Post GST and the Business Crooks

After the new Malaysian Government announced the removal of GST, a lot of people were happy, hoping that prices would go down and people would have more money to spend overall. However, I was aware that there are certain business people, the crooks, who would use this opportunity to milk their customers like they did when GST was put into place previously, overnight prices went up and some restaurants still retained their service charges (as high as 10%). This has also happened in the past when fuel prices increase and the price of good would increase overnight, many times not proportional to the price rise. However, the worst part was that when the fuel prices went down, the price of goods and services did not go down.

Now consumers are more aware and social media was flooded with companies, mostly restaurants, which increased their prices when GST was removed - with people sharing images of receipts before and after showing no difference in prices. One famous example was that of a restaurant in Bangsar and the owner blamed it on a IT glitch. The authorities were also quick to investigate. However, in terms of prosecution, we have not really seen any of these  cheats being punished. Now they seem to be getting more blatant. Another restaurant in Bangsar have maintained the prices on their menu. On being confronted, the restaurant simply said that they had increased the prices by 6% (the same amount as the GST which was removed).

Let us act against these vultures and I sincerely hope that the authorities take stern action - not just fining them but closing these outlets.

Pencil case made from recycled tyres

This is a really fun pencil case my wife bought from 'Love thy Space', an online store based here in Coventry, UK.



The words on the case says: "I used to be a car tyre recycled into something Remarkable"

Yes! It's made from recycled tyres. They cost only £4.50.

Introducing Raja Rahawani and Precious Times

A few Malaysians have settled down here in Coventry and now call it their home. One of them is Raja Rahawani. She has been here in Coventry for nearly 14 years now.

Affectionately known by the younger Malaysians here as Kak Raja, she is a really really talented lady. A fully qualified professional practitioner in holistic therapies, she offers reflexology, aromatherapy, Indian head massage, thermo auricular therapy and holistic living lifestyle.

She also works as a Mobile Therapist and offers 'Home Visits' especially for ' Post Natal clients and vulnerable clients who needed treatment in the comfort & convenience of their own home and familiar surrounding (e.g especially referral cases such as post rehabilitation MS client, post rehab stroke/ bypassed, etc). However, it's for Lady Clients Only .

In 2008, Kak Raja offered Remedial Massage, Reiki & Reflexology to Multiple Sceloris (MS) patients at the Neurology Unit (L:4), University Hospital in Walsgrave, Coventry for more than seven months. It was specially funded by a charitable organisation based in London called 'Life For 4 Living'.

If you are interested you might want to try out the taster sessions / workshops in health and beauty as well as pampering and relaxation sessions. I also learnt recently that she is a qualified perfumer and makes her own perfumes. That's so amazing.



She recently launched her website, Precious Times and I wanted to help create some buzz about her business. The premises are located at 146, Walsgrave Road, Coventry CV2 4AX.

Now for the best part. Kak Raja has agreed to give reader of my blog an Exclusive Offer (June, July and August 2009). You can choose from:

• Up to 5% discount on initial treatments or
• a mini holistic facial or
• a taster back massage or
• a hand massage.

All you have to do is mention my blog to Kak Raja.

Please refer to the Precious Times website for more information.

Travelodge tells me to bring a tent

My sister is coming over from Australia to visit us in May along with her husband and my sweet niece. She wanted to rent an apartment but I convinced her to save money and stay in the Travelodge Hotel here in Coventry.

As students we are always on a budget and discovered Travelodge after talking to other Malaysians who have been here in the UK for a while. The first thing that comes to mind when we say "budget hotel" are dirty sheets, bare and tiny rooms and we were really surprised the first time we stayed in a Travelodge because their service quality was quite high. The rooms were neat and tidy, well maintained with clean sheets. They even provide TV and kettle with tea and coffee. You can even get extra pillows, sheets and baby cot if travelling with a baby. Like Air Asia, the budget Malaysian airline, you can get some great deals if you book early with them.

Anyway, we never knew that there was a Travelodge in Coventry until we ran a search and quickly booked the rooms. Later on we found out that the hotel was still under construction.


Screenshot of their website

Naturally we were quite worried and I called up their customer service. The guy I talked to, convinced me that the hotel would be up by the time my sister's family arrived. He also added "You better bring along a tent mate!"

It was quite funny and I laughed - an example of a typical English joke where you don't know whether the guy is being sarcastic or actually trying to be funny with a lame joke. I was narrating this incident to my friend who's in the hotel industry (he prefers to call it "the hospitality industry") and he was shocked. "They actually said that".

