i'm disheartened, so let's get back to the basics..

my web-designer is not responding to my ammendments as fast as i hoped he would.. ebay-listing is demanding more hours in a day than i could currently put aside.. i'm not even re-looking at the 3rd online shop as yet, so that i could focus and complete the first 2.. and all these 3 issues are my current immediate priorities for the year, and it's the middle of february already.. :(



i'm very disheartened, and i worry these IT-hiccups will push me away doing other things and getting involved in other projects, and that had happened a number of times already the past one-year or so, and it could happen again very soon unless i stay put on this course.. :(



so why the heck do we need to sell online..????



REASON 1: we have 16-years of accumulated stocks to get rid off..!! design collections from yesteryears, production over-runs, wrongly-specified items, custom-made design samples, etc, etc.. all still in very good order and mint condition, looking as good as new, fresh from our ovens/kilns.. we've been getting rid of these stocks via our annual year-end factory-sales the past 4-5 years and the responds have been good but online sales could have made them better, eh..??



REASON 2: to keep my production team happy and occupied in-between projects and any lull periods.. you see, we're not even planning to have the e-shops grow so big that would require the employment of new staff/team to handle the sales or the production of more items.. i'm just expecting the e-shops to sell whatever my production team had helped me produce with love and care over the years..



REASON 3: to service and accomodate the requests of friends, family and loyal customers to keep buying our products without having to go all the way to our factory or our consignment outlets, which we've reduced over the past 5-6 years from 34 to just 4-5 outlets..


i have simple reasonings and equally simple goals..
they're my products, my staff, my friends, family and loyal customers..
these are my basics that matter now..

5th february 2009

it was my birthday yesterday 5th february, and the birthdate of my accidental business.. yes, my accidental business has turned 16-years old!!! and in another few more days ie. 10th february, my eldest girl/child will turn 17-years old..

how time flies.. but let's not focus on the word OLDER, eh..?? i'd like to think that i'm getting much much much WISER.. ;)

and being wiser, ehem.. i didn't expect any gifts or fanfares from darling husband & 2-younger children (eldest child is now in boarding-school).. it's the simple thoughtfulness-es that always count in my book.. okay, okay he's buying me something but guess what?? i'm supposed to go buy it for myself and pay it via his supplementary card..!! and i said, haven't i been doing that, regardless of the times of the year anyway, darling..?? therefore where is the sense of wonderment in getting my present..?? ;)

so on my 45th-birthday yesterday, wiser-me ran away instead to wified-delifrance for the whole afternoon between 2-7pm.. to re-focus on her ebay-listings..!!! yes, it's a somewhat monumental decision to make on the anniversary of my 16-years in this ceramic designing & manufacturing business, therefore my birthday-present should just wait, huh??

i was hoping that it was gonna be 'monumental' therefore very memorable.. especially having an ebay-presence has been in my head since sept-2004, and i've made several unsuccessful attempts eversince, and i've recently decided with the encouragements of my ebay-tutors that i should still go ahead with it, and even if i'm still half-prepared, i should just JUMP into it..!!

so i JUMPED, again..

2-7pm saw me finalising a number of online-processes which i'd not write for now.. some of these processes i had gone through a few times already.. even the item-listing process & forms already looked familiar..

what i'd like to note down here is this: 5-hours fully-focusing on re-getting my first feet into ebay-world is still not enough to even successfully listing one item.. i need more hours in a day, mmm..

focus rosmah, FOCUS..
i'm supposedly WISER now, therefore should have much more PATIENCE and PERSERVERANCE, mmm..

time to take a break and go buy that birthday present, huh..??

ebay brainstorming session..

hoping that this will be among my final brainstorming session about selling my ceramic handicrafts on ebay, let me just list down my previous worries and issues..

1. my ceramic items are breakable-items.. i was worried that many breakages, despite careful & safe packaging on my side plus insurance coverage, may give me plenty of negative feedbacks from my ebay buyers, therefore affecting future sales, not forgetting dampening my spirits..

