ONLINE PURCHASE

ONLINE PORTALS

Internet business follows certain rules but opens new possibilities. InIn the previous post, we have provided you with important information about purchasing articles on Jatujak Market. This included retail and wholesale. The internet gains progressively importance as platform for making business. However, there are still people that do not trust the internet and evaluate it as insecure. Of course, there are differences compared with buying products on a market or in a shop in your town. Personally, I would not evaluate the internet as insecure. Nevertheless, I will only write about shopping at KHT Kaufhaus Thailand & Nongluck Thai Wood. I will not and cannot give you any facts about other providers of goods on the internet. Therefor, the here provided information counts only for our business. We do not give you any guarantees that these are applicable for any other internet sales. Please, do not criticize us if you have made any bad experiences on the internet.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF ONLINE SALES

Probably, you have heard of the online market portals of ebay and amazon. Maybe, you have even got aware of us through one of the two. These are the two online market portals that we display our products mainly on the net. We have planned to publish our own online webshop during 2016. This will then be an even less expensive way for making purchases of our products.

EBAY

This is probably the most popular internet market where we sell our articles. In the summer months we are in Europe, more accurately Germany, between June and September. In the other months, we send our products directly from Thailand. The advantage thereby is in the summer months that we can deliver you the goods in a much shorter time, usually within a week. However, we do not have such a diversity of items that we send to Germany for direct sales. On the other side, we have observed that the postal costs can be higher in some cases by sending within Europe compared with expenses from a delivery directly from Thailand. That seems of course crazy!  Therefor, we have to take care that our prices in the summer months are still competitive. This limits our opportunities for super sales at ebay auctions. Maybe, you have seen that some sellers from China can approximately compete with sales of our (!) products, from our production. In the remaining months we can offer a larger variety of articles. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, the delivery time is getting longer. We give you, unfortunately, a hard choice. Either you can receive articles in a short time but only with a limited choice or you have the broad spec of our products but the delivery will take longer. We have seen, that the median expenses in summer are approximately 15% lower than in 'winter' time.

We consider ebay partly as discriminating. Let's be honest and state here that we really like the evaluation system of ebay. Sadly, ebay seems to think that we live in a perfect world. This is not the case as in a harmonic world all buyers would give fair and honest evaluations. This is not always the case. There will be always buyers who just try to gain profit out of any bargain. Those people try to set us, as sellers, unjustified under pressure. Some people are not giving any evaluation at all. We do not know the reason for this behaviour. So please, when you buy something on ebay, please give a fair feedback to the seller. 

Ebay offers the buyer security. Your purchase will be secured through paypal. However, this is connected with expenses for the seller. Therefor, we will always offer you better prices through our own web shop. This means, that you unfortunately will never get the best deals through ebay. You pay for your security without eventually even being aware of that. This additional cost is usually around 10% of the price. 

We appreciate it a lot that the local ebay, the one that you register with, gives the commercial traders a number of free listings. An ebay shop can offer of course a wider variety of goods. This is one of the main reasons why ebay will stay our favoured online market portal. 

There are some other factors which we would like to explain about our products on ebay. We have always all our displayed products on stock. This is only possible because we consider ebay not as a sideline business but as a full-time occupation.  We are always in control of our stock. Additionally, and that might be most interesting for wholesalers, we have additional stock, mainly in Thailand.  Further, our articles are available in different kinds of wood. As an example, our coffee spoons are available in moringa, samean, palm and rose wood. You might sometimes not see that on ebay. We hardly ever offer all kinds of wood for a specific item at the same time. So, if you had seen in the previous month an item in a certain kind of wood but not in the following, just contact us. We try to bring some change every month onto ebay so that you do not get bored.  Just contact us directly if you have any inquiries. On the other side, and we will come in later posts to that, we do offer custom made products on your demand.

HOW CAN EBAY HELP A BUYER?

