What is One Time Sale?
In simple words: Sell it. Forget it.
Well, thats for the seller. Not for the consumers.
In a city like Bangalore, there are so many customers for any establishment, small or big, that some unhappy customers does not matter to them at all. So, they happily go about cheating the customers and stand by their behaviour.
I had been to a departmental store and bought an item which had a Rs.75/- discount. A week later while cleaning my drawer I found the bill and noticed that they had not given the discount. I went to the store again and they apologized and asked me to pick
up anything for Rs.75/-. This is a very large store and they sell thousands of items every day, mostly consumables.
I had also been to an electronic showroom looking for a LCD or Plasma TV. There was a good discount on one of the LCD TV. I asked for more discount and the kind salesperson was very happy to give me and additional 5% discount! Thats when my instincts told me something was wrong. I postponed the idea and walked out.
I asked one of my friend who knows a lot about these and he told me that particular model of LCD TVs is not being manufactured at all! The salesman told me it was a brand new model and this was an inaugural offer.
What the departmental store sells is consumables. I visit this store once a week or maybe once in two weeks. But thats not the case with the electronic showroom. I will not go there again. I am not going to buy another TV for another few years at least. If that person cheats me, it'll be too late by the time I find out. Or worse, I may not find out at all.
How do I prevent such people from fooling others? I can tell about such people to my friends, my colleagues, my acquaintances on social networking sites, my colony people.
What percent of Bangalore did I cover? Negligible. I can ask all of them to forward the mail to their friends and so on. But once such info passes the circle-of-confidence, people will just ignore such mails. Or they might get cautious but still visit that particular store. If I do get cheated, I can file a case against them in Consumer Courts. But that is still not going to prevent them from cheating others.
Well, with this many number of consumers and the fact that they are not well connected, such salesmen and stores will continue to be in business forever....
19 August 2008
09 March 2008
My garden
I have a small garden. We maintain it ourselves. Thats why its always in poor condition :). We have around 25-30 hibiscus plants. The number varies as some of them dye and we get new ones.
We have a couple of hibiscus plants which flower two different coloured flowers! Here is one of them:
There is a bonsai hibiscus. In the last 4 years, it has grown around 6-7 inches. It flowers only during rainy season and since the plant is very small (around 1 feet) with only two branches, it has only 1-3 flowers every year. Here is a picture:
I had never seen hibiscus seeds. Last weekend I was surprised to see a pod and it had seeds in it. I went to google to search about this. It appears, I was the only one who did not know hibiscus plants can have seeds.. he he he... :D.
Some time back I saw a photo in a local newspaper of a 'rare occurrence' where there were 5 pomegranates in one bunch. Just a week before that I had 5 pomegranates in one bunch on my plant as well. I was not aware this was a 'rare'. Here is a picture:
One problem with having a garden is lot of spiders and ants in them. Its not only in the garden, these insects wander into the house as well. But thats ok. The spiders don't mind me destroying their nets while moving around the garden. We also have lots of butterflies and tiny birds that visit us regularly.
Our neighbours have hired experts to maintain their garden. And its turned up beautiful. We get time to maintain our garden only on the weekends. Thats why its not in good shape. Well, its not in bad shape either. I feel so happy to see every flower that blossoms, every fruit that ripens. I don't think I can get that satisfaction if I had paid for the effort and had a well maintained garden...
We have a couple of hibiscus plants which flower two different coloured flowers! Here is one of them:
There is a bonsai hibiscus. In the last 4 years, it has grown around 6-7 inches. It flowers only during rainy season and since the plant is very small (around 1 feet) with only two branches, it has only 1-3 flowers every year. Here is a picture:
I had never seen hibiscus seeds. Last weekend I was surprised to see a pod and it had seeds in it. I went to google to search about this. It appears, I was the only one who did not know hibiscus plants can have seeds.. he he he... :D.
Some time back I saw a photo in a local newspaper of a 'rare occurrence' where there were 5 pomegranates in one bunch. Just a week before that I had 5 pomegranates in one bunch on my plant as well. I was not aware this was a 'rare'. Here is a picture:
One problem with having a garden is lot of spiders and ants in them. Its not only in the garden, these insects wander into the house as well. But thats ok. The spiders don't mind me destroying their nets while moving around the garden. We also have lots of butterflies and tiny birds that visit us regularly.