According to him, if any of his customer service staff made a remark like that, they would be fired immediately.

I was not offended but they better get the hotel ready in time.

Cheaper flights to London with Air Asia

A few weeks back I wrote about the Ryanair and bloggers episode and mentioned that "they can learn a thing or two from Air Asia". Well, Maxton Walker of the Guardian seems to think so as well.

In his article 'This is budget travel. We demand to suffer' he seems to be pleasantly surprised by the level of service quality and mentions that "If AirAsia X can keep it up, it is on to something".

Experts have always assumed that it is impossible to have a profitable budget long-haul airline service. Air Asia might have cracked it. I mean Kuala Lumpur to London for only RM490 (approx. £93) is crazy.

Tony Fernandes, the CEO of Air Asia says that flying to London is "A dream accomplished".

First Commentator
Bokjae

Online T-shirt store with a difference

Look what came through the door yesterday - a brand new T-shirt.



It is an original Iffyton T Shirt from Iffyton High Street - a new online T-shirt store. It is totally different from other online t-shirt stores I am familiar with. It features a virtual high street with various stores, each with a different theme selling original designs you won't find elsewhere. You can go left or right depending on the position of your mouse and hovering your mouse over a store will give you a brief description below.



You can also start selling your own designs by setting up a virtual store on the site for a one off fee of only £500. This includes store set up, hosting, banking, etc. Found out later on that the guys behind Iffyton High Street are Totally Original T-Shirts (TOT-Shirts), one of Britain’s largest garment decoration specialists (in their words).

My only concern was that the TOS and contact information are not easily accessible. Some fussy first time customers might be put off by that.

Anyway, I had a tough time choosing from the various designs but I finally went for this guitar design in a shop called "A DJ is not a musician".



I don't have anything against DJ's - just thought that the design was cool. It costs £18.60 inclusive of the postage. The delivery was fast and the quality of the cloth (100% cotton) was surprisingly good. I am really impressed. Will definitely be shopping there again.

First Commentator
Angel

Ryanair and bloggers

As we all know, if you are a big company, picking a quarrel with a blogger is not really a good idea. However, Ryanair recently did that.

Web developer and blogger Jason Roe was called an "idiot blogger" when he pointed out a flaw on the airline's website. The response from other bloggers was predictable. The comments are hilarious and as someone who's in marketing, I simply couldn't believe it. Is it possible that one of the biggest low cost airline in Europe is that arrogant?

Read the Telegraph's article: 'Ryanair calls blogger lunatic'.

In spite of that, I was really surprised to find the level of negative perception towards the airline prevalent among my friends here. Not even one had a nice thing to say about the company. This is a case of extremely bad PR and they clearly need to do something about this.



I have flown with the airline only once to La Rochelle and I simply flew with them because they were the cheapest. I had no problems with the airline apart from the one thing - there was no information on the tickets on how to contact their customer service by telephone (do they even have one?) when we had problems.

They can learn a thing or two from Air Asia, a low cost airline based in Malaysia and one of the fastest growing the World. They start flying to London this year.

You just have to compare the websites of the two airlines to see what I mean:


Air Asia


Ryanair

This is an interesting case because I can always use it as an example of "what not to do" for my marketing students.

Anyway, enjoy this ad:

First Commentator
D

India - a paradox

The paradox that is India:

1. Reebok is #1 in India while Nike is #2. Totally opposite to sales in other countries.

2. Similarly Pepsi is #1 in India while Coca Cola comes at #2. I guess it is due to the first mover advantage - Pepsi was first to enter the market after economic liberalisation started.

3. India is the only country in the World where McDonalds does not offer a Big Mac. Due to cultural reasons.

4. There are more mobile users than fixed line telecom subscribers.

5. The most popular social networking site is not Facebook but Orkut.

6. There are 22 official languages (many sites still list it as 18).

7. Majority of people are Hindus and Muslims make up 13.4%. However, this makes it the country with the 2nd largest population of Muslims in the World after Indonesia.

That's all I can think of for now.

Shopping at Stoke-on-Trent

I started out writing this post with "today morning..." but realised that it's already 1am - so a short post before I go to sleep.

Yesterday morning, we set off for Stoke-on-Trent to do a bit of shopping. My sister-in-law who came up from London yesterday was there as well.

For those who didn't know Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, is the home of the UK pottery industry and some of the World's most famous luxury brands like Royal Doulton , Wedgewood, Mintons, Portmeirion , Spode, etc. originated and many still have their headquarters here.

