Buy TV online or offline? In East Malaysia Perspective
How often you have a feeling of buying something online and your guts tell you not to. You ask your friend and most of them did not bother to answer or discuss it with you. Perhaps some of them say 'dont buy online, later rosak, cannot claimed." Or some will say "buy online no warranty, no good".
However, you must think that these people never ever in their life purchased something online. Scary cat? It is all about money, we should be scared.
Anyhow, I just received my LG smart TV i order online, I do not want to mention from which side as it would be like an advertisement. I just say that i buy it somewhere from a local online shop. The result is, I save a few hundreds ringgit and I am using Smart TV now in my living room. No scratch on arrival.
There is a lot of online shop now blooming all around the world. Malaysia is included. Within this 5 years, more and more online shop gaining reputation, good or bad, let us decide. Let just say from groceries to electronics even to car, there is always place to buy it online. Everything can be bought online nowadays.
So, buying online pose same risk as buying offline. How can you tell that your purchased item from a well known shop there in the city will last for days? Maybe only two to three days you had to sent it back to the shop for return. Some of them would sent it to the manufacturer service shop then you had to wait for weeks or month for it to be replaced. It is the same as buying thing online. You will never be sure whether you will get the good item or bad item.
One thing for sure, online shop is way cheaper than offline shop. For television especially as this post is all about buying TV online.
The main concern when buying TV online is whether the TV will arrive at your doorstep in one piece. Hopefully the LCD screen did not break. This main concern or risk actually can be minimized by selecting your online shop with a good return policy. A few online shop WRITTEN return policy. Find it, or even sent a couple of emails to the online seller asking regarding their return policy. Return policy by the way is the policy for the shop to handle broken item when you received it. DO NOT call by phone asking about return policy. You need a written one thus email provide the best channel for this query.
After you established a shop with good written policy, the next thing is to dig previous customer comment and rating. Don't trust the rating provided by the shop itself, that would be biased. Google it. Read the review from blogger, facebook, twitter, wherever you can find the info. Ask other people who had experience dealing with the shop. You must be OPEN MINDed though because people like to spread bad thing over the internet compare to good thing. Thus you have to analyze people experience. If someone having bad experience, try to analyze what he or she bought, are they using coupon, voucher? This is important as some online shop will take longer time to ship your item if you use coupon, they usually need to verify the coupon first.
There is isolated cases where people had bad experience about buying stuff online, please do not listen to the only one. Open your senses and analyse every review you can find over the internet. Same as analyzing offline shop in your area, which one is better, which one is cheaper. Same thing.
Next, try to find out which postage service they use. Generally, Pos Malaysia would be the last courrier you want to use for big item such as TV. Small item may be safe. But private delivery service does not mean they are good. From my experience, DHL and Fedex are quite good. But some people had bad experience with them. Luck play an important role also i guess.
Next, try to find out whether these shop and courrier can deliver to your area. That should be easy. Visit their website and do some research. You can call them if you want. This time, calling is much better. Just ask whether they can deliver to you and how long does is usually take. I am living in Sipitang District in Sabah, quite far from city centre kota kinabalu but Gedex can deliver to my doorstep. I did call them because their web page did not list Sipitang as their area of delivery.
Now, time to find out the price. Even in normal offine shop, you should compare a few shop before you buy. Comparing 5-6 shops is quite exhausting but doing it online make thing easier. You can compare a hundred shop locally or internationally in a click.
Try to buy thing from local online shop if plausible because international purchased.... i can't comment about that. I bought a phone casing is arrive after 2 weeks. Buy a CD from USA and now almost one month I have not received the item. Bad choice buying thing from overseas. However, purchasing from a big company like apple, no problem, they will make sure your stuff arrive in perfect condition in less than a week. That is why apple product so expensive.
Do not trust shop that sell their product to cheap compare to other. There must be something wrong. Or it maybe used item. So if a TV cost around 1700 generally over the internet, and you find a shop selling it for RM1500, that is possible. But let say other shop sell for RM1700 and this one shop sell for only RM500, consider is as a clone. Do not ever buy it.
Read the description from the seller for your item that you have selected. Do not just read on the seller page, read it from other website. For example, I am buying LG smart TV 42 inch model LN570..(something like that), then i would google that model over the internet and see whether it is a good choice or not.
Next, buy TV or any other item that have nationwide warranty. For example, do not buy TV with the brand of Pak Sonic TV, or Sam and sung TV... you know you cant find local service center in your area to provide the warranty. Otherwise, if you buy Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Toshiba, that is quite safe. I've seen one brand name Hisense in online shop, very cheap, product of china but i afraid that no one will provide the warranty service for this TV. If you buy from LG for example, anything happen with your TV, you can call LG and find nearby LG service center if your TV dysfunction later.
After all of this, now you pray and hopefully that you are lucky enough to get the TV in less than a week. Haha. Actually it is quite safe buying TV online as TV nowadays are very light. So light item tend to has less damage when you transport. TV is also quite tough nowadays. Very rigid and not prone to break or damage. (make sure you choose a good brand of course).
I am really pissed off with offline seller in Sabah, from Karamunsing to Suria Sabah to 1borneo, they try to swindle me saying that their TV is the cheapest while actuually I can buy it RM500 cheaper online + with free shipping.
And some of them selling a very cheap TV but if you google the internet, that model of TV released 5 years ago, no one want to buy that anymore. Old TV for new model price?
Its a joke to buy TV or other electronics here in Sabah. No blame to them, they have to pay their worker and get some for themselves.... the beauty of the internet, you can cut the cost for this and get to pay only the amount that you want.
