Putting Up My Online Store

I've been busy for the past two weeks putting into reality my dream of having an online store.  I timed putting up My Gift Shop this October to take advantage of the Christmas gift buying frenzy.  I sell scented candles, perfumes inspired by well-known brands and cosmetics.  

My Gift Shop

My store should address the needs of why people buy online in the first place.  From my experiences in buying items be it food or what have you, booking flight reservations and  paying for seminars through my credit cards or through cash payment portals, my main argument was convenience.  I need not go out of my house to get things that otherwise could be purchased from the web.  True there are fees like delivery rates that a buyer shoulders when buying online but if you thing about it, the delivery charge is just a small price to pay.  Try putting a price to the fuel that your car consumed in going to the nearest mall to buy that item.  Chances are it is cheaper paying for the delivery charge than going to the physical store.

Another thing that makes buying online attractive is that it is most of the time cheaper.  Sellers have minimal overhead expenses maintaining an online store.

When my dream of an online store was about to be hatched, I thought of what items to sell bearing in mind the reasons why people buy online.  I thought of gift items for my first ever online store as Christmas is just around the corner.  Again from past experience, home decor like scented candles, toiletries, perfumes and cosmetics are popular gift items.  But for my retailing business to succeed, I have to partner with payment gateways like PayPal, Cashsense, banks, and telecommunications companies for Smart Money and GCash to make it very convenient on the buyer.  This is literally shopping at your fingertips!

At first I was apprehensive in buying online because of the many horror stories that I heard about credit card scams that came about from divulging credit card information when purchasing online.  This has already been addressed with the emergence of bank debit cards, virtual cards and cash payment gateways like PayPal, Cashsense, GCash and Smart Money.  No need to give out credit card details.

It not enough to have payment gateways, it pays to partner with a reliable courier service company like Xend, OCS, LBC, JRS, Aboitiz ToGo.  Delivery charges are shouldered by the buyer.

To date My Gift Shop is still a work in progress.  I am customizing the theme of my website to give it a distinct and personalized touch with the help of professionals.  I also attended the PayPal 101 Workshop under Eireen Diokno Bernardo to know more about PayPal and putting up an online store.  I am also not letting up on finding unique items both locally and internationally.

I hope dear readers you will visit My Gift Shop.  We know we have something that will appeal to you that you or your loved one will treasure.

True Friendship

For the past weeks, the news feed of my Facebook account had been flooded with sayings, words of wisdom and quotations, ranging from the serious to the hilarious.  One of the postings that caught my attention was about true friendship.  Here goes:  

We may have a lot of good friends, but a best friend is hard to come by.  At least for me.  I treasure all my dear friends but it can't be helped that a few stand out as my best friends.  My best friends were there for me during the good times as well as the bad times.  Even though some may be thousand of miles away, I know that they are just a phone call away.  Physical presence is not necessary to show their love and support but if they happen to be around town or nearby, that is a bonus.  

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To all my best friends, thank you for your friendship, love and moral support.  Looking forward to sharing menopausal tales, karaoke sing-along nights, coffee breaks, birthday celebrations, online chat sessions and what have you. 

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Tinolang Free Range Chicken

I wrote an article on free range chicken farming because I heard a lot of positive things about free range chicken.  Aside from the health benefits that one will get from eating chicken raised as natural as possible, advocates of healthy living said that this kind of chicken tastes more natural and is tastier.  

When speaking about healthy chicken what always comes to mind is the native chicken.  Filipinos who spent their growing up years in the provinces know only of one variety of chicken, the native one.  These fend for themselves and propagate naturally.  Their meat is sought after for tinola, chicken ginger soup with green papaya and chili leaves.

Magnolia chicken came out with their own line of free range chicken lately.  I welcomed this development as the bird only costs P145/kilo, a price much lower than my expectation.  Native chickens from the wet markets cost more.  At least, eating healthy chicken has become affordable compared to the other brands that are pricey.  Not all supermarkets carry free range chicken, though.  

I bought two pieces from HiTop Supermarket, one for tinola and the other one I intend to do as adobo.  The meat looks leaner than the ordinary dressed chicken which is plump.  The ordinary one also comes whiter than the free range one which is reddish.  I was surprised that the healthy chicken cooked easily like the ordinary one.  No need to use the pressure cooker to have tender chicken.  Come dinner time, I cooked tinola and paired it with grilled milkfish.  What a hearty and healthy dinner we had.

