Alor Setar- From the Eyes of Ipoh Lang

During the study break, I went for a short stay in Alor Setar. To be frank, I think that Alor Setar is quite a small town. However, there are a lot of constructions going on now and then so I am kinda sure it is going to be a city soon. 

It was too bad that I actually spent quite some time taking naps all the while in Alor Setar. Mainly because I've not slept well the days before. 

So, TaTa!!

Had Thai food with bae's family on the first night. The restaurant named Dee Dee Thai Food. Humphhh. I've never realise my love towards Thai Food especially green curry. Oh my nommy yummy. 

FOOD

Well... For the food part, I seriously couldn't contribute a lot of info and pictures. As by the time I was in Alor Setar, it was winter solstice, so most of the Chinese stalls were closed. But I had a lot of curry mee and different type of noodles... Missed the chance to try out 鸡丝面 that bae recommended. Maybe you want to try it out, it is at the opposite of Keat Hwa H primary school. 

Check out the Nyonya Beans. It sells Dao Fu Fa in general but in a more advanced way. They have Dao Fu Fa in Matcha flavour, as well as  sweet olive (桂花）. I think the Dao Fu Fa is generally good, worth a try!

This is also one of the famous noodles in Alor Setar. The Herbal Chicken/Duck noodles. It's good. I had the Chicken Breast with Mee Sua. The meat is soft and well marinated. It is at Pekan Melayu right next to the mural of Tunku Abdul Rahman. Although it's a bit pricey as compare to living cost in Alor Setar, it is still acceptable. Again, worth a try. 

I am in great remorse not taking pictures of my FAVOURITE food in Alor Setar, the RESTORAN NASI KANDAR ROYALE. 

OMG this is definitely my number 1 most love food in Alor Setar. Do you still want me to describe how good the curry taste? No I couldn't describe it, it is just, fantastic. 

I'll show you some google image HERE

Oh no.... I am hungry again!!

And yea, I wanna let you know there's a very nice COCONUT MILK SHAKE along Jalan Anggerik. I LOVE IT. But too bad cause it's a drink so I can only ranked it as 2nd. It is a lorry by the road side and there is a Malay man selling it at RM3.50. It is nice cause it's not tooooo sweet and he really blends the coconut meat into the slightest thread size. Extra marks to the textual!

PADDY MUSEUM KEDAH, SCIENCE CENTRE ALOR SETAR

Yea I went to this Paddy Museum together with the Science Centre Alor Setar. They are just next to each other so you can park your car at either place and walk to the other.

Paddy Museum does not have a lot to see except the breathtaking wall mural drawn by the Korean. You can look at the images I posted below. If I didn't tell you, I bet you couldn't tell that they are actually painting. It is just, so REAL.

The entrance fee for Paddy Museum is RM5 per adult. You can visit their official Facebook Page for any inquiries  Paddy Museum Kedah .

Science Centre Alor Setar is definitely a MUST to visit in Alor Setar. The entrance fee is so cheap it's just RM2 per adult but the fun in there, it's much more than the money it worth. There should be more photos for this destination but why don't you explore it yourself and take the photos?

Check out the contact of Science Centre Alor Setar, they can be reached in the office hour (Monday - Friday: 8am till 5pm).  

National Science Centre Northern Region Branch

Gunung Keriang

06500 Alor Setar, Kedah

Tel : +604-720 7700

Fax : +604-720 7701

E-mail : psn@psn.gov.my

 SMJK KEAT HWA

Don't Laugh! Yes, I am from SMJK Perempuan Perak aka Perak Girls School; and here I am with Keat Hwa signature 'Stones'. Nonetheless, I was amazed at the school infrastructure. There's even an achievement board engraving the awards that the school been receiving together with the names of the students who 'mengharumkan name sekolah'. LOL

But, erm... I am not sure if this is one of the tourists spots in Alor Setar? Maybe you can go there and walk a few rounds since the guard don't really bother if you are students or not. See, even I can sit there still and take photos.