Ebay offers you some advantages but it is by far not the best and cheapest way to purchase our articles. This part is mainly applicable for wholesalers but it can be also important for wood lovers or retail. We understand ebay as a portal for a first contact. It is certainly a good idea to check out our quality and reliability over a first purchase at ebay. So, if you are interested in a certain product such as a massage tool, then it is definitely a good idea to buy first a sample on ebay.  Nevertheless if you are satisfied with the sample, we would like to suggest you to make further purchases directly with us. The main function for us of ebay is the first contact. Ebay can provide you with the security that you might need at a first business contact. 

Further, we see ebay as a platform to advertise for new products. On ebay you get the best overview of our new articles and about our  best-selling items. This can give you some orientation help. We will not use ebay to display products that are hard to sell. It would be a waste of 'free space' and why shall we restrict our opportunities? This is also in your best interest! Your chance is at ebay to get precise information independently if you are wholesaler, looking for a suitable present or just want to try out something new!

WHY EBAY AND NOT AMAZON?

We have some issues with Amazon even that we admit that it can be excellent. The basic fees to display or offer an article are for free. A business can gain credibility to advertise for their items on Amazon. Amazon only takes a percentage as fee but has no further fees such as ebay with paypal. They even transfer your money to your account so that you do not have to run after customers.

However, out of various reasons, we prefer ebay. The calculated fees on Amazon are much higher than at ebay. We, as traders, have a security that the money is really coming from the customers but we do not appreciate to pay higher fees for it. We do not want to pay this security deposit. Same as ebay for buyers, Amazon takes a lot for security of business. Therefor, we use Amazon only for some articles. 

The credibility of a seller will be improved through Amazon because he can only display articles which were approved. This on the other side describes only the ideal world of Amazon. We, as manufacturer and as seller see the restrictions in it. There are some competitors that display our products as theirs! These have been longer time on Amazon, have a website and some classy pictures. We have even seen photographs that are for sure not real but amazon does not prove that. The classy picture is that of a warehouse from the air, and probably a good enough portfolio. They can easily sell these goods but we, as a newcomer on Amazon, have first to get an approval for our articles. One more time, these are the same articles as some sellers sell already and are even produced by us! So, we have more restrictions then the companies that are allowed to claim that they are the producers. Indeed they have probably bought the articles at our shop or at some competitors. Amazon has become so big that there are problems in proving the credibility of sellers. So, they rely on data which has been extremely manipulated.  We would wish a little bit more transparency and fairness on this online market platform.

 Through these conditions, our actions on Amazon have been limited. As this market requires from us higher expenses on worse conditions, we use it mainly only to advertise our articles. If then suddenly unexpectedly somebody still buys our articles on Amazon we are of course very happy. However, we wish that only initial contact is made through Amazon and following deals should be through our web shop. 

ADVANTAGES OF THE INTERNET

The internet has for sure expanded the shopping possibilities. As already mentioned above, the internet is by far not insecure. I came recently across a comparison of buying on the internet and using a credit card in a restaurant. Now, on the internet you can easily follow the purchase. But do you trust it if the waiter in a restaurant takes the credit card into another room for clearance? Have you got direct control over the actions of this waiter? Now, on the net you have more security! 

The purchase of articles on the market or in a shop is connected with traveling. Particularly, being a bit extreme here, if you buy something at our shop Nongluck Thai Wood, then you have first to travel to Thailand. Would you really do that for a set of cutlery? Even, if you buy something in a shop in your home country, then there are more procedures connected with it. You have to spend time and money to go to the market or shop, withdrawing money from your bank and much more. You even do not get a better price than on the internet. At an internet purchase you can directly come out of your shower to buy something. Nobody will care of haven't combed, got a shave or put some nice clothing on. The payment is easier, either by paypal or by online money transfer. Our packaging is usually environment friendly. You do not have to go for any actions out of your house. So, you safe on money, time and effort.

I hope that this article was of interest and that we can welcome you soon as an online customer!