Bon appetit!

My Foray Into Blogging

My love affair with blogging began not on a rosy start.  One day I found myself one of the participants in a one and a half day-seminar held at the Cubao branch of a known internet cafe chain.  The basic of blogging using Blogger as the platform, how to earn through Google Adsense and some stuff which I later found out to be email marketing parlance were cramped into that span of time.  To cut the story short, I went home not knowing where and how to start if I will do blogging on my own.  That was in 2008.  My initial attempt at blogging was sad to say just an attempt.  

Fast forward to 2009.  I enrolled for the Certified Digital Marketing Program (CDMP) at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.  For the first module, Digital Wiki, we were to submit an essay that has to be uploaded via a blog website.  Making the article was a breeze but how to upload?  Fortunately for me I had a partner for this project and he took care of the technical side.  After that incident, I promised myself that I have to do something to conquer my feeling of inadequacy.

Seven months after Digital Wiki, I was at the Blog Revolution module under Janette Toral, an institution in the Philippine blogging world.  To pass the module, my group mates and I have to submit a blog that we started from scratch.  That exercise of creating a blog from thin air was very useful and gave birth to my blog about green business and entrepreneurship, There's Money in Green.  Weeks after the blog module has ended, my new found confidence kept me busy updating my new blog with new articles. 

There's Money in Green

I did not stop with the CDMP.  One month after the eleventh and final module of the CDMP, I again enrolled for a three-month special course on blogging, the Certified Blog Entrepreneur Program (CBEP).  This course takes a more in depth study of blogging.   I learned a lot about blogging specially the technical side from Janette Toral.  Out of the first module, I was able to create  My Life as a "Couples for Christ" on my lonesome.  Yes you can say that I am now more comfortable with the platform.

My Life as a "Couples for Christ"

To date, I am maintaining four blog sites, each blog talking about a different theme.  The challenge for me is not the technical issues anymore but on how to come up with a new article every week for each blog.  I keep my creative juices flowing by digging into past experiences, by reading and through research.  

Stuff I Like to Try

They say that when we reach middle age, we ponder on our accomplishments and think of things that we still would want to do.  Yes, at this age we may have already lost the agility of our youth but we think that we can still do a lot.  We want to try deeds or exploits that never entered our minds back then.  Maybe because we have more time for ourselves today as we have been relieved of parental duties and of preparation for a good future.  

There are stuff that I would like to try before arthritis and other age-related diseases catch up with me.  I would like to try:

Dancing.  I am not gifted with terpsichorean skills.  I find difficulty in coordinating foot, hand and body movements.  My mother often said that I got it from my father as she is a graceful dancer.  When watching dance presentations on the television and stage, I marvel at the adroitness of the performers.  It is as if to the dance floor they were born.  

Getting a dance instructor (DI) would be the first order of business.  Luckily, DIs are dime a dozen and can be contracted for a reasonable amount of payment.  Maybe after a couple of months of regular dancing sessions I will be able to show my mother a number of cha cha or swing.  While getting that dancing groove, I will be doing my health a favor.  Those extra pounds need to be shaken!

Singing.  Music pervaded my growing up years.  I woke up and sometimes went to sleep to the sounds of Filipino, Bicol, Spanish music blaring from the stereo player.  I love singing even if I have a difficult time hitting the notes.  It is only through singing that I find total appreciation of my favorite songs.  Kudos to Mr. Roberto del Rosario for pioneering the "sing-along" system in 1975 which later became the karaoke machine thus giving singer wannabes like me the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame.  Maybe my classmate, Abby Luz of ACIATEAM will be able to help me hit those notes.

After the dancing and the singing, I would like to try my hand on Chinese and Japanese Cooking.  My family loves Chinese and Japanese dishes and having a degree tucked under my belt will just be cool.  I can easily whip up their fave dishes.

I think dancing, singing and the cooking will make me extra preoccupied for quite a while.  Pass the microphone, will you?