Our neighbours have hired experts to maintain their garden. And its turned up beautiful. We get time to maintain our garden only on the weekends. Thats why its not in good shape. Well, its not in bad shape either. I feel so happy to see every flower that blossoms, every fruit that ripens. I don't think I can get that satisfaction if I had paid for the effort and had a well maintained garden...
Centralizing address and phone.
I shifted my residence. There is a change in my residential address now and also my fixed line telephone number. I then had to update my new address and telephone number with:
1. My company
2. My mobile phone service provider
3. Insurance company
4. Another insurance company
5. My friends
6. My relatives
7. My passport
8. I had to cancel my voter's ID card and get a new one in my area
9. My bank
10. My another bank
11. My credit card provider
12. My home loan finance provider
13. etc,
14. etc....
My colleagues, who are bachelors, keep shifting their house every few years or so. I wonder how they manage all this. I asked them and they say the address is changed as and when the need arises.
What is necessary is maintaining a central database for addresses and telephone numbers. I control which service provider, friend, relative can see it. Of course, address for passport and other government related orgs can get it by default.
It should take care of permanent residence address, temporary address and office address. For telephone numbers I should be able to provide my fixed line number, my mobile number and mobile numbers of other members of my family. I should be able to link to my neighbour's, my friends, my colleagues and my relatives address and telephone number as well.
All the service providers can pull the address and telephone number from the database to contact me. In case of emergency, they can reach me through my neighbours, friends, colleagues or family members.
For security reasons, I should be able to control who can link to me (my address and/or phone numbers) and who all can see this data. I should be able to alter this info at any time. The telecom company should have the facility to verify this updates. For addresses, maybe the policy should be involved to verify.
There should also be a mechanism to prevent telemarketing callers from making those pestering calls.
Implementing this may not be very difficult compared to making entries for all existing people and educating everyone from using it....
1. My company
2. My mobile phone service provider
3. Insurance company
4. Another insurance company
5. My friends
6. My relatives
7. My passport
8. I had to cancel my voter's ID card and get a new one in my area
9. My bank
10. My another bank
11. My credit card provider
12. My home loan finance provider
13. etc,
14. etc....
My colleagues, who are bachelors, keep shifting their house every few years or so. I wonder how they manage all this. I asked them and they say the address is changed as and when the need arises.
What is necessary is maintaining a central database for addresses and telephone numbers. I control which service provider, friend, relative can see it. Of course, address for passport and other government related orgs can get it by default.
It should take care of permanent residence address, temporary address and office address. For telephone numbers I should be able to provide my fixed line number, my mobile number and mobile numbers of other members of my family. I should be able to link to my neighbour's, my friends, my colleagues and my relatives address and telephone number as well.
All the service providers can pull the address and telephone number from the database to contact me. In case of emergency, they can reach me through my neighbours, friends, colleagues or family members.
For security reasons, I should be able to control who can link to me (my address and/or phone numbers) and who all can see this data. I should be able to alter this info at any time. The telecom company should have the facility to verify this updates. For addresses, maybe the policy should be involved to verify.
There should also be a mechanism to prevent telemarketing callers from making those pestering calls.
Implementing this may not be very difficult compared to making entries for all existing people and educating everyone from using it....
11 February 2008
Missing from voter's list
Every voter's id card has a unique number on it. You can verify this number and the entry into the voter's list at Election Commission of India's website. For Karnataka, see the website of The Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka.
I had got my voter's id card and had verified its presence on the voter's list. Recently, some people from the local govt school visited us and asked us to fill the application form again as our name is not there in the voter's list. Now that was surprising. I had read in the newspaper the same day that so many lakhs of duplicate entries have been removed from the voters list. How come they removed my name? They had no answer. Only thing he said is that my name does not appear in the voters list and if I want to vote, I have to apply again.
To verify, I went to the above link and searched. Indeed my name was missing! Obviously, I applied again. Wasn't any verification done before removing the names from the list? I just hope this does not become a repetitive task....
I had got my voter's id card and had verified its presence on the voter's list. Recently, some people from the local govt school visited us and asked us to fill the application form again as our name is not there in the voter's list. Now that was surprising. I had read in the newspaper the same day that so many lakhs of duplicate entries have been removed from the voters list. How come they removed my name? They had no answer. Only thing he said is that my name does not appear in the voters list and if I want to vote, I have to apply again.
To verify, I went to the above link and searched. Indeed my name was missing! Obviously, I applied again. Wasn't any verification done before removing the names from the list? I just hope this does not become a repetitive task....
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