2. i was under the impression that my buyers would expect to get their purchased items as soon as possible, hence i spent a lot of time comparing courier-charges and discovered that adding the delivery charges had made the cost of my ceramic products 3-4times more expensive!! i myself would not want to purchase my own products.. :(

3. i'm not familiar with auctions and the bidding processes practiced in ebay or elsewhere, and i was more keen in listing my ceramic items under fixed-prices but wasn't sure whether that could highlight my products very well, and thus was under the impression that i'd still need to auction off my items every now and then.. within some unfamiliar processes that i'd still need to explore..

4. my initial interest in ebay was to straight away set up an ebay-store and list up and showcase all my many ceramic handcrafted products designed over the past 15 years.. but i discovered that before i could do that, i'd have to firstly accumulate a certain number of positive feedbacks from my buyers.. and with above-listed issues still hanging in my head, my spirits were further dampened..

5. ebay has this feedback system whereby each successful transaction is allowed a feedback/comment from both buyer and seller.. either negative or positive comment will be made known to other ebay-ers as well, therefore these feedbacks/comments carry a certain weight to the reputation of both buyers and sellers.. i was worried that because of issues 1 & 2 above (breakables & expensive courier-charges), added with me fumbling through issue 3 (auction-processes) would eventually end up with plenty of negative feedbacks on my record (reputation as an ebay-seller).. thus would reduce my chances of opening an ebay-store..

there you go.. out of my head finally.. easier now to decide: to pursue or not to pursue?? time for my coffee break, huh??.. will continue later, roger and out..

re-attempting ebay..

lets see.. should i continue pursuing this ebay-business..?? or should i finally thrash it out from my head..??



i've thought of opening an ebay-store since 2004.. i've blogged and brainstormed my ebay-hiccups a number of times since i started blogging.. i've even attended an ebay tutorial seminar last week..



and the past 1-2 years due to my non-progress with ebay, i've even created 2 online-stores which are now in their finalising processes.. why should i now bother re-attempting opening an ebay-store..??



my eyes were caught by ebay-seller-starter-kit's tagline: sell where the world goes shopping.. and as i was sharing my ebay-selling-tutorials with darling hubby after reaching home, i likened my 2 online stores as little shops with very limited customers in bukit beruntung.. whereas a store in ebay is like having a shop in busy & prominent KLCC..



now, does that mean being in ebay i'd not need to advertise/promote my store at all..??



i've considered blogging as one of the ways that i'd promote my little non-ebay online-stores.. i've even read and studied ways that i could attract more readers/visitors to my blog.. i've purchased and subscribed to popular money-making blogs both locally and beyond.. all these investments i made in pursuit of making business life easier for me..



but as i read more and more, i've made this discovery.. starting an ebay-business or any other online-business is actually very much the same as starting any conventional business, you'd still need to put a lot of effort, time and money for the first 2-5 years.. but definitely of course, with the business being on the net reaching the whole wide world, your online store/s would grow so much faster than those conventional shops..



with that in mind, let's re-look at my previous failed ebay-attempts, here and here.. i'm also reminded of irfan-khairi's 36-tips which i'd re-publish here..

an ABBA fan since i was seventeen..

and 27 years later.. my 5yr old son is a fellow cult-member..!!!

i had been cooped up in my soho the past 5 days finishing off the remnants of my 2008 resolutions when i received a reminder call to attend this ebay-business tutorial seminar that i had registered a week earlier..

i've always been soho-based in my business-operations, but 5 days working from home without going anywhere even to do gardening or grocery-shopping had made my son very attached to his mum, so upon seeing me dressing up to go out to attend the seminar, ikmal started to sulk, cry and bawl..

that was until his father my darling husband suggested that he should watch some of the newly-bought pirated cds that he brought home the night before, which included 'mamamia the movie'..!! and immediately ikmal's eyes brightened up and almost as immediately he stopped crying, then settled down on the sofa with his barney whilst sucking his thumb..