Alaminos: My Other Hometown

I consider Alaminos, Pangasinan my other hometown.  My mother hailed from this town (now a city) known for the Hundred Islands.  I was there two weeks ago though I only passed by to show a friend the beauty of Hundred Islands from Lucap.

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Fresh catch of the sea at Lucap.

My parents started bringing me and my siblings to Alaminos when we were in our elementary days.  We would stay there for two weeks in the house of my grandparents who were just excited as we were to be together from a year of separation (We lived in Sorsogon back then).  My grandparents spoiled us rotten.  Before the date of our arrival, my grandmother would prepare the room where we will be staying.  She would have several baskets or tiklis in the vernacular of semi-ripe mangoes hidden under our bed.  I would count the days when these mangoes would be ready to be eaten.  Once ready, I would peel the mango then bite on the meat that is so succulent and sweet and my shirt would be wet from all those drippings.

Going to the Hundred Islands was the most awaited part of our Alaminos vacation.  We woke up early, had an early breakfast before driving to Lucap, the port where the boats are located.  The whole house was already busy for our picnic.  The maids had already prepared our lunch of inihaw na bangus or broiled milkfish, Alaminos sausages, pork adobo, pinakbet and of course, mangoes.  We have to hurry so as to be in Quezon Island before high tide.  It was a 30-minute boat ride from Lucap to Quezon Island.  The sea breeze was so refreshing and water was so clear that corrals of different kinds and sizes can be seen underneath.  I easily forgot my nervousness of the boat ride.  You see, I don't know how to swim up to now.  Lol.

The best mangoes in the world.

While at Quezon Island, we basked on the sunshine while enjoying the coolness of the sea breeze.  We "swam" but only at the shallow portion of the beach.  At around 3:00 in the afternoon, we started to get ready for our boat ride home.  The waves by that time were already at low tide.

When not in Hundred Islands, our days were spent going around Alaminos. We went to the public market and to the houses of the countless relatives on my grandmother's side (My grandfather came from another town, Bugallon).  Our grandfather also brought us to a cockfight derby which had for intermission a burlesque show.  Up to now I still don't know if my grandfather knew that there was going to be a burlesque show in that derby.

The two weeks vacation came to an end and we bade my grandparents goodbye.  We first had lunch at Dagupena at Dagupan City before heading to Manila then Sorsogon.  This went on for several years but was stopped abruptly when my grandmother died. 

I missed my grandparents and I regret that I haven't spent more time with them.  I miss Alaminos but I sure am going back in the very near future.

Childhood Dreams

Just like any child, I too had my share of dreams.  Barely ten years old, I aspired to become a tourist guide, speaking different languages while showing foreigners the different tourist spots of our country.  I said to myself I will take up Foreign Service or a related course in college.  It seems that my love for travel has already manifested at a very tender age.

Photo taken from Google Images

A couple of years passed and this time I wanted to become a nurse.  Why a nurse not a doctor?  Doctors earn more than nurses.  I was inspired by the nurses who took care of me when I was hospitalized twice for appendectomy and chicken pox.  They were the ones that came to my room to check on my condition more often than my attending physician.  I already had a picture in my mind of myself in a white uniform, white cap, white shoes and white stockings.  I would be a perfect nurse, I was not squeamish to blood and other hospital stuff.  My dream of being a nurse was replaced when I was in junior year of high school.  What made me change my mind again?  

Photo taken from Google Images

In junior year, I was introduced to a subject that is totally new to me, Economics.  Economics is a social science that dwells into the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.  I found market analyses using price, quantity, supply and demand very interesting.  Though what I had in high school was only a bird's eyeview of economics, nevertheless, it helped me on what course to take up in college.  Thirty years after, my children are questioning me why I took Economics.  All three of them find Economics boring.  Well, to each his own.

Barely two years after graduating from high school, I found myself a freshman at De La Salle University for a degree in Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics.  There was no turning back and I was able to graduate on time.  That course prepared me for my first job as a Money Market Trader at a quasi-banking institution.  I had a firsthand account of Economics at work.  It would have been a good foundation for a career in the financial market but was nipped in the bud with the collapse of the money market as a result of the assasination of Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr.

On the hindsight, I would say that childhood dreams are more often than not products of the influences of the people around or events that happened in the past.