Anyone want to buy TV online now? Go ahead and give it a try. But i take no responsibility if you received broken TV. I received mine in a good condition...
You decide.
However, you must think that these people never ever in their life purchased something online. Scary cat? It is all about money, we should be scared.
Anyhow, I just received my LG smart TV i order online, I do not want to mention from which side as it would be like an advertisement. I just say that i buy it somewhere from a local online shop. The result is, I save a few hundreds ringgit and I am using Smart TV now in my living room. No scratch on arrival.
There is a lot of online shop now blooming all around the world. Malaysia is included. Within this 5 years, more and more online shop gaining reputation, good or bad, let us decide. Let just say from groceries to electronics even to car, there is always place to buy it online. Everything can be bought online nowadays.
So, buying online pose same risk as buying offline. How can you tell that your purchased item from a well known shop there in the city will last for days? Maybe only two to three days you had to sent it back to the shop for return. Some of them would sent it to the manufacturer service shop then you had to wait for weeks or month for it to be replaced. It is the same as buying thing online. You will never be sure whether you will get the good item or bad item.
One thing for sure, online shop is way cheaper than offline shop. For television especially as this post is all about buying TV online.
The main concern when buying TV online is whether the TV will arrive at your doorstep in one piece. Hopefully the LCD screen did not break. This main concern or risk actually can be minimized by selecting your online shop with a good return policy. A few online shop WRITTEN return policy. Find it, or even sent a couple of emails to the online seller asking regarding their return policy. Return policy by the way is the policy for the shop to handle broken item when you received it. DO NOT call by phone asking about return policy. You need a written one thus email provide the best channel for this query.
After you established a shop with good written policy, the next thing is to dig previous customer comment and rating. Don't trust the rating provided by the shop itself, that would be biased. Google it. Read the review from blogger, facebook, twitter, wherever you can find the info. Ask other people who had experience dealing with the shop. You must be OPEN MINDed though because people like to spread bad thing over the internet compare to good thing. Thus you have to analyze people experience. If someone having bad experience, try to analyze what he or she bought, are they using coupon, voucher? This is important as some online shop will take longer time to ship your item if you use coupon, they usually need to verify the coupon first.
There is isolated cases where people had bad experience about buying stuff online, please do not listen to the only one. Open your senses and analyse every review you can find over the internet. Same as analyzing offline shop in your area, which one is better, which one is cheaper. Same thing.
Next, try to find out which postage service they use. Generally, Pos Malaysia would be the last courrier you want to use for big item such as TV. Small item may be safe. But private delivery service does not mean they are good. From my experience, DHL and Fedex are quite good. But some people had bad experience with them. Luck play an important role also i guess.
Next, try to find out whether these shop and courrier can deliver to your area. That should be easy. Visit their website and do some research. You can call them if you want. This time, calling is much better. Just ask whether they can deliver to you and how long does is usually take. I am living in Sipitang District in Sabah, quite far from city centre kota kinabalu but Gedex can deliver to my doorstep. I did call them because their web page did not list Sipitang as their area of delivery.
Now, time to find out the price. Even in normal offine shop, you should compare a few shop before you buy. Comparing 5-6 shops is quite exhausting but doing it online make thing easier. You can compare a hundred shop locally or internationally in a click.
Try to buy thing from local online shop if plausible because international purchased.... i can't comment about that. I bought a phone casing is arrive after 2 weeks. Buy a CD from USA and now almost one month I have not received the item. Bad choice buying thing from overseas. However, purchasing from a big company like apple, no problem, they will make sure your stuff arrive in perfect condition in less than a week. That is why apple product so expensive.
Do not trust shop that sell their product to cheap compare to other. There must be something wrong. Or it maybe used item. So if a TV cost around 1700 generally over the internet, and you find a shop selling it for RM1500, that is possible. But let say other shop sell for RM1700 and this one shop sell for only RM500, consider is as a clone. Do not ever buy it.
Read the description from the seller for your item that you have selected. Do not just read on the seller page, read it from other website. For example, I am buying LG smart TV 42 inch model LN570..(something like that), then i would google that model over the internet and see whether it is a good choice or not.
Next, buy TV or any other item that have nationwide warranty. For example, do not buy TV with the brand of Pak Sonic TV, or Sam and sung TV... you know you cant find local service center in your area to provide the warranty. Otherwise, if you buy Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Toshiba, that is quite safe. I've seen one brand name Hisense in online shop, very cheap, product of china but i afraid that no one will provide the warranty service for this TV. If you buy from LG for example, anything happen with your TV, you can call LG and find nearby LG service center if your TV dysfunction later.
After all of this, now you pray and hopefully that you are lucky enough to get the TV in less than a week. Haha. Actually it is quite safe buying TV online as TV nowadays are very light. So light item tend to has less damage when you transport. TV is also quite tough nowadays. Very rigid and not prone to break or damage. (make sure you choose a good brand of course).
I am really pissed off with offline seller in Sabah, from Karamunsing to Suria Sabah to 1borneo, they try to swindle me saying that their TV is the cheapest while actuually I can buy it RM500 cheaper online + with free shipping.
And some of them selling a very cheap TV but if you google the internet, that model of TV released 5 years ago, no one want to buy that anymore. Old TV for new model price?
Its a joke to buy TV or other electronics here in Sabah. No blame to them, they have to pay their worker and get some for themselves.... the beauty of the internet, you can cut the cost for this and get to pay only the amount that you want.
Anyone want to buy TV online now? Go ahead and give it a try. But i take no responsibility if you received broken TV. I received mine in a good condition...
You decide.
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