yes, with mamamia the movie featuring all the ABBA's songs that he'd been listening very often throughout his young life, this mama could now go to work in peace and with full consent coz 'ikmal nak tengok cerita ikmal'...

enjoy one of my many ABBA's all-time favourites, DANCING QUEEN.. which ikmal insists, is HIS song..!! one of these days instead of my fellow dancers, eh girlfriends taking me karaoke-ing, eh kroaking.. i foresee ikmal accompanying his mama instead.. ;)

friday night and the lights are low

looking out for a place to go

where they play the right music

get into the swing

you've come to look for a king..

anybody could be that guy

night is young and the music's high

with a bit of the right music

everything is fine

you're in the mood for a dance..

and when you get the chance

you are the dancing queen

young and sweet only seventeen

dancing queen

feel the beat from the tamborine oh yeah..

you can dance you can jive

having the time of your life

ooo see that girl watch that scene

dig in the dancing queen..

you're a teaser and you turn them on

leave them burning and then you're gone

looking out for another

anyone will do

you're in the mood for a dance..

and when you get the chance

you are the dancing queen

young and sweet only seventeen

dancing queen

feel the beat from the tamborine oh yeah..

you can dance you can jive

having the time of your life

ooo see that girl watch that scene

dig in the dancing queen

dig in the dancing queen..

you can dance you can jive

having the time of our life

ooo see that girl watch that scene

dig in the dancing queen..

(wishing now i have an audio-something installed here in my blog..)

let's recap..

now that i've re-entered blogosphere, i feel that i have plenty of things to brain-storm with myself.. not so much to catch up on lost times, but more to recapture on what has transpired during my non-blogging months and to determine whether i'm still on the right track..

the past non-blogging 5 months have seen me going back to my trusted, proven and conventional notebook.. no, not my sony vaio, but the one involving pens and papers, scribblings and doodlings, and sitting alone at some quiet corners of cosy cafes.. yeah its true, i needed a respite from my web hijackers!! i needed to be less naked to the whole web world. i needed to protect and shield myself from unsavoury attentions. i needed to learn more about online identities, frauds and the likes..

so am i smarter now to re-blog...?? not really, but maybe less fearful of unwanted net-attention. therefore on that positive note, let's recap my earlier net-goals 5 months ago..

my main goals were to sell my keceramics 40-items, kualalumpur giftpacks and bulky factory stocks direct from my existing http://www.keceramics.com/ website and also through ebay.com and lelong.com.my. looked like very simple goals when i wrote them down then, but when it came to the crunch of implementing them one by one, my eagerness was dampened by complicated system-integrations between my existing website and 2checkout counter, of which my web-designer couldn't handle. i was instead adviced to create another e-shopping website totally separated from my existing keceramics.com. mmm...

initial listing attempts for selling on ebay was taking me hours to configure and complete, and considering that it took me ages to list only one item, a glance through my remaining 40++ yet-to-be listed items and realising the fact that i needed to accumulate enough positive feedbacks from ebayers before i could be allowed to open up an ebay store, sapped up my energy and enthusiasm even further. yeah, yeah, yeah, i was very impatient about ebay in 2004, and again in 2007!! mmm...

selling direct from keceramics.com was out, selling via ebay was pushed to k.i.v. tray yet again, selling only via lelong.com.my was too localised... how else should i pursue online selling of my products then??? mmm...

streamline and simplify things, rosmah.. don't look at your many products for now.. just focus on a few.. let's just concentrate on kualalumpur-gifts.com!! flat-packed, easy to post, minimal courier charges and hassles!! wow, that was easy to decide.. and in line with our current production focus some more.. ;)

so that's what i've been working on in my non-blogging world. a new website selling only tile giftpacks to complement and promote my current focus on tile productions at http://www.handmadeceramictiles.com/ . the new website is not ready yet, but soon...