Promotional items online

Today as I was jotting down some notes, I noticed that the pen I was writing with was a souvenir that I had received at a conference sometime back. It made me realise how important promotional items are. Among the best ways to promote your company or brand is by giving away promotional items printed clearly with the company names and logos. Given away as door gifts, part of the conference pack or gifts to clients, the most common items include t-shirts, pens, mugs, mousepads and stationery.

There are several online stores where you can order promotional items for your company and the World's biggest online seller of promotional products is said to be Branders.com. Another popular company is Vistaprint.co.uk.

These sites carry all types of gifts ranging from the usual items like pens and mugs to promotional apparel and even personalized food gifts.

Timex wathces

While browsing through the watches in one of the shops in the city, I came across some Timex watches and it brought back some memories. I suddenly thought of the day in school during my teenage years when one of my friends came to school with this chunky watch and he showed us how it glowed through the dial as compared to ours which had small lights from our sides - it was a Timex watch. I was crazy about gadgets back then as well and that was my objects of desire. Funnily enough I never got to own one though.

Anyway, I was thinking that I should probably get a new watch and of course I thought of Timex watches. Looking for reviews, I found several Timex watch offers on various sites but the best were on Amazon. I found the customer reviews really useful and I like the fact that the site does not hide the negative reviews about the products.

I am not really looking for something "geeky" with a lot of buttons and loads of functions - just a simple looking watch. Going through the various designs and reviews, I kind of like the Timex Expedition Traditional Leather and the price is not that bad at all.

First Commentator
Rani

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

Experience of buying a phone from the 3 Store Coventry

Ever since we arrived in the UK, I have always used prepaid mobile services or 'pay-as-you-go' as it's known here in the UK. I started with O2 and then moved on to Vodafone, followed by Tesco mobile and finally 3. So far, I have been very happy with the service provided by 3.

However, of late I have discovered that I have been reloading quite often and was shocked to discover that we sometimes spent more than £30 a month. This is despite the fact that most of my calls are to my wife who was also on 3 pay-as-you-go service. My wife went ahead and bought a Sony Ericsson K660i from the 3 site. The phone was delivered within a few days and she also received a voucher worth £20 to buy accessories from their website.

I too decided to get a phone for myself and I was still undecided on the phone. One of my friends told me that the stores had some greats refurbished phone which I might be able to get at a discount. So on Monday, I drove over to Coventry city centre and went to the 3 Store there. Unfortunately, according to the salesgirl, they didn't have any refurbished phones. So I went around and had a look at the various phone they had on display. I really want the Nokia N96 but it was way beyond my budget (cheapest deal was £30 per month). I finally went for the Sony Ericsson W595 for a 18 month contract for £17 per month. 3 has this promotion going on where existing members could recommend a friend (or family and both would receive a £30 credit. However, I discovered that I couldn't put my wife as a recommender because she had been with 3 for less than a month. Plus I didn't receive any vouchers.

I was really angry when later on back home, I discovered that I couldn't use Skype with the phone even though it was advertised as Skype compatible. Anyway, I went back to the store next day and the sales people were surprised as well, when they learnt that the phone was not Skype compatible. They were not very happy when I told them that I wanted to change the phone.

I was shocked to learn that unlike buying phones from their website, you were not allowed to return phones bought from their actual stores. However, in my case they were willing to make an exception as they realised that it was their mistake. The main reason I bought the phone was because it was Skype compatible (or so they said).

Gags (the guy who served me) was quite friendly but he seemed to be poorly trained. He told me that I could choose another phone but I won't be able to reduce the amount that I paid per month. The only phone there for £17 per month was the Sony Ericsson K700i. I should have taken only a couple of minutes to complete the whole process but the managers was busy or something. There was no way I was going to come back again and decided to wait until I got mad, raised my voice a bit and told them that I wanted out. The sales guy told me I couldn't and this went on for a while until their manager finally came out.

I finally got the new phone but was dissatisfied with the whole process. It took almost an hour for me to get the phone changed and that shouldn't happen. I am still loyal to 3 but my advice for anybody who want to sign up with 3 - buy it from the online 3 Store.

