Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Birkenstock Sale

Birkenstocks are on sale! Please click here to go to their home page and find birks, naot, earth shoes, and the like. Click here to go to the bargains page. There is free shipping in the US if you buy at least $100 worth. Shipping to Manila would cost about $17 to $22, if you're getting a pair.

Happy shopping!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Buy Online and Sleep Well at Night

The transition from the habit of going to a store to find what you like and actually finding something online via the art of shopping and merchandising is not so easy because of the fear of exposing personal info over the web. When I was a first-time online shopper, I was quite apprehensive about typing in my credit card info / bank info on a page that I was directed to by the website I was browsing.

There is not much problem if you are purchasing from big website stores. They have good track records and have built their reputation on being reliable one-stop online stores and they make sure that they are hacker-free on a daily basis. There's amazon, bluefly and B and H, among others. You can also count on big commercial stores that have gone online - such as target, bloomingdales, etc.

What about small merchants who sell online? Ebay's sister company, PayPal, has come to save the day. If you are a member of the PayPal site, you can pay any merchant that offers this method of payment without exposing your credit card or bank info. An extra perk of this site is that it protects the buyer from fraudulent sales. PayPal makes sure that their merchants send you the specified product that you ordered. Best of all, there is no fee! It's absolutely free.

There are also those that give you a headache - such as newegg, macmall and other computer-selling sites. You're usually all ready to go with your purchase, computed the peso conversion, typed in your credit card info and then they tell you that they cannot accept your credit card. Just because your billing info is in the Philippines. This time, it is Johnny Air that will save the day. You can call any Johnny Air office in the Philippines and you will just fill up a form with the website and your specific order and we will order it for you using our credit card. All you have to do is wait for the package to arrive. Make sure that you mention the Johnny Air Retail Blog so that you get a good rate.

Not bad, no? Have a good night's sleep.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Welcome to Online Shopping Pinoy-Style

On a recent trip to Manila, I went out for dinner with friends and we talked about how fascinating it was that everything can be done from your own house now because of the internet. Need new shoes? Click, click,click. Hmmm. New dress with shoes? Click, click. Oh, look! Bag to go with shoes. Click, click. Uh-oh. Feeling guilty. Get gift for someone else to alleviate guilty feeling. Search, search. White-like-an-angel Ipod. Perfect. Click, click. Heehee. All done. Remember when we actually had to go to the States to get that Double RL pair of jeans in the early 90s? Heehee. Click click. Happy, happy.

But then, there is the wet blanket - expensive international shipping! I was really excited to tell my friends that it was actually my job to make it a non-issue. You can actually shop-'til-you-drop online and have it shipped to Johnny Air in New York. There are sites that will give you free shipping or charge really, really low - less than $10 for a mountain of stuff, if shipped within the United States. Then, when we receive your package, we send it to our office in Makati, Megamall, Cebu, Davao, etc. (we're kinda all over) for really cheap ($7.50/lb for electronics and $6/lb for everything else - email me for detailed costs) . Shipment takes 4 to 5 days, so expect a call from our Philippine office around this time frame after we confirm with you that we have received your package. You can either pick it up from our office nearest you or we can deliver to your place. You can also monitor your package by getting in touch with us in New York or in Manila.

Imagine, getting good bargains online for gadgets, clothes, shoes, baby stuff, home stuff, kitchen stuff, books, movies, music, etc. and have them at the end of your fingertips for much less than actually driving to Serendra and buying it there. I feel like....like your fairy godmother.