Rant 1015 / Pondering Ponderosity Ponderously

Now I see how consumers can adapt to online shopping for anything.

You just need a few stores where people can try out or test the features of products. Still doesn't work in my case but if the larger stores push in this direction, my case would be too insignificant to affect the trend.

Which means I either have to adapt my business or I should get ready to do something else in 10 years.

Meanwhile I have to keep learning about clothes. When I started, I had no idea I needed to go that deep into the details. But I like this control over the quality that I don't get when dealing with wholesalers who don't usually ask such questions.




















No wonder Standard Chartered doesn't state the minimum sum upfront on its website for business accounts.

I went to one of the branches today to apply for the BusinessSaver account and was told that the minimum sum was S$30k.

Thirty thousand dollars stagnant?!?!?!

What.

The banker clearly saw my hesitation when I heard that so she recommended another business account that had free chequebooks with a lower minimum sum of just S$10k.

Took that one instead. 10k is alright. If I had to resort to using that last 10 thousand it will be a good idea to close shop anyway. 30k, on the other hand, was too high for me.

So yea, that's how small my business is.

The funny thing is that it actually requires business experience to open a business account there. She was kinda shocked when I told her I only had a single year of experience, so I asked her if experience was a requirement. When she said yes, I told her it was a family business so that can be taken as many years of experience as long as it's not mentioned that I never worked in the business before that.

Packing and labelling doesn't really count as actual experience, does it?

Too bad it takes 2 weeks to get me the account, but she can issue me a temporary chequebook earlier. The problem is I have no idea how soon that will happen.

All I needed was a chequebook with my business name.

And I can't deposit cheques that's made in my name there because it will only accept cheques for my business, not me.






Anyway I decided on Standard Chartered instead of Citibank because the person on the phone told me they didn't have chequebooks that use business names. I think she was unfamiliar with their business banking stuff and was therefore wrong, but it's not my problem if they don't educated their telemarketers properly.

As for the referal promotion, it would have only got my bro a $20 voucher from an unspecified merchant. When she pointed out that the referer won't get the $20 voucher if I don't open an account, I almost laughed. $20 is obviously serious business.






















Finished ME3. That last real battle at the missiles was as hard as I remembered, except even more because it was my first run on Insanity difficulty.

But I survived.

Before the battle, I didn't remember much about it but I did recall it being a pain in the butt, probably the most insane battle in the game. I mean, 5 brutes as the penultimate wave? 3 was already painful but 5 was pretty overwhelming when I finished the count.

I just held Shift (paused command mode) and stared for 10 whole seconds.

As if 5 brutes in a single wave weren't enough, the final wave was 2 banshees, a lot of marauders and the Reaper's laser randomly hitting everywhere.

I'm only surprised that I didn't have to use up all my medkits and grenades there. Come to think about it, I only used 3-4 medkits (2 of them at one go in a desperate run when I got flanked by marauders) and 2 grenades.

I love Shield Drain and marauders. Free shields everywhere! That almost suicidal escape took a nonstop combo of sprinting, shield-draining and medkits. Not to mention a lot of luck.

Never did take down the banshees. Though one of them was right next to the missile controls at the end, I just ran towards it because I had nowhere else to hide. In fact just before I hit the missile control terminal the banshee's ranged attack took out my shield. Another split second and she would have meleed me, and banshees' melee attacks are instakill.




Now that I'm done with the ME trilogy, time to move on to Deus Ex: Human Revolution that I just bought.

























With the traffic going so slowly, I suspect I may be the cause of it. Moreover, I am beginning to doubt I will be able handle the incoming volume of goods I'm planning to order.

Why?

If it happens, why?

What am I doing wrong?

My goods are selling. My gross income is not worse than my mother's last year. So why is it that I am running out of space to the same degree as I did earlier this year?



Also interested in doing online business but the international shipping costs are insane due to the weight of the things I sell. On the other hand, it could work for the things I'm willing to sell at cost. Ebay only charges like 9% for stuff sold on Ebay US and Paypal only takes another 2% or so, totalling to about 11%.