1. It's fast
2. You can return the phone if you don't like it
3. You get some nice surprises - like a £20 voucher.

Vistaprint business cards

Just realised that I have almost run out of my business cards. It's been slightly more than a year since I took Vistaprint's "250 free business cards" offer.



This was before I commenced my PhD studies and was a stay-at-home husband taking care of the kids. I was a full time blogger then and my blogs were my sole source of income. One day I happened to come across the above mentioned offer and I thought "why not". All I had to do was pay for the delivery cost.

Though initially I was wondering what I would do with the cards, they have proved really useful. Before this, people would give me their business cards and I would have to explain that I didn't have one - I was unemployed, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't happen any more.

Unlike some bloggers who prefer to put only the blog url, I put in my home address in as well. Great to give out to friends who always forget your house address. It's definitely better than writing it down on a loose pieces of paper which might get thrown away accidentally. Besides, it is a great way to create awareness about your blogs.

Anyway, I was thinking of ordering a new set of business cards from Vistaprint and was delighted to find out that you can still order 250 cards for free (you only pay for the delivery). The free option has 42 designs you can choose from. There are many more ways you can further customize your card such as by uploading your own designs and so on.

The great thing is that they have slashed prices for a number of options. For example, However, by paying a little bit more (£8.24 instead of £11.99) you can opt for the Premium quality cards. Do check out their range of products including cards letter heads, sticky notes, etc.

However, make sure you do read the fine print before you order and don't rush while going through the ordering process. Decide whether you really want to join the VistaPrint Rewards scheme or accept any of the offers or extras as the costs can add up.

Online shopping wiki

Wikis rank as one of the most important innovations on the web. These are sites that allow anyone to contribute or modify content. Of course the most famous example is Wikipedia. However, I am sure that not many people have heard about ShopWiki. ShopWiki is a revolutionary online shopping search engine combined with a wiki contributed by consumers.

Normally if I was looking for a product, I would do a search on Google, read reviews on various sites and then compare prices offered on various e-commerce sites.

Traditional comparison sites usually lists sites that have paid to be listed on the site or carry a limited number of brands. Thus, I might have to go to several sites to get the best deal. In comparison ShopWiki does not sell any products themselves and doesn’t charge retailers to include their products in the search results. You can literally find anything and everything for sale on this site and the best deals. Apparently ShopWiki actively crawls more than 180,000 online store.

Recycling unwanted stuff

This morning a guy knocked on the door asking for scrap metal. I suddenly remembered that we had loads of junk in our backyard, most of it left over by the previous tenant including rusted pipes and a sheet of metal weighing more than a ton. I had been planning to take them to the tip in London road and I fortunate that someone took care of that for me.

Looking around the house, I suddenly realise that in less than two years, we have accumulated quite a bit of unused and unwanted stuff. These include old clothing that my children have outgrown and loads of other stuff. The problem is that they are taking up precious space in our small house. I am sure a lot of you face the same problem as well.

Listed below are some way of getting rid of unwanted stuff:

1. Online auctions sites.

The first one that usually comes to mind is eBay, the largest online auction site in the World. A great way of making money while getting rid of unwanted items. So far, I have sold baby clothes, books, toys and even furniture on eBay.

Recently got to know about another popular online auction site called eBid. The great thing about this site is that unlike eBay, you are not charged listing fees

2. Car boot and Garage sales.

Never tried selling stuff at a car boot sale though I would like to try it out at least once before I leave the UK. One man's junk can be another man's treasure. Someone who has tried it before told me that it was a fun but tiring experience. The British weather is the unpredictable factor here. Would hate to get caught in a chilly shower.

3. Classifieds.

You can also list up items on the local newspaper classifieds or online. Gum tree is a very popular free online classifieds service here in the UK. It was acquired by eBay in May 2005. You might want to put up your items under the category, "Stuff for Sale".

4. Charities.

If you can't be bothered with all the hassle of listing items for sale, posting, and so on, you can donate your unwanted items (in good condition) to various charities like the PDSA, Help the Aged, Age Concern England, Barnardo's, etc. Some of them will even pick up the items from your house. Contributing for a good cause does feel good. Not everything is nor should be, about money.