TaDa! The mural is HUGE. In case you do not know, he is Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia. There is another Mural of Tun Dr Mahathir but I missed the chance to take photo with it.
Both of them were from Alor Setar.

ALL IN ALL, me the Ipoh Lang thinks that Alor Setar is a good place to stay. Maybe you see it as a small town with minimum entertainment, but it is developing fast now and I think it's a good place with good food.
Yea, when I say it is developing fast, there is actually developer building luxury condominium right next to the Aman Central Mall, which is also the area where they named it as THE HEART OF ALOR SETAR. I guess it's because there is the blooming area in Alor Setar.

For other interesting places in Alor Setar, read more on Trip Advisor.

Amazon Global Selling- What Entrepreneur Should Do

Do you know how big a football field is? The length of a football field must be between 90m-120m, while the width has to be between 45m-90m. IT IS HUGE, ISN’T IT?

So, 1 football field is huge, how about 9 times of a football field?

Amazon Fulfillment Centre for Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) has warehouse in the size of 9 times a football field and they even use robots (KIVA Robots) to store and pick up the products!

Amazon Fulfillment Centre set up in different locations to provide the service named "Fulfilled by Amazon". FYI, Amazon was first started off as an online book store in July 1994 (yea it's just a year younger than me.. duhh). However, it gradually increases the variety of products sell online and have become what it is today, the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States.

Fulfilled by Amazon- SERVICES THEY PROVIDE

1.SHIPPING.  As an Amazon seller, you just need to ship your products to any of the Amazon Fulfilment Centre and your products will be stored in the centre till order received from customers. From the centre, they will ship the products to your clients and the shipment will reach around 2-3 working days. 

2. GOODS RETURNING. In case customers request for a product return, they can return it to the Amazon Fulfillment Centre instead of delivering it back to Malaysia. Then the returned goods will be managed by Amazon Fulfillment centre. 

3.LABELING AND BARCODE. Amazon Fulfillment Centre also provide labeling and barcode service if require. This lessen the burden of the seller as they can straight away deliver their products to Amazon Fulfillment Centre and Amazon will take care of the rest of it. 

4. CUSTOMER CARE LINE. Fulfilled by Amazon also provide customer care service line in multiple languages depending on your customer countries. 

5. DELIVER TO CUSTOMER FROM OTHER ONLINE CHANNEL. If you are an experience seller who already established your career in other e-commerce channel such as eBay, Fulfilled by Amazon can also help you to deliver your products to customers who ordered via eBay. As long as the customer is located at the area of the Amazon Fulfillment Centre that you have stored your products, Fulfilled by Amazon can always help you to deliver them. 

6. MARKETING STRATEGY. When you first register your Fulfilled by Amazon service, you will receive 50usd sponsored products credits. You can spend the 50usd to make sponsored (promotional) post on Amazon. You can always reload the sponsored products credit whenever you want. Besides that, sellers can also join Amazon Festive Promotion to put on discounted price to attract buyers. 

All in all, the Fulfilled by Amazon system can be explained in the image below:

Image credit to www.amazon.com

Fulfilled by Amazon- RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT

The revenue you earn from selling on Amazon will be transferred to a Payoneer account. It is a medium similar to PayPal which you can make money transaction online. 

Registering as a Payoneer member and as an Amazon seller, you will get a Debit card to use in Malaysia. So far there is no local bank in alliance with Payoneer but, according to the authority, Amazon is planning to work with a local bank so that Payoneer can directly make money transaction to bank in Malaysia. 

Image credit to www.payoneer.com

You may register your Payoneer account HERE

Fulfilled by Amazon- CHARGES 

In Fulfilled by Amazon, you pay as you go. It is cost effective and convenient. The charges are made based of the size and weight of your product, and you can always estimate the charges you have to pay by using FbA Revenue Calculator. 

Look at the example provided below, say I am going to sell a blouse. 

First search the type of products you want to sell on Amazon and pick the nearest design. For me, I picked Korean Colourful Print Top Tee. 

Then, fill in the same item price on both of the column and click CALCULATE button on the right of your screen. 

