The Online Shopping Community has lost the plot.
I was having a slow, rather uneventful day today, but a fantastic day nonetheless :)
Met up with HannahBanana after almost half a year of not seeing her since she left for Melbourne, we spent hours catching up over Old Town’s Hazelnut White Coffee love 
It was a great girly coffee session, talking about our lives, new loves, future plans, 
i love quality times like these.
Right after that we did some shopping at the Pick n’ Grab bazaar @ Hartamas, as if perfectly ending my happy day, I managed to snag some super awesome buys! 
which all puts me in a very gleeful mood, hee!
Dropped Hannah home, and wanted to come home, chill, have some yummy dinner, and off to the U.O.X event tonight :)
I came home and checked my emails and online stuff, lo and behold, this was what I found.
:+:
And so I remember reading Teeny’s post a few months ago *click to read!* about this certain online shops reviewing website, where they do stuff like compare prices between e-shops, and I dunno, post up unsatisfactory remarks of buyers & sellers, or something to that effect.
I read Teeny’s post long ago, and there’s a lot of truth to what she wrote. I couldn’t find the review website back then, but NOW i have.
For obvious reasons, An Old Flame has unfortunately been a recent victim too. 
Yea, that’s how I came to know of this blog, hmm bad first impression.
Nothing major, only something trivial as to comparing the colours and quality of our pictures, compared to another e-shop’s.
So trivial and silly, and definitely not worth anyone’s time.
Except for the part where that e-shop owner, whose picture quality wasn’t so good, had the audacity to post in their false accusation:
“The picture we show in our e-shop is actually the REAL color of that dress. And not that colour as shown in An Old Flame. Btw, anyone can tweak a picture to make it looks nice without showing the actual colour.”
Hmm. Bloody unethical, if you ask me.
And only for that reason, I emailed the review website my complaint, to address that accusation.
None of us at An Old Flame are professionals, we are just a bunch of amateurs playing around with our hobbies, excuse us if the results came out nicely. Why so upset?
And rest assured, we DON’T photoshop our pictures until the colours are misleading. As far as we’re concerned, our pictures show its truest colour. The other e-shop may beg to differ, they can say it’s their colour instead. But they should not have made that absurd statement so falsely, let the buyers decide for themselves la. Why so competitive and try defame one another -_-
And coming back to that reviewing website, who is the mediator for all these “complaints” where buyers & sellers to post their dissatisfactions,
shouldn’t they be moderating all these crude claims made by supposedly any Tom, Dick and Harry?
I wonder if I email them, “Hey, i think Shop A sucks eggs. No reason, no truth behind this claim. Just saying la.”
Will they post it up on their website with no moderation? Because in essense, that’s exactly what happened right? Hmm.
:+:
While I’ve heard many complaints of this particular reviewing website, the other major issue is regarding that price comparison.
To be honest, I don’t quite care that they compare prices or whatnot. If it benefits the potential buyer who happens to stumble upon it, then fine, well and good.
Because, me being an online shopper myself, I believe that buyers are (or should be) equipped with the knowledge that it is not possible for all e-shops to price the same. For obvious reasons:
1. There’s like a gabuzillion e-shops out there. It is virtually impossible for e-shop owners to check ALL the other e-shops to see if they happen to sell the same item, just so we can match our prices or lower it.
2. There will be sellers who copy the items of the big name e-shops and underprice them.
ie. say Shop A posted up the item first. Shop B sees it and wants to sell the same pretty dress, so Shop B conveniently prices it lower?
3. So many other factors relating to the cost!
Perhaps some sellers manage to find a cheaper source of supply, hence they can afford to price lower.
Perhaps some charge for COD, hence their lower initial prices.
etc etc etc.
In my opinion, if this online shopping (bad) reviews website wants to compare prices, they should also explain to readers of these various reasons as to why prices will vary among different e-shops.
This website claims to take interest of both the buyers & sellers, but it doesn’t seem like they’re protecting the latter?
They should not just state the price difference there in big bold red numbering.
It makes the e-shop that prices a little higher look bad, when there’s probably a perfectly good explanation for this.
And surely I’ve noticed, all the more “popular” e-shops are victims of this.
But please remember why these shops are popular in the first place?
It’s because they provide top notch quality clothes consistently, amazing service, and great pictures! Heck, I have my favourite few e-shops that I frequent, and for those very reasons, I don’t mind paying a few bucks extra 
Besides, who wants to buy something if it looks like crap in the picture? Common sense please -_-
And this review website definitely should not be posting up defamatory remarks about any particular e-shop.
So what if it’s directly quoted off a fellow competitor / e-shop owner. Does that make them not accountable? The review website should play the role of moderator, non?
:+:
Sigh.
Seriously, I think the online shopping community has lost the plot. Once upon a time, wasn’t it simply about the experience of retail therapy?
As a buyer, as every girl would know, shopping is bloody therapeutic and there’s nothing like purchasing a brand new gorgeous dress
As a seller, I genuinely love the experience of liasing with customers, meeting with them, talking about fashion, the occasional advicing them on (in my humble opinion) what dress types would suit their size and lifestyle. Something like being a personal shopper 
But apparently that’s no longer the case, when there’s all these silly over-competitive shops and bad reviews website coming about, politics, etc.
Seriously. *shakes head*. T
he plot is lost.
But whatever. Small bump in the road and will not let this affect my great day U.O.X party tonight whee!
p/s: I will not reveal the reviewing website, or that unethical e-shop. Like Teeny said, don’t wanna give them hits. And my comments will be under moderation temporarily, to avoid their blog addresses being revealed. Thanks!
Currently listening to: Soko – I’ll Kill Her (damn cute song :p)
January 18th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Hello sweets, its me racheal from funkshop55 :)
here i am dropping by to say hi :)
and thanks a lot for your purchase ya? *hugs*
January 18th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I’m glad you didn’t let it get to you :) It’s probably a plot to give better e-shops a bad name because the authors probably had an e-shop and got no business :D
January 19th, 2009 at 7:19 am
i dont know about you but from what i see the velvet shop really sell stuff much more expensive compared to the other stores ( exact same stuff summore)
January 19th, 2009 at 10:11 am
wah so drama one this blogging community!
January 19th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
for me, nothing beats shopping in malls and trying on clothes :)
January 21st, 2009 at 3:32 am
hey I agreed on ur opinion tho :)
heheh! I just love shopping and the feeling of getting the great stuff i want. So I don’t really mind paying a few bucks more. I love shopping a bit too much haha! Both at shopping malls or online, they give satisfaction n happiness lol sounds so materialistic! :P
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 am
The drama in this whole blog shop thing is crazy, haha! I’ve only bought things once or twice, but meh I don’t know, still can’t beat the satisfaction of wrapping your fingers around an actual physical paper bag and bringing it home :D
January 24th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Rach @ FunkyShopper: no, thank you! ;)
peachy: hehe interesting thought there…
Anonymous: i dont know if what you say is true, but there might be a good explanation to it? ie. Velvetribbon has a more expensive source of supply? Lets not be too quick to judge alright :)
keshia: yala haiyo damn nonsense right! -_-
plain.jane & Mellissa: hehe of course online and offline shopping has its own pro's and con's :) while i myself love offline shopping, online shopping rocks too because i love getting a big brown package of my happy purchases in the mail too! ;)
Harleen Atica: hahaha well said, dear. You're not the only one, many girls agree with us too!
February 13th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Interesting post!! Well, online shopping has tremendously become prevalent and millions of people are now purchasing online.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Hi! I was surfing the net and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Melissa. G.