5. Others.

You might also want to consider joining the Freecycle Network. With the noble goal of keeping "usable items out of landfills." You join the discussion group for your area, (in my case it is the Coventryfreecycle under Yahoo! groups). Do note that everything posted must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages.

I had a huge hifi system I bought from a car boot sale for £3/. It was working great for sometime until the CD player suddenly stopped working one day. The tape and radio still worked but it was taking up too much space. I was about to drop it off at the tip when I remembered the Freecycle group. I was surprised to receive 2 emails only after an hour of posting up the "offer" message. It was taken by a lady studying in the University of Warwick.

Can you suggest any other ways of recycling unwanted stuff?

Online grocery shopping - Tesco vs Sainsbury's

Both my wife and I shop a lot online. I guess we are what marketers refer to as a "innovator" especially in relation to stuff online. However, I never imagined that I would be shopping for groceries online one day.

As compared to books, software, electronics or even clothes, shopping for groceries is totally different. I like to look, feel and sometimes smell the food I buy. My wife wanted to try out some of the online grocery stores here. She gave a couple of resasons why buying groceries online was a good idea. According to her:
1. These stores would ensure the quality of stuff sold online.
2. We could shop at leisure.
3. We could avoid the crowd at the stores.
4. We could save on petrol.
5. We could avoid the temptations of the "spur-of-the-moment" buys.
6. It would give her a better insight into service quality of online stores, which is somewhat related to her PhD research.

We tried out Sainsbury's Online Groceries first of all. We bought products worth £77.41 - mostly organic food. I also earned two Nectar points for every £1 spent online.

The groceries were delivered on the appointed date and we were satisfied with the quality of the products.

A few days later we decided to take a look at Tesco's online grocery store. We had one coupon which enabled us to get a discount of £10 on orders over £50. The final amount came to £64.32. The stuff will be delivered to our house this Monday.

Here are some of our observations:

Website Navigation: We found Sainsbury's store to be more user friendly. Easier to find items.

Product Choice: We were looking for organic food and Tesco definitely has a wider choice.

Pricing: Tesco products were cheaper. As for delivery charges, Sainsbury's was comparatively cheaper but as I mentioned earlier, we had a discount coupon for Tesco.

Conclusion: I would have to give a thumbs up to Tesco's online grocery store because of the overall savings. Plus I get points on my Tesco card.

Save money on office supplies

All the time I get queries from a lot of people asking me how it feels to be a student again. It exciting but to tell the truth, it's much harder now. I guess my brains are not that sharp any more and it's hard to sit down and listen to lectures for hours. I need to take a break every half an hour or so with loads of coffee.

Money is another important issue that always comes up for people like us who left their full-time jobs to study again. More so if you have a family. Even with a scholarship, we try to stretch every penny we have.

After getting free office supplies for years, it's a shock when you realise that stuff like notebooks, pens, printer ink are not exactly cheap. Looking for discount office supplies, I came across the OfficeDeals.info website. This site lists hundreds of discount coupons, coupon codes and promotions from leading stores that sell office supplies, computers, office furniture and a range of products and services. The merchants listed including among others, Office Depot, Vistaprint, etc.

I recently bought a Dell PC after my old computer crashed. I wish I had come to the site earlier because they have all the latest coupon codes from Dell here. I guess this site will appeal not only to students but business owners as well. Do check out the site if you are looking to save some money.

Ladies into golf

A lot of my friends are golf crazy and their wives have resigned to the fact that they can't compete with the game. However, of late I have noticed a new developments. A lot of ladies have also caught the golfing bug. Many started out accompanying their husbands on their weekend golfing sessions. Tired of waiting in the restaurants, they started hitting some balls on the deriving range and that was it.

Some of the ladies are there on the green, every chance they can get and some of them are really good. I am sure some of you reading this post are one of them. Several special golfing shops targeted at women and specializing on golf apparel ladies have come up. Loads of great comfortable and cool clothes and shoes to choose from.

