Interesting thread. I have read through everything and have learnt a bit from all the sifus here.

I am still a university student like a few of you blokes here and have no capital for any business (still investing in books now ).

However I do have plans for business in the future and I am thinking of placing my first "brick" very soon so that a "house" can be built from it.

Having said that, I am curious to ask many of you here. At what age did you venture into your first business =D

Apparently I am from Engineering school and thus I haven't heard of many of these business related competitions before. Will ask my biz friends to see if they got any ...

Putting that aside, isn't that like very dangerous? Your business plan can be copied by anyone if you take it to a competition.

Yes exactly the thing I am worried about. I have read these sort of terms before in Engineering competitions before.

Sounds like a lazy way out

Well, I have asked many of my peers regarding their plan after they graduate. Many replied "don't know" or "wait til the time comes".
Very few talked about their plan (or they do not wish to talk about it), even if they do, they talk about working for a company ...

But I believe there are a few who have plans but decided to keep quiet about it.

Hello, I think I have an idea for you.

Looking at your current situation, I am guessing that you are always updating your blog with new perfumes and expecting people to buy from you. Then of course you would sell to your group of friends as well.

I am pretty sure that you are now currently earning more by selling to your friend. And you have the idea that your blog should be generating more sales than yourself.

I paid a visit to your website. Sorry to say this but I quit straight away, why?

1. I have no intention of buying perfumes now.
2. I don't like entering websites that only tells me what perfumes to buy their prices.
3. I don't like the design.

Sounds cruel but that is the truth.

Now I will tell you what is wrong with your website.

First, it has a blogspot.com at the back, which basically translates (to strangers like myself) you do not have a company and is not trustworthy.
Secondly, the traffic to your website is very little. With so little visitors, it is not surprising that business is not good.
Thirdly, website simplicity and neatness is extremely important for sales, and your blog does not have either of those.

Now how you can improve your sales? You should generate traffic to your website.

How do you do that? Write articles. It is a matter of give and take here. I believe no business can be set up if you do not give first.

Right now if you take a look at your website, what you're actually displaying to your visitors is "Look, tell me what you want and I will sell it to you". Would you buy if anybody tell you that exact same sentence? I wouldn't.

So what you are supposed to do now, is tell your customers why they should pick your perfumes, tell them how good that perfume is, tell them what would happen if they use that perfume, tell them your experience when using that perfume.

Bah I think I should just throw you all the ideas I have and have you figure out what to do
1. Write articles so that your articles generate sales
2. Register a real domain name and a real website (not bloggers)
3. Market your brand, don't just sell without branding.

Just my 2 cents.

@AnakJohor
.com.my of course if you're targeting Malaysian customer, I think you should get .com.my. However, I would suggest you to get both .com.my and .com, 20 USD per year is not expensive at all in case you want to expand worldwide.

There are actually a lot of ways to improve traffic.

What I usually do for my website (not a sales website) is that I publish articles, then share them in Facebook, Twitter Diggs. That's the lazy way , there are a lot of ways out there you can use, like creating a facebook group or something.

Also make sure Google is pinged (notified) so that your articles appear in Google Search Engine.

You should read up targeting keywords so that you know what keywords to include in your website. It's the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) thing which I am not that good at.

As for advertising, I am not the right person to talk to.

By the way, I am just a university student with some knowledge about the internet. You should not take my advice too seriously. Mainly because these things take a lot of time to prepare and takes more time to generate sales. I myself think that this is the hardest way to generate sales leads. Maybe some pros here can advice you better.

I am just telling you all these because you're selling perfumes online

This post has been edited by SeeD: Jan 28 2010, 12:21 AM

Self employed also means your liability is huge. Eg. If you are self employed and the company bankrupts, you are responsible for all the money lost.

If you change to sdn bhd, it is called limited liability company. This means that the company is a separate "you". If it happens to go bankrupt, you are not responsible for all the debts.

So I think the main difference is your own security. There are also a few tax advantages I think (maybe edyek can explain more on that).

However, don't take limited liability company for granted (Like cheating people's money and escape) as there are officials who are going to check if the directors are doing a good job of preventing the company from getting bankrupt. If they happen to found out that the director (YOU) are not doing a good job, then you risk getting into jail.

If you're from China, prepare a coffin when this happens. Because they will put a bullet through your head.

Keep negative thoughts to yourself mate.

Isn't it dependent on the market price?
You don't want to sell too low to lose out on revenue and spoil the market.
In the same time you also don't want to sell too high because buyers will not buy from you.

The reason there's no major breakthrough in Malaysia is because we do not focus much on research in our universities.

In Australia, postgraduate studies is huge and students here actually produce something through their research.

I believe Malaysia is still a few years behind in terms of research.