Yesterday, an old friend called me out for a dinner. The purpose is to get into the eCommerce in Sibu, and probably Malaysia.

I personally monitoring Sibu eCommerce closely. I wanted to see how it grow and how it works currently.

Forum as a starter

A lot of Sibuan like to start off with a forum, or selling in a forum instead. Having their own eCommerce store is time consuming and waste of money. After starting off a forum, they will offer a very competitive and affordable banner advertisement in forum, to get themselves going longer.

I can easily name more than 5 Sibu forums which all have above all points, banner advertisement, selling products on (specialized) thread and they are still young.

Well, look closely, each of those forum actually linking each other or buying advertisement with each other, spliting visitors all around the web and hardly get royalty and ended up not much sale on forum.

In short, those forums does not actually provide a platform for the seller (or themselves), but are looking for a profit themselves through the forum. That is the problem with forum as eCommerce.

Unfriendly user interface

Majority, if not all eCommerce store are using the same China made eCommerce script. I’m not saying it’s not good, it’s good and I did a test myself as well, function wise is great, but front-end interface is not.

Like most China website, crowded with images, big and small, and lots of text on the front page.

A while back, I spend a lot of time with my wife outside in malls, we find out that a lots of those stock are from Internet. Those eCommerce stores are actually more protifting as a wholesaler than a retailer. (You can check into forum too).

The key-point to actually winning in eCommerce store, is to get to know more retailers instead.

Login before paying is so yesterday. It is now against the concept of eCommerce nowadays, the convenient become not so convenient. Let me tell you more about the so-called, payment.

Payment gateway

There is absolutely no payment gateway on those eCommerce stores I visited. Don’t mind those Maybank2u or Credit Card logos on the footer.

Forget it, I ended up a message telling me “Our representative will contact you within next 24 hours.” Some even ask me to made the payment first and contact them about the payment and item I needed, right! What is the whole point of having a product clicked and added to cart?

So far, the best thing about eCommerce in Sibu is that I don’t get cheated. I am ensured with the location. With population of 25,000 only, basically to get to know a person and location is easier than flipping yellowpage.

Do I continue shopping online? Yes! The hassle are all away after I know the price is competitive compare to retail

Coming back home, I am deeply appreciate my Streamyx connection Malaysia got to have the best Internet broadband, seeing how it developed, don’t compare to Singapore or Korea then. First thing we both did once I stepped back home was plugged in my laptop (Which I brought it to Indonesia) and start checking online credit report, bills and letters at home and none but not least – social network sites.

Strangely, it became something I need to check into daily. Not because I wanted to look for somebody to chat with, but to find new stuff, discover new things.

What’s happening?

If you ask me, I would say Twitter is the news portal I read everyday. Notice that it changed the question from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?“. So obviously, Tweeples (As in Twitter People or Twitter User) don’t want to know your location already, they wanted to know what is happening in your location instead.

Gossip or a new Topic?

I’ve just encountered a family, where they would talk about what this relative or that friends are doing. I’m not sure if I would say it is a gossip or a topic in a family conversation. The Facebook status stated “What’s on your mind?), whoever really falling too deep into the trap will soon discover that they should be too honest on Facebook.

If I would need to sum up these 2 social network sites. They ARE definitely about gossip and gossip and more gossip!

I’ve spend a short time finding an Online masters degree. I don’t want to spend my time in the class and/or rushing for classes anymore. Gonzaga University is ranked one of the nations best universities by The Princeton Review and Forbes Magazine. It offers several of its masters degrees online.

It’s not easy to find a reliable yet professional online master degree program. Gonzaga finds the exact opposite, because it allows experienced professionals the opportunity for an advanced educations, who may otherwise not be able to because of professional or personal commitments.

Online masters degree becoming a very common matter in the social. People started to get that degree or a simple diploma doesn’t help on their career. As Chinese saying “Throw a stone on the crowd, you might hit a few degree holders“. But taking a master program is not easy too, that’s why I am still wondering and scheduling to see if it fits me

So far so good, my paid posting and link selling manage to get me some pocket money, expecially all the flights to and from Indonesia that I’ve been to for the past 14 months. All the PayPal and bank balance transfers working pretty smooth nowadays, I appiled Public Bank debit card months ago, and there is where I check my online revenue, all my online revenue go through there, and I also appiled Public Bank account to store all my online revenue. Oh, this also marked the 14th month of my long distance relationship.

I think I’m a workaholic, once I started something I will forget about EVERYTHING, even my surname just to get the job done first. This also goes the same to my study, so I’m fine with this long distance relationship while I’m study, because I forgot things very often But then, chick you know, they always want the physical appearance and all the touch touch thing. Sigh… Another half year to go, and see how to end all these shits

Ok, sorry for the previous shits picture Take it easy, it’s just a picture like you google out Anyway, I take the chance and change my good 3 years old student card…

Been putting the old card in my wallet on my ass, due to my thin ass, most of my cards has the same problem… Cracked half!

Lucky that my ATM card still usable Thin ass, big bone… Maybe should consider change and put my wallet in front instead.

This new student card, covered with plastic bag some more, but I don’t know how long it will survive that new in my wallet though Who cares, the main reason I change because I want to check online! Now, Limkokwing students are able to check their result online! Erm… Consider new technology after 4 years moving to Cyberjaya eh?

Beside checking my course, change my profile, check my result, nothing else. Simple, that is what a student need Change a phone number so they can’t find me without the need of filling form and everything Got to checking account more often this days in case the result out anytime soon, I don’t think the college is going to email me when the result will be publish as well