I had the post code for the Waterford Wedgwood factory shop at Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent but couldn't find it on my TomTom. Was quite disappointed because I had just bought the latest UK map from TomTom a few days ago. My wife called up her friend in Nottingham who had visited the store sometime back and she informed us that it was a couple of yards just further down the road from the Portmeirion factory shop. Later found out that the factory outlets for Portmeirion, Waterford Wedgewood and Royal Doulton are all along King Street.



Our first stop was the Waterford Wedgwood shop. I know that Wedgewood products cost hundreds of Ringgit in Malaysia, with some sets costing over RM5000. We were shocked to see plates going for £1 each. As you can imagine, my wife and sister-in-law were in ceramic and China heaven.




Next stop was the Royal Doulton outlet which was having a clearance sale.





I have to say that the staff at the Waterford Wedgwood were way professional and did an excellent job with the packing as compared to those at Royal Doulton.

We also dropped by the Portmeirion shop and they were having a sale as well but both my wife and sister-in-law didn't like the designs and we left without buying anything.

Here are some of the stuff we bought yesterday:











As you might have heard, Waterford Wedgwood is in deep financial trouble and . I doubt that the brands the company owns, namely, Waterford Crystal, Wedgwood, Rosenthal and Royal Doulton will disappear but you never know.

The address of the  Waterford Wedgwood factory shop is:

King Street, Fenton, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, ST4 3DQ

Buying 3 pay as you go SIM card

My sister-in-law who's just moved to London wanted to buy a pay as you go SIM card only, as she already has a phone. It was meant to be a temporary thing before she signed up for a monthly payment plan. Of course I suggested 3. So off we went to their store in Bayswater, London. However, I was quite surprised when I found out that they didn't have any pay as you go sim card in stock.

Further down the road there's a Phones 4 U shop and they eventually bought the 3 sim card from there.

This is yet another example of a 3 store disappointing me. My previous experience was buying a phone from their Coventry store. Yet another reason for interested customers to buy phones or SIM card from their online store.

Thrice to Ikea in 2 weeks

I am sure we are the customers that retailers dream about - I mean we went to the Ikea store in Coventry three times in 2 weeks. Not that we have a lot of money to spend but the kids were restless at home and it's freezing cold to go roaming anywhere else. So thinking about a warm place where the kids can play supervised for free, with affordable yet good warm food and maybe grab some bargains at the same time - well the Ikea Coventry store is the only place which ticks yes to all the points above.

Anyway, we were there yesterday - again, to buy the Sultan Sova mattress for our daughter and a new shower curtain. So we left our daughter at Smaland. It's on the third floor near the checkouts. We then went up to the 4th floor where the customer returns are located to return a cup. We had bought it the last time we had been there and later on discovered that it had a chip when we reached home. I didn't think they would but they gave us a refund.

We had gone there to buy the mattress and curtain but along the way some candles went into the trolley, as did a few slippers which were on sale for only 10p a pair, some gift wrappers (49p), a set of glass tumblers, a cup and some items from the bargain corner.

I finally found the 'UK at home' book as I was browsing around for bargains near the checkouts. The book costs £19 but I got it for free thanks to a coupon I had received sometime back and I got a further £10 discount (another coupon) as well.

Took out my daughter from Smaland and we had an early dinner together at the restaurant.

It was a nice day out.

Woolworths' sale now on

Dropped by the Woolworths outlet near our house as I heard that they are having a closing down sale. I heard correctly but I was mistaken about the date. The closure sale starts in all its 815 outlets from Thursday (today). Read the BBR report: 'Woolworths closure sale to start'. Their website has been down for a while now.

There's only one message that says: "Our site is currently undergoing essential maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Please check back later."

Anyway, I was able to grab a few bargains. However, was disappointed when I found out that reductions on the movie DVDs and games were only 20%. However the store was packed with customers and a number of the shelves were quite empty. I have never seen so many customers in the Woolworths outlet ever. If business had been that good before, they probably would not have gone under.

Anyway, I will be dropping by the store again and see how much the Nintendo Wii is going for.

