Orinity

Do drop by Lil Shopaholic, which is owned by my friend’s friend. I am not really a mask person, but based on what my friend blogged about in her blog entries so far (she’s a very fashionable young woman whose collection of clothes, make-up and accessories never fail to amaze me), these masks are great. I’m sure some of you have heard of this taiwan show 女人我最大 (which covers all topics about women’s beauty secrets), and you would be pleased to know that some of the masks were reccomended on this show.

The price range is about S$1-S$2 per mask, which is the cheapest I have seen so far, taking into consideration the rising popularity of these masks. Postage rates by the organizer is very reasonable as well, so no harm dropping by the site! It even has the Breast Mask I mentioned previously!

I was looking through Cleo Malaysia (I bought a truckload of magazines during my trip!) when I noticed this gadget in its December issue, on page 328. Presenting you Rakku Shoe Wheel.

My initial thoughts include lots of question marks and disbelief although I must say I was interested as I have never seen this device before. Apparently, THIS is how it works.

Now, my questions have progressed to the next stage – What if I have small feet (I wish I did) and my shoes are too short to reach the centre? What if my shoes are caked with some dried mud (or other residue) and it drops onto the next shoe? And to add in a worry from my mum – How do I clean the thing?

I must say it is a concidence to see the exact same shoe rack being spree-ed on Edynae, and that there are quite a few shops selling this shoe wheel (it’s been so long since I last went shopping) where the spree-ers are trying hoping to get as many orders as they can, so that the store can give them a higher discount rate and free delivery to all spree-ers’ addresses. The Rakku Shoe rack retails at S$129 + S$5 assembly fee if help is required).

For more info on the Rakku Shoe Wheel, you may wish to pop over to the Rakku website and Whoa-Ho (the Singapore distributor).

There are many methods of making payments online. One of the most common payment methods I find that many Singaporean shoppers seem to be bank transfer or mailing of cash. Personally, I am against the mailing of cash since there’s almost no security at all. One of the alternatives is online payment systems. Over my next few posts, I will be looking into various online payment services on the Internet.

Although services like PayPal and Google Checkout are popular internationally, they are still not quite the preferred payment mode for Singapore online shoppers. Most of the common online payment systems use an email to identify the user. So, having an email address means you can create your own PayPal account. It is as simple as that. To explain how PayPal works to my folks, I usually refer PayPal as my online bank. I can link or de-link my debit or credit card to my PayPal account in order to make online payments. When I need the money, I will be able to withdraw my funds to my local bank account. As I am not based in the United States, it will normally take a few more working days for the transaction to be completed. I think that many non-users from my region are not familiar with this particular function of PayPal, though.

While being user-friendly and widespread in its usage, PayPal is not without their disadvantages. My major complaint in over 3 years with PayPal has got to be their conversion rates when I make withdrawals to my local bank account. PayPal usually take a small portion as an administrative charge which is fair enough. People do need to make money for providing the service. However, what irritates me is that the exchange rate is ridiculous at times. The exchange rate given by PayPal is always way below the rates I get from XE.com. Doesn’t that imply that they are making money off me by giving me less favourable bank rates? It is an example of the Exchange Rate Effect that I covered a short while back.

Overall, I still find PayPal to be a worthy service that served me well over the past few years in my online purchases. I have yet to try out Google Checkout though. I will come to that soon and get back to our readers with a review. I got a gut feeling that Google Checkout may give PayPal a run of its money being backed by the big G. What Checkout may be losing out now is its lack of widepsread usage.

Hop over to PrettyDolls now! They are opening these two sprees that you must not miss buying from!

E.L.F stands for Eyes.Lips.Face, in case you are not aware. As their name goes, they specialises in beauty products. I don’t really like to spree cosmetic items, but I had made an exception, because everything is going for US$1 each, which is:

US$1 * 1.60 exchange rate by Prettydoll + $1.50 handling fee by Prettydoll = S$3.10 for each item.

The first time PrettyDolls opened this spree, I placed an order for 5 items on the 6th of September although the spree only closes towards the end of the month. I still remember myself thinking, “Even if the shipping is a whopping S$4 per item, it is still cheap!” On the 9th of November, I got an email from PrettyDolls saying that my items has arrived, one of which is out of stock. And so, the shipping fee is only S$7.98 for 4 items, which is about S$2 for each item. Where can you get cosmetics at S$5.10 each? This spree will close on the 19th of December, which is on a Wednesday.

As for Threadless, I haven’t spree from this site yet. But I do know that the tees are going for really low prices. $16 for an US brand top, exclusive of shipping fees. However, you have got to hurry as the Threadless spree will close on the 12th of December (Wednesday) so as to reduce the possibility of your items going out of stock (OOS) during this festive season.

For many online shoppers, especially those based locally in Singapore, it just can’t be helped that most of the online stores do not ship internationally. It just bring back the memories of making the decision to purchase something online, going through the registration process and only to realize during checking out that the online store does not ship beyond North America. I think that is the main reason why US goods are so in demand. It is due to the simple fact that the products cannot be found in the region unless you are flying there personally.

While it is frustrating, there’s a solution actually. It comes in the form of SingPost’s vPostUSA service. In simple terms, the service provide an US address for you to ship your purchases to and shipped it back to your local address. It will take a bit longer since there’s an extra trip involved. I personally do not use vPostUSA as I am utterly turned off by their shipping rates. Although it will end up to be somewhat cheaper but if I use vPostUSA, my items will be subjected to the 7% Goods & Service Tax (GST). I will not have such an worry if the web store ships internationally. The items purchased are almost always shipped as gifts, thus, avoiding the extra 7% GST. Another alternative will be accessUSA package forwarding service. I did an estimated calculation for both service using 0.5kg as the example. Here are the results:

vPostUSA: S$17 .82 onwards for Victoria Secrets, S$22.40 for Amazon onwards
accessUSA: S$10.0 per month for membership, S$11.52 for commercial invoice

Looking at the results, I am not sure which is a better option but my gut feeling is that accessUSA is a better choice when yo are buying on a regular basis. Not to forget that there is a US$20 membership setup fee for accessUSA as a one-time payment. I feel that we consumers will be spoiled for choices once there are more such services to challenge vPostUSA and accessUSA.