Finally as you can see, two sets of calculation have been done. Look at the calculation in Red box. It's the set of expenses if you were to fulfill your products by yourself (you ship and pack by yourself). Then look at the calculation in Purple Box, it is when you use Fulfilled by Amazon. 

By just looking at the final digit that you are going to earn, you will think that you actually earn more if you fulfilled by yourself. However, checking it out clearly I have ignored the expenses for shipping, packing and returning in fulfilled by myself. 

So as you can see, it is cheaper, more convenient and effective to sell your products Fulfilled by Amazon. 

For further information, please check out Boost Your Sales with Amazon's World Class Fulfillment.

If you are a seller and hoping to extend your business market globally, go to Amazon Global Selling and the professionals will approach you ASAP to help you in expanding your business. 

This post  is quite long winded already so I will just stop it here. Do let me know if you want to know a few successful examples of Malaysian sellers on Amazon. 

Me at My Global Export Penang, @The Northam All Suite Penang. 

Thanks to the organiser, speakers and photographer for the fruitful seminar. 

Getting Extra Income : Yes or No?

(Do contact me if you want their contact, pohmeikpm@gmail.com)

Teenagers today are desperate. Believe it or not, we are desperate to be financial stable despite we are still studying; we are desperate to have our own career at this young age.

Would you mind sharing with me? Have you received any pamphlet or brochure, telling you how you could earn extra money with flexible working time and total freedom? Only after you’ve contacted them, realizing they are either direct sales agent or insurance agent.

You can tell me you’ve never encounter any of them. But I had. I couldn’t comment on how right or how wrong direct sales and insurance agent are, there must be reasons why they exist and they are developing fast. But there are also reasons of their high turnover rate. The person you saw last year in the organisation might not be a member anymore a year after.  

If you were being exposed to this platform, been given an ‘opportunity’ to join this stream, as one of them who could earn extra money when you are studying, with time flexibility and retired at the age of 50 and still getting 5 digits income every month.

Well before you really get started, it’s advisable to consider the following:

1.            Understand what you are going to do.

Direct selling is a method of marketing and retailing goods and services directly to the consumers, in their homes or in any other location away from permanent retail premises. But direct selling is one thing, involving in Multi Level Marketing is another. In MLM, you are not only getting profit from your own product selling but including your recruit and recruit’s recruit. You are still selling products direct to customer, but thinking about the commission taken from each sale, I wondered how much the cost for each product is.

2.            Are you ready, from all sense.

It’s never easy to be a good direct sales. If you did not aim to be one of the best out of them, you couldn’t earn much. Definitely less than the basic salary you would get from a proper job and not hitting quota will be expel from the team. Not forgetting your team leader will motivate (brainwashed) you to be more proactive and generate sales.

Meanwhile, are you ready to contribute your time and effort into it? In direct selling, it’s never enough wanting something, are you prepared to work for what you want? How much effort and time you put in reflect how much you could earn. Direct selling do now just involve product selling, but also attending training, members recruiting, product ordering and handling paperwork. There is more work that you could have imagined. However, there are no clear demarcations showing how much effort equivalent to the amount you should earn.

Simultaneously, you have to come out with a prospect list. Before you could kick start you direct selling career, you have to come out with a list of name that you think they would purchase from you. Most of the time the list started off from your family members and friends. After you have exploited them, you will slowly direct your potential prospect to new friends or even stranger. This would be great for people who like knowing new friends, but definitely not so good for them who couldn’t make friends fast.

3.            Ask, and search. 

There are too many direct sale companies out there. Make sure you understand what the company is doing. What type of products they are selling? What about the reviews? Are they reliable? If you are concern that your friend might be hiding something from you, you can always Google.  Of course you can also go to Direct Sales Association to check the reliability of the direct sales company.

All in all, you have to make up your own decision. Try asking yourself:

1. How much money you wanted to earn in the coming 5 years?

2. How are you going to earn that amount of money you want?

3. What do you want the money for?

4. What type of life you were picturing in the next 5 years?

5. What type of person you wanted to be?

 For further reading, visit Can You Really Make Money in Direct Sales?