Malaysian owned British companies

Malaysians are taking over the UK. I guess that might be a little bit of an exaggeration really but you might be surprised to learn the number of high profile companies which are actually owned by Malaysians/ Malaysian companies or in which they have a large share. Given below is a list of the companies:

1. Group Lotus Plc - Automobile / Sports cars / Engineering
Owned by Proton Holdings Berhad

2. Star Energy - Energy / Petroleum
Owned by Petronas

3. Wessex Water - Utilities / Water
Owned by YTL Corp

4. Laura Ashley Holdings Plc - Retail
Owned by Malayan United Industries (MUI) group

5. Jimmy Choo Ltd - Retail/ Shoes
Malaysian born Jimmy Choo owns 50% share

I am sure there are more but that's all I can think of for now.

AIG and Turmoil in the Financial market

Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers yesterday, I was wondering whether the US Govt. would allow the same thing to happen to AIG, the country's biggest insurance company. Well today morning I learnt they didn't. I guess they couldn't.

When I learnt that US Federal Reserve was bailing out AIG with a $85bn (£48bn) rescue package this was something big. According to this 2 year deal, the US government will receive a 79.9% equity interest in AIG. A case of nationalisation of a financial body in Capitalist America.

I recall that during the Asian crisis, the US Government was against Government intervention and to let "market forces" rule. They were particularly angry when the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad defied the International Monetary Fund and put in controversial capital controls. I have often heard Western economists talking against Government intervention in the markets, of denationalisation of businesses as the only route to economic development. I agree to some extent but as this case shows, sometimes Governments have to intervene against market forces to protect the interest of the people. As the Board of the Federal Reserve mentions about the need to protect "the interests of the US government and taxpayers". It's quite interesting that they don't see it that way if similar events happen in other countries.

Looks like it is going to be a time of turmoil for the financial market as several companies go under or are bought over. JPMorganChase acquired Bear Stearns recently and Bank of America has announced that it would buy Merrill Lynch & Co.

Changing currency

Planning for our trip to France gave me a good lesson in changing currency. I went around a few travel agencies and the post office as well. I ultimately found that the best deal is that offered by Marks and Spencer
They don't charge any commission on foreign currency and only 1% on sterling travellers' cheques. I went to the M & S outlet at Arena park near my house and got €245 for £200.36 (@ rate of 1.2228).

A lot of people tend to change currency in banks but ore often than not, their rates are not the best. Doing some research, I learnt that the worst rates are those offered by those money changers operating from small kiosks.

I too did make some mistakes on the way and bought travellers cheques worth £500 from the post office a few days before that. They charged me £7 pounds as commission.

If you are interested in currency Forex trading, do check out my friend Ahrasis' blog: "Forex Profiteer".

TalkTalk broadband not so bad after all

Just a few posts back I ranted about TalkTalk being the worst broadband provider in the UK. Well, I might be wrong after all.

Last Sunday, at our friend's house in Birmingham, the topic of broadband speeds suddenly came up. My friend is on Virgin broadband. On checking the speed, we found out that their speeds were slightly lower than ours. However, I should point out that their promised maximum speed was only "up to 4 Mb" unlike our "Up to 8 Meg download speeds".

Have any of you guys been able to get up to at least 50% or more of the download speeds promised by your broadband provider?

Nicos Nicolaou - toy vending in Cyprus

Entrepreneurs have always fascinated me and I am intrigued with the reasons and factors that made them become "the big Boss" rather than work under other people. What is it that makes them tick?

This is the first of my "Entrepreneur Series" where I will interview entrepreneurs from different countries around the World. My interviews are quite short but they should give us a glimpse at the lives of these entrepreneurs.

Nicos Nicolaou is involved in the toy vending business (amongst other ventures) in Cyprus. Read on ...

------------------
Q1. Can you tell us a bit about your personal background? Where you grew up and live now, education, jobs, etc.

A: I was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (Africa) and stayed in Bulawayo with my family until the age of 7. However, due to political problems in the country we had to move to Maun, Botswana (Africa). We later moved permanently to Pafos, Cyprus where I presently reside.

I went to an English speaking high school where I studied for 6 O'levels and 1 A'level. Afterwards, I went to college in the capital of Cyprus (Nicosia) where I successfully obtained my Bachelors degree in Hospitality management (in collaboration with Bournemouth University, UK). This is also where I met my wife. From 1998 to 1999, we both studied for our Masters degrees at the University of Warwick (MA in Organisation studies). I later obtained my MBA from the University of Cardiff, Wales in 2000, After graduation, I returned to Cyprus and got a job as a lecturer in a local college.

I later decided to open up my own small business of collectable capsule toys through special vending machines located in playgrounds, luna parks, cinemas and restaurants and started my business in May 2007.

Q2. Why did you decide to open your own business?

