order to materialized my first online shop.

Alhamdullilah, everything when well and I launched my website. From time to time, my website started to gain its own popularity, my website has got no.1 ranking in google for the keyword “tudung bawal”. My sales increase locally and even internationally(UK, US, Australia). During the operation, anything regarding the backends will be hendle by me and anything related to frontend will be cover by wife.

One thing that is not so good about my business is its seasonal. My online shop has manage to stand for a few years, until tudung bawal is not a trend anymore and the arrival of the blogging era.

Next: Blog makes money…….

Kembali sekali lagi

Salam 1 Dunia,

Hah memang aku dah lama sangatlah, tak update blog ni. Sampai domain aku kena hack pon aku tak sedar. Biasalah alasan yang paling munasabah untuk ni adalah sangat sibuk. Aku rase samapai semalam lebih kurang 122 hari aku tak update blog ni. Tak sihat amalan ni untuk blog.

Oklah, ari ni aku nak update sket la apa yang patut. Kalau korang masih ingat lagi, post aku sebelum ni ada menceritakan pasal plan aku tahun ni nak start perniagaan pertanian Organic, masih tertangguh. Kenapa? sebab tak dapat tanah lagi. Tapi sebenarnya, kalau nak memang seribu daya, aku boleh je sewa tanah dan start dulu. So jawapan sebenarnya aku dapat rezeki lain yang sedang diusahakan sekarang.

Kisahnya bermula bila aku dan wife menghantar cake untuk dijual di sebuah wilayah yang terkenal. Hari demi hari, minggu demi minggu, sekali aku dapat tau ader kekosongan di sebuah kafetria dalam salah sebuah bangunan disana. Kitaorang pon cuba nasib, dengan anugerah tuhan kitaorang pon dapat offer. So sampai la ni, wife ngan aku sibuk mengendalikan small kafe kitaorang ni. memang selama ni aku mngidamkan unutk menceburkan diri dalam bidang ni, sekarang dah dapat mula pun, Alhamdulillah.

Aku nak jadikan tempat ni training ground kitaorang sebelum kitaorang nak plan melangkah lebih jauh lagi. Oklah itu pasal Business, nanti aku cerita lebih detail lagi. Pasal benda lain apa nak cakap eh? Ok hobby aku yang aku rase aku tak pernah citer lagi pasal audia Video (AV).

Sejak tahun lepas lagi aku ader pelan-pelan build aku nyer Home Theater Personal Computer(HTPC) sendiri. Setakat ni aku nyer progress dalam 93% lah. Aku pon ader baru angkat surround system Yamaha YHT-S300 yang aku combine dengan HTPC aku. System ni sangat compact, dan menggunakan teknologi Air Surround Xtreme untuk simulate the surround sound. Aku akan update kan lagi pasal ni ngan gambar sekali.

Lain-lain, minat aku unutk gadget tak pernah luntur, sekarang ni tengah usha-usha Ipad gak, member baik aku sorang dah sapu, tak menyempat aku ank test lagi. tengoklah kalau ader rezeki ader lah benda tuh kat tangan aku. kalu ikut wishlist aku, memang banyak benda aku nak sapu, aha.

So setakat ni jelah yang boleh aku update buat masa ni. tu pon aku curik sket masa kat office ni.ha ha ha Salam.

Business and I : Part 2 – Early Cyber Ventures

Beginning of the year 2004, the so call online business started to boom like mushrooms in Malaysia. Business involving e-books, prepaid, clicking and watching advertisement and MLM flooding Malaysia’s world of cyber like hell. During that time, email  was the main media in spreading this kind of information. From small to big amount of investment had been made by people of Malaysia in order to join this great hype, and that does not exclude me.

I had tried so many programs available in the Internet and all was up to the free version only(reading email, watching ads,etc). Non was a success. Later, I decided to try a paid version. The first paid program I’d join was a MLM base ebooks selling program. It was about RM40 in order to join the program. We will be given  our own website in order to promote our e-books. I’d tried so hard to promote my first venture, from classified, email, forums and even flyers(did not materialize). I had manage to get quite a number of downlines, but the not so easy part is to ask them to join as a paid members. Before I manage to make anybody a paid member, the website of this program suddenly disappeared and history. Below is one example of the ads that I used to post which I manage to dig back from the internet

Talking about own website, I remember starting my first website using Geocities free service during my Universty days(2000). My first website was called cerihik.com which a portal for people to submit thier stories to be publish on the Internet. I would say it maybe among the first of its kind in malaysia at that time but unfortunately I did not take it seriously and I stop maintaining the website after about a year in operation.(can believe ka this…up to you).below is a snapshot of my Intro page

From the power of Internet you can view my first website here.

After so many failures, I was then introduced to a forum which full of information on online busines, Digital Point Forum. Here is the place i learn a lot about Internet, website, ecommerce, Graphic design, ebay, paypal,etc. Here is the point were I start to get involved in a real online business. Will be contine……….

Business and I : Part 1 – The beginning

Business never came to be one of my passion until the year 2004. That year was a new experience for me at that time. Everything is new, I just past one  year of my marriage, I’m waiting for my first son to be born and I’m looking forward for new job. Before this, to me business was meaningless. Probably, because non of family members was actively involved in business. When I was still a little kid, my mother used to sell layered cakes during Hari Raya. She even took orders for custom made curtains at the same time. But all this was just something that my mother do out of her passion and to kill the time at home. But most people say, Hey, that is how usually a business started off, but then unfortunately having the same situation of not having anybody in the family the spirit of business at that time, my mother somehow stop doing it at one time.

Back to my business experience, its all started when my wife bought me a present. It was a digital Casio watch, a digital “aspal” (short form for  asli palsu) Casio watch to be exact. I did not realized it until being told by my wife. Somehow at that point of time an idea came up from my head to become a reseller of this product. The strategy at that time was to have small margin but bis sales and next is all History……ha ha not yet la… yes at that particular time I’ve manage get a big number of sales but I’m not business tycoon yet (even now). Thinking of it, its not that easy even running a business of selling replicas watch. There is always a challenge. But one thing that is very very very important from my experience is customer support. At that time, i try to find a way to make my watch a bit different from others, so what did i do? I introduce a quality check and period of warranty

Probably other sellers have this as well, but for me it really came originally from my little head and it really works. What i did was I give all my product a 30 days money back warranty and at the same time I will check all my stocks when I received it from my supplier. I will do a complete functional test to all my watches before it can be released for sale. It was quite a tedious work since I’m doing it alone but it is worth it. The warranty period given really enhance my product values from other sellers and at the same time i can minimized product return from customer since I have check upfront any defect products.

I wish to continue more but I’m out of the mood now, so if God willing I will continue the story of my journey other time.

Salam