Apr
08

Reviews: Online Merchants

April 8, 2009 · Filed Under Web  · 505 views

With the advent of the web, long ago, other countries have been successful to take advantage of online merchandising.  The time, upkeep and start-up costs to make your own e-commerce powered website (now known as e-store) were at an all time high. You need to hire designers and developers for it to come into fruition. Although it still holds true if you want to automate your store and all the things connected to it like invoices, receipts and inventory, including your payment system of choice; With the offerings of some telecom companies of electronic cash, and services offered by freight services like money sending, systems like Western Union and the easier process of sending money bank-to-bank, the entry of local online merchants is eased.

Their process of making their online stores is helped by the advent of the social network websites like friendster, myspace, facebook and multiply. My observation is that, not only does it connect you to your friends and consumers and target-niche socially, it is also a good way to get testimonials, feedback and send out bulletins in lieu of newsletters. The traditional way of social marketing has now gone electronic via the web. The most popular social network website used for social marketing is multiply.com.

Although the process is still cumbersome, like you need to deposit money and fax the deposit slip or sending receipt, e-mail your address and details to the merchant, and monitor your shipment and all the nitty-gritty, it is successful in making a pseudo-online transaction possible. However, I have yet to see a fully-automated system of e-store in the Philippines.

I will try and review these online stores the coming month or week, (depending on the condition of my health) to let all consumers know that online merchandising and online shopping is safe and reliable. In the first set, I will review ILC Imaging and get some of their products for my experimentation and possible business use too in the future. I will use the traditional cumbersome method of bank deposit and the like, the first important thing to remember is to always open your line of communication with the e-stores staff and most of all their owner.

So sick

ILC Imaging

Second set, I’ll try the easier route of doing a transaction with Filters-Exchange using an online payment system like PayPal (which I used for years of convenience on foreign merchants). The owner agreed to the process, although they do not normally accept paypal payments because of the 5-10% fee added on the total cost when paying via paypal. Well, I’d rather pay 10% any day than get my self sweating lining up in the bank or a western union outlet and pay and then doing all the nitty-gritty stuff. I expect to process my orders online, pay for it online, get my shipment details online, and hopefully wait for the package to arrive.

So sick

Filters-Exchange

Oh after I discuss and review the process, I’ll do an accompanying step-by-step review of the items I bought and will be buying too. So also wait for those as well…

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One Response to “Reviews: Online Merchants”

  1. ILC Imaging aka inkdepot Part2 | Gee Please on April 23rd, 2009 11:43 pm

    [...] Monday March 23, 2009, exactly ten days after my initial inquiry my items were shipped by ILC Imaging a.k.a. inkdepot. Miss Joan Chua texted me that the shipping was initiated and I have to wait until Friday for my package to get to me. So I figured, that would be about 5 days, I was figuring it would only take them a day or three days to the most. Anyway, this was because the shipping possibly uses an actual ship to ship out the items. Kidding aside, I am a patient person, so I was happy still that my order is progressing. I am doing this review for the benefit of the other customers who are still hesitant to the power of Online Merchants, read my side-story and intro to this here. [...]

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