Since I was a kid, I liked to use my initiative to create things. For example, I liked to build toy cars or helicopters. I would save up money in order to buy things I really liked. So I guess I was always business oriented.

I decided to open up a toy vending machine business because I felt that there was a great opportunity for success. I believed I had the unique selling proposition of selling "collectable toys". This includes different toy figures (including action figures like Spiderman, Batman, etc). Also, I liked the fact that this business does not take up a lot of time and leaves me free to carry out other ventures. I have to drive around Cyprus only twice a month to refill the machines with toys as well as count the monthly earnings.

Q3. Can you tell us a bit about your company and your future plans?

My company's name is NSN Intelligence. NSN stands for Nicos Spyrou Nicolaou (my initials). The word intelligence was used in order to emphasize the element of "knowledge" behind the company. I am a person who strongly believes in the concept of know-how and how you can use it to maximize your potential. My other business ventures include real estate, educational and gardening services. For more information do visit my website: www.nsnintelligence.com.

My future goals are to futher expand my business by placing more vending machines in ideal locations and also to differentiate by moving into the kiddie ride business. My vision is to see the company grow and develop financially in order to build a company where my children can take over when I retire.
------------------

Thanks a lot for your time Nicos.

Introducing Nitro Digital

For several years, I have been helping people with establishing a presence on the net - this includes individuals as well as companies. Most of the time, I just point them to professionals who can help them set up a web site and in case they already have one, to market their sites online.

I always keep an eye out (and ear open) for companies specialising in web design and online marketing. It's quite hard to recommend a good one considering the fact that there are so many companies out there as well as freelancers involved in this area.

Among the criteria I look for includes whether the companies were established (when they started) and their portfolio.

One company I recently came across is 'Nitro Digital'. The compay was established in 2001 and started out as Nitro Ventures before changing to the current name. They specifically target pharmaceutical companies looking for agency to take care of their website - right from design and updating to marketing and driving quality traffic to it.

Nitro Digital is a succesful medium size Media Agency specialising in Web Design, Development and Online Marketing for Pharmaceutical companies (including PPC, SEO, Viral and Social Network Marketing, Online Display Advertising, You name it...)

Was quite impressed by their list of clients and case studies. I would defnitely recommend them to anyone looking for such services.

Moving to WordPress

At present all my blogs are hosted with Blogger. I am quite happy with that but I would be lying if I told you that I haven't been tempted to move to WordPress and hosted somewhere else. One of my friends was describing the various bells and whistles on his WordPress powered blog including the various plugins support by this blog publishing system, the ability to block IP addresses of people I don't like and of course the huge number of themes available on the web.

A lot of people told me that if I consider myself a serious blogger, then I should move from Blogger and get myself a unique domain name and host my blog somewhere. In the past I did survey around a bit but good hosting companies that supported WordPress were charging quite a lot. However, today I realise that there are a number of reliable and reasonably priced blog hosts around. 34SP.com Ltd is one affordable WordPress webhosting company that I recently came across. Their prices start from $35.95 per year for 200Mb space and 2000Mb of bandwidth per month. For those who are new to WordPress, do check out their list of useful WordPress resources on the web - from codex, themes and plugins to discussion forums.

Right now they are offering all new customers who order WordPress hosting a free upgrade - double storage space and bandwidth.

Consumer vs customer

NOTE: Latest update: 25 August 2010.
Updated 18 Nov, 2007 after consultation with my the marketing expert, my wife.

Last week, I was in charge of this undergraduate class and I suddenly realised that a number of the students were using the words 'consumer' and 'customer' interchangeably. Guess this is true for a lot of people on the street. However, I have on some occasions come across some academics making the same mistake at academic conferences as well.

As used in marketing terminology, there is a huge difference between the two concepts. The term 'Customer' refers to individuals or households that purchase goods and services generated within the economy. On the other hand, a 'Consumer' is someone who uses the products or services.

At a glance, there doesn't seems to be any difference but if you examine closely, there is. For example, A mother who does the shopping for the family in a supermarket is a customer. She and the rest of the family sit down at the dining table to eat the food she has bought and they are all consumers. The mother is a customer and a consumer at the same time.

You might have come across the term B2B and B2C. B2B refers to Business-to-Business transections. For example, Tesco buys goods from Procter & Gamble in bulk. On the other hand B2B refers to Business-to-consumer transection. For example, I go to Tesco and buy Duracell batteries. For those who did not know, Duracell is owned by P&G.

Did that make any sense to you?