If you’re a regular forumer at Singapore Motherhood Forum (SMH), you will be familiar with their bulk purchase (better known as BP). If you’re not, let me explain to you. It’s a column for the members to organize bulk purchases or online sprees with a minimal listing fee. You can find variety of products here, from clothings, shoes, branded bags and skincare products to educational products like books, DVDs and flashcards as well as household products. The business has blossomed, doubled and tripled since I joined this forum three years ago.

Shopping online with BP is the ultimate convenience. I can go from store to store with the flick of a finger and make purchases in a matter of minutes. The best part is – the products will be delivered right to my doorstep. In addition, the products can be very wallet friendly too. The price is usually much cheaper than buying at local stores. Reason – the seller buys in bulk from their supplier, there will be some cost-savings that will be shared among the spreeists. The trade-off is there is always a waiting time as most of the products are pre-orders (not ready-stocks).

I’ve three years of ‘shopping experience’ with BP. So far, I’ve never encountered any cheat, fake/defective product, missing shipment or any other shopping disaster. Nonetheless, there is always a risk when it comes to BP. I will not buy from the seller if I’m not comfortable with their waiting time, terms and conditions or product quality. I also refrain myself from buying expensive products (in case the seller run-away!).

Recently, I encounter a not-so-pleasant experience with a seller from BP. As some of you may know, I’m a die-hard fan of Crocs shoes. I bought a lot of Crocs shoes from BP. This seller keeps delaying the shipments without proper updates to the spreeists. As a result, many of them are extremely upset and started posting nasty remarks online.

I ordered two pairs of Malindi from her under the first batch in end Dec. She promised that the first batch will arrive no later than 5 Jan. Upon arrival, she updated me that she has posted my item on 8 Jan. I did not receive the shoes when I came back from my cruise vacation. I questioned her again; she said the item was posted on 11 Jan. A week passed and I still didn’t receive the shoes. When I questioned her again, she said that she didn’t have my address. I knew that she was lying because I sent her my payment details together with my home address. If she can track my payment, I’m very sure she would have seen my home address too.

I played a little trick. I gave her my PIL’s address. She didn’t reply. Two days later, I found the shoes in my own postbox. Apparently, she did record my home address and she was lying! The date on the stamp was 18 Jan (not 11 Jan). There is a 13 days delay from her original commit. I was utterly disappointed, not because of the delay, but mainly because she is dishonest.

Organizing a BP can be an uphill task, especially for hot-selling products like Crocs. From a working mother’s point-of-view, I can understand how tedious it is to manage a full-time job, taking care of children and organize a BP. From consolidating orders, tracking payments, coordinating shipments with supplier, answering queries, inspecting items upon receipt to packing and posting, it’s really a massive job! The seller claims that she is a working mother too. I try to understand her time constraints, thus I did not express my anger and disappointments on her BP.

Despite my grumbling, I still have an outstanding order with her and that’s my Havana. I’m still hoping to receive them before CNY and I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

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