Trying To Improve My Chess Skills With a Tempting Chess Set by Hannah Thore

I've been playing chess off and on for a few years now. It's something that me and one of my former roommates started doing for a while when our internet was down. And then we just started playing chess for fun even when our internet came back up. We got strangely competitive about it and kept a running score of the game outcomes. Well, I've had this strange urge to play chess again but now when I try and play it with my boyfriend he totally destroys me. And it's not like he plays chess all the time or anything!

I decided that maybe I should buy myself a nicer chess set as a way of motivating myself to play a little better. I went online to try and find some nicer chess sets and while I was doing that I ran across the website WIRELESSINTERNET.NET. After I read through it a little bit I decided to change over my home internet service to the company.

I found this one chess set that's actually part of a table. I thought that would be a really fun addition to my living room furniture.

Mind Exercise Games

A thought, my mind is always running, but I wanna keep it running! Just making sure as I age...

Recently downloaded Words With Friends in iPhone, it is pretty cool! It is something smart to do during break time, it sharpens my mind and it helps me stay up and running and think.

The one thing that I want to be really doing is play chess... Looking for a decent playmate, my wife excluded haha!

I need to keep this game to improve my strategic decisions, I am long done with Plants vs. Zombies!

Business Account

Last week was one unusual week for business. One very prominent bank closed our business account without disclosing the reason why, was that fair? Definitely not!

My business partner and I have tried our luck by dressing up corporate to try to negotiate the bank to reopen our business account, but they were just as stiff as Steve, if you know what I mean...

I have no idea if they are even allowed to that though given that they have their own restrictions whatsoever, but wasn't that some sort of discrimination? Queer.

Ebay: Price Complaint from Customer

I had overstock phones that I wanted to get rid immediately and just last week I listed them at a price difference of $50 from my previous listings. I never thought a previous customer would get back at me for bringing down the price.

CAUTION: Always put "Prices are subject to change without prior notice" in your listings.

The customer I'm talking about sent me a message complaining and cursing for the price difference. I dealt with him in a manner that won't feed his burning anger. I wrote him back, and referred to him as "my friend", and explained to him that there's nothing wrong with me changing my prices, that I just happened to get rid of the overstock items and that I didn't intend to lower the price to disadvantage my other customers.

This happening is not new by the way, I get them from time to time. I just wanted to put it down here to serve as a guide to all other eBay sellers. Just treat your customers, be it your prospect customers or existing customers with utmost priority, attend to them right away and make them feel special.

90 stars and counting!

Update With The iPad Business

Its going down, down, down, its going down...

Seems like the iPad 2 craze has died, we are slowly losing our market for iPad 2. No demand from indirect sellers, proven by the zero inquiry we are getting lately.

Early on we have identified that the profit generated from buying and selling the iPad 2 is not worth it. It is highly in demand but we cannot supply that demand so that we definitely decided to keep it off our listing in eBay and just focus on selling phones and other electronic accessories. Listing it makes no sense as it would just put more pressure on us to source it out.

Since the tsunami in Japan last month, a lot of businesses have been affected in terms of supply, Apple included. I have the gut-feel that people's interest in the new iPad 2 is not there anymore, its probably because they are waiting for iPad 3. I mean, it has been always like that.

Used Shoes: Shoe Business Opportunity in the Philippines Part 1

Photo courtesy of Will Forster from Flickr

My export business in the REDS Global Marketing side in the Philippines is still young and honestly needs some assistance in terms of sound accounting practices. I have given my aunt the authority over the retail business in the Philippines but it seems that business is not taking off. I am taking care of system for sound accounting so I could take note of the overall business's worth, considering the rental, electricity expenses, and the overhead. Anyway...

Good thing about the Philippines is that you have a market for almost everything, and used goodies is nonexempt! In our retail business where we retail majority of used clothing, shoes, accessories, kitchen utensils, appliances and etcetera, we have discovered that among all of these merchandise, we have a good market for men's shoes. Our Filipino market in Davao City is actually on the lookout for branded shoes mostly athletic shoes preferably Nike, but whatever brand name that they recognize is fine too like Adidas or Reebok. Initially what we did in the beginning (just last year) was to buy the used shoes from the Salvation Army. There are also times where we pick free stuff listed in Craigslist, so there is actually a good margin for us, especially when its all free. An idea came to mind: since this commodity is a hit and we actually generate good profit from used shoes, why not look for bulk suppliers for discount shoes online. There are actually a lot of sellers that sell by the pallets or by vans, depending on your capacity to buy.

I first came to the site called Liquidation.Com, it is an online sellers' portal for everything where the buyer have to bid for the items. I later weighed the pros and cons of bidding, and I found that its not worth it. There are bidders line up for good quality items on auction of course, but as to my cost versus profit computation, what I could afford to place a bid on are items that I am not sure of the assortments. Liquidation.Com do not provide a Contact Seller option, and I find it kind of a hassle to contact the main office to request for a manifest from the seller. I want to save time as I am an exceptionally busy person even in my sleep (go ask my wife).

So I did more research for suppliers of used shoes online. I also considered buying brand new clearance shoes from big department stores, but later on I will write on that one and for now would like to keep my focus on the used ones for this post's sake. Buying the shoes in bulk entails additional cost for the shipment and the sales tax, so I focused on looking for a supplier with a fixed price per pallet with the possibility of no sales tax that also offers free shipping across US mainland for free. Guess what? I actually found a lot of these sellers in Closeout Central.

I am currently in the process of setting up an efficient accounting system for my retail business in the Philippines and when I'm ready, I will proceed on buying used shoes in bulk. For now, I bet there is a sufficient inventory of items to sell in there and I have 5 more boxes to send this month. By the way, I send the items via a Balikbayan Box service, $65 per 22x22x22 box, 1.5 month lead time, door to door delivery.

Dealing With a Negative Feedback on eBay

Selling on eBay is not just simply selling on eBay. You have to make sure you keep your reputation by maintaining 100% feedback. Consider it like you are actually working for a boss and you want to impress this boss with your every performance, you have to keep that mindset and put that very same effort on eBay.

There is actually an article on eBay about Dealing With Your First Negative Feedback and you might want to read on that. A negative feedback is a stain in your credibility as an online seller and thus there is a need for you to work hard to counter on that negative feedback and turn it to your advantage.

Based on my experience, the first and only time I got a negative feedback got me so upset and I couldn't think of anything else but to find a way to take off that negative feedback on my page. I have asked myself couple of times why this particular buyer gave me a negative feedback when I have been so careful with all of my transactions and I always see to it that I always provide good customer service? So what could have gone wrong?

So what did I do?

I gathered my thoughts and braved myself to write the buyer and convinced him to revise his feedback. I told him things like, I just been laid off from my job and that eBay is just my only source of income at the moment. I made my story sound so hopeless and I just kept on writing him to the point of actually begging for a positive feedback. I wasn't sure if he was a constant eBayer though and if he would read my letters but I just tried my luck and two days later the negative feedback was changed into a positive one. My drama has paid off. You could also try what I did, but take caution too that it may or may not work for you at the end of the day, but also keep it mind that there is no harm in trying.

To date, I have been keeping my seller credibility at 100%. 80 yellow stars and counting!