Want to go for a beach holiday

Even though we are technically on an Island, it's been nearly a year since I went to a beach or seaside. I don't know why but I have always been attracted to the ocean and one of my most memorable vacations was to Redang Island off the east coast of Malaysia with a few friends. Since then, I have visited several other Islands in Malaysia and neighbouring Thailand including Pangkor, Langkawi, Penang and Phuket. These islands are among the ideal Beach Holidays listed on Dialaflight.com. This UK based company is one of the leading independent travel company offering flights, hotels and travel ideas worldwide.

I was really excited reading about the various beach resort holidays listed on the site. They have loads of useful travel information. Dialaflight.com is also a great place to look for cheap flights and holiday offers.

If you are thinking of exotic beach holidays, do visit the site.

Search for company profiles, products and services with Mastersaeek

Searching for a company profile or contact information on the web can be really frustrating sometimes. Search engines can throw up thousands of unrelated results and and we have skim through hundreds of links before we finally find what we are looking for.

If you are looking to find business partners, new suppliers or sales opportunities etc., visit Masterseek, a new global Business-to-Business (B2B) search engine that provides quick and free access to information from more than 45 million companies in 75 countries.

You can search for company profiles, contact information, and descriptions of products and services from the listed industries as well.

New Blog Directory

Promote! Promote! Promote!

That's the mantra, if you want more traffic to your blog.

One of the things that you need to do to increase traffic to your blogs is to submit them to as many blog directories as possible. Reaching out to a wider audience may get your blogs searched, browsed, rated and reviewed and hopefully, all these will translate to a higher page rank.

One of the blog directories on the net is Alive blog directory where you have several listing options. For example, you can have your blogs as a "Featured Listing" for a year (by paying annually) or to have a permanent listing by paying a one off payment (naturally costlier). There are also annual and permanent listing options for regular listings as well.

Designer clothing for children at ZaraBella

We do buy a lot of designer clothing for our two children, not because we are rich or want to show off but because we don't have to worry about the quality of branded clothing. Some of the stuff we bought a year ago are as good as new. I am not saying that cheaper brands are not good and we do buy a lot of stuff from Tesco and other places as well. However when we buy branded clothes, you can sure they won't shrink after washing nor will the colours run.

Talking about designer clothes for children, do visit ZaraBella.com, an online retailer of designer clothing and accessories for children and babies. They have quite an impressive selection with brands like Mimi & Maggie, Wes & Willy, Spring Street Designs, Jade Jeans, Twelve Timbers and lots more. They are a Click and mortar company with their store located in Solvang, CA (35 miles north of Santa Barbara) and was launched in 2005. ZaraBella.com, is an extension of their store.

Find the right roommate

If you are a single guy or girl and moving to a new place, finding a place to stay can be a tough process, especially if it's in a big city. Unless money is of no concern, you would most probably prefer to stay with someone who has a free room. However, you don't want to end up staying with someone who, you are not compatible with. I am sure you have heard of several horror stories.

One lady friend was telling us about her flatmate whose boyfriend started coming over almost everyday and in the end, literally moved in to their house. In another case, one of my friends who doesn't smoke had to endure several months of living with a guy who was a chain smoker and used to smoke everywhere in the house. In the end he couldn't stand it anymore and moved out, even though he was the one who go the flat first. Differences of preference in music, food and even decor can cause clashes among people residing in a house.

One way to avoid such problems is to find someone with similar preferences. Of course there is no guarantee that personality clashes will not occur but the chances are reduced. Roomster.net, an advanced housing rental site serving all the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom has obviously thought about this. The company was founded in 2003 by John S. Shriber (CEO of Roomster) and Roman Zaks in New York. They expanded to include UK listings early this year.

If you are searching for a roommate, you can of course check by location and type of residence, but Roomster allows you to check by gender, age and even zodiac. Other features that can further help you select the right roommates are their instant messenger service, interest, hot lists and profile flagging services. I found it interesting to learn that they have integrated Google maps into their search results. that is something that I feel would be really useful in house/ apartment hunting.

Considering the features, it is no wonder they have become so popular in such a short duration. They are now said to be the leading online apartment and roommate matching site in the US. When I last checked they had 943,697 available listings.

