On-Line Shopping (E Commerce)

I am a traditional shopper. I believe in looking, feeling, touching a product before I buy it. Sure I have heard of E-Commerce shopping on line for years now, but I never really delved into it. Was not motivated to do it, was not even interested to surf the sites.

Until 2 months ago, I saw these really cool Harman Kardon speakers with a very powerful base beat at a store in a mall. After “toying” with it for an hour and asking the sales attendant all sorts of questions, I decided to buy it. Alas, she told me that there was no stock !! Huh ???? What a total anti climax after all the sound of the bass pounding in my heart !
Damn …. I really wanted those speakers !
Went to neighboring stores, could not find it too. Went home feeling really disappointed.

In the period of 2 months, I looked for this speakers over the weekend ; whenever my family and I went to the malls. No luck.

In frustration, last Sunday 20 September, I decided to browse Lazada.com. A quick search and in less than 15 seconds wallllaaaa, I found it, the exact same model and at a price approx 13 % cheaper. WOW and they had available stocks too!

The “old paradigm” came into my mind. Should I buy on line ?
– What if they do not deliver ?
– What if they took a long time to deliver ? Like a month or 2 ?
– What if the goods received are defective?
– Can I trust them?
– Risk, risk, risk risk?

In the end, what the hell, I decided to do it. Let’s buy on-line. It took me less than 5 minutes to do the buying process with my credit card and I confirmed my purchase. Immediately, I got an sms as well as an email confirmation on my purchase. Delivery time was advised to be approximately 10 days.

2 days later on Tuesday (22nd Sept) – I checked on-line on their tracking option on their web. I saw all the details and it was confirmed that my order was in process. Great.

23rd Sept Wednesday.
– 11 am. Got an sms that my package was being sent.
– 2 pm, got a call from home. My wife asked me ………….. “did you buy any audio equipment ? Well, there’s a delivery man at the door saying there’s an audio package for you.”

I was simply and totally overjoyed and impressed. My new TOY has arrived. Hooray. When I got home, I unpacked the package, checked the speakers, installed it and all was in great order.

Isn’t this just great? I get my speakers in 3 days at a cheaper price and all it took was a quick “not more than 8 minutes” of searching and buying process.

I guess my attitude towards buying online will now change. It is convenient, cheaper and so efficient. And to think that I dealt with “no humans” (directly) at all in this transaction.

Such “E-commerce” set up is really amazing. I can just imagine the culture of strict fulfillment promises, speed, availability of a wide range of product, logistics excellence, consistency and efficiency being a daily requirement; as they need to establish trust and credibility amongst shoppers. They get paid in full and they deliver on time !! I am sure they do work with great partners being specialist in their own respective field to make this overall E-Commerce buying experience an attractive one for more and more people to buy on line.

In reading this article, a younger man in his mid twenties would say “hey wake up pops, we have been doing this like since forever now, you are slow old man”.

True , agree, what can I say – my excuse would be –
“it’s never too late to learn and it’s never too late to change young man. You were just a little bit more adventurous than I am, that’s all”.

Another learning point, it is totally so inconvenient to not have a hi-speed wifi these days.
Otherwise, with a less than 1 mbps speed, one would give up on E-Commerce.

Just sharing ….
An above 40 year old pops.