Jeans e-boutique

Was recently chatting online with some of my younger relatives and they mentioned a brand of jeans that I had heard somewhere but was not really familiar with. I guess that just shows that I am not really keeping up to date with what's been happening in the fashion world. According to them, this brand called 'True Religion' was seen on a number of celebrities including Halle Berry, Jessica Simpson, and Cameron Diaz among others.

I was naturally curious about this company and found out that it is an American premium denim company, which was established in December of 2002. On their website they have an animated image of a laughing Buddha playing a guitar. Their jeans are distinguished by their amazing embroidery and the unique hand-sanded vintage washes.

One thing that really caught my attention was their unique way of naming their products. Unlike Levis which have a number system for their jeans, True Religion jeans have names like 'Billy Straight Leg Jean in The Boss', 'Johnny Stretch in Dark Vintage' and 'Joey Big T - Dark Dusty Trail', etc.

If you are looking to buy True Religion Jeans online, go on over to the Kultic.com e-boutique. Besides the "True Religion" Brand , they carry other popular designer jeans brands as well, including Hudson, 7 for all mankind, Citizens of Humanity and lots more. Right now they are having a sale with discount of upto 75% on certain products.

Savings while shopping online

Of late I have become really careful with my expenses. I had to as we are living off our savings and a meager scholarship. The fact that the Pound Sterling is quite high against other currencies also doesn't help much. I guess it will become better once I get a job.

In the meantime, I try to stretch my money as much as I can. I shop a lot online now and despite all the horror stories we have all heard, online shopping has been great - so far. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I stick to the well known online retailers. Another reason I shop a lot online is the fact that we can get some amazing bargains on the net. It's amazing. Sometimes I have been able to get certain products at a fraction of their retail prices. I try to take advantage of every offer available One great way to get good deals on most online shops are by using free online coupons. You usually get these codes via email when you sign up with an online retailer. There are also a number of coupon code sites out there on the net. However, I discovered one major problem with most coupon code sites, that most often than not, the codes listed on them would be outdated. I hate it even more when you click a coupon link only to be taken to some other unrelated page.

This will not happen at Deal Locker, a great place to find and share coupon codes. They list thousands of coupons for thousands of stores. They have coupons for all my favorite online stores and retailers including Amazon, Dell, and even gift cards and coupons for sale on ebay. Best of all, the coupons actually work as expired coupons are not shown. Furthermore, these coupons are rated by the users. You can search by store or by category. Take a look at my favorite category : electronics coupons.

Firefox users can use their 1-Click Coupon bookmarklet in order to find a coupon at any online store. All you have to do is click the bookmarket.

Online Rock n' Roll fashion store

The Remnant online store specialises in exclusive rock n' roll inspired fashion targeted to a niche market.

Not sure whether all my readers will agree but I think that those designs are really awesome. The brands they carry include Drifter, Bleeding Star, Evil Genius, Cardboard Robot among others. One thing that will definitely appeal to their customers is the fact that they take payment by PayPal besides credit cards.

Subscribe to UK magazines online

I was thinking of subscribing to some good magazines and after searching around a bit, found the best place to find the cheapest UK Magazine Subscriptions.

Comparemagazines.co.uk allows you to compare magazine subscription prices offered by different magazines' subscription providers. When I last checked they had 1062 UK magazines in their database, including Fashion magazines, Women magazines and Men magazines among others.

The subscription rates do vary between companies. For example,
Vogue magazine subscription prices are £28.50 and £31.50 respectively for one year subscription from two different companies.

You should note that the actual subscription rates may differ from those listed on the site. For example, two
Cosmopolitan magazine subscription rates are given , namely £0 and £24 on two different sites. However, the actual rates are higher. Still they were lower than the recommended retail price (RRP) on both.

Personalised gifts for kids

We often want to show our kids we love them by giving them a unique gift- take this Personalised Cars Lunch Bag. It can be personalized with your childs full name. They would be really proud of it and it might reduce the chance of it getting lost.
The lunch bag costs $19.95 and it comes from Identity Direct.

This online store carries over over 500 products (most of which can be personalised), for the children and the whole family. Check out the site for other great gift ideas include pencils, pencil boxes, lunch boxes, labels and even clocks and placemats.