TMF 021 - Shopping Online in Pakistan - Complete Guide For Aam Awaam (Average People/Mango Insaan)

Shopping online has become a primary source of commerce for many in Pakistan. But it is riddled with problems, scams, misinformation, and much more. In this episode I go over what are the common issues you will face, how commerce works online, and what you can do to stay protected in the ever growing digital commerce landscape of Pakistan.

Hosted by Saqib Tahir
Support the show: https://support.sknexus.com/

Read full show notes here: https://sknexus.com/ep21/
Read companion article here: https://sknexus.com/e-commerce-in-pakistan/

Chapters
0:00 - TMF 021 - Shopping Online in Pakistan - Complete Guide For Aam Awaam (Average People/Mango Insaan)
0:21 - My Background in Commerce and Selling Tech
0:52 - Emergence of Online Shopping during 2010-2020
2:55 - Transition to Marketplace platforms
3:54 - Important Disclaimer: There is no promotion in this episode
4:57 - Explanation 1: Marketplace vs Direct to Consumer vs Groups/Communities
7:12 - Explanation 2: What is Escrow?
8:47 - Explanation 3: What is COD (Cash on Delivery)?
9:36 - Explanation 4: What are Digital Wallets?
10:46 - Explanation 5: Difference in shipping services
12:23 - Issue 1: Fake reviews on Marketplaces
13:38 - Issue 2: Fake reviews on Direct to Consumer sites
14:12 - Issue 3: FOMO and fake discounts/pricing
16:05 - Issue 4: Fall of privacy and protection on Marketplaces
18:02 - Issue 5: Fake and generated product descriptions that spread misinformation
20:10 - Issue 6: Using SEO hacks to appear on top of search results
21:06 - Tip 1: How to find real reviews
22:14 - Tip 2: Finding actual discounted products
22:54 - Tip 3: Being safe using debit/credit cards to pay
23:28 - Tip 4: Being safe when dealing with new sellers
24:18 - Tip 5: Avoid direct contact with sellers on Marketplaces
24:49 - Tip 6: Make habit of leaving reviews, help others in need
26:01 - Why do sellers try to establish direct connection?
27:32 - Need to be a smarter buyer in this landscape
29:12 - Tip 7: Learn to verify existence of sellers
32:13 - Question for you
32:26 - After show - Tech ke Totkay: How TCL Smart TV SSO is abusing their access

Further learning and references
12 reasons Pakistanis avoid buying things online — and how that can change

Chapters

• 0:00 TMF 021 - Shopping Online in Pakistan - Complete Guide For Aam Awaam (Average People/Mango Insaan)
• 0:21 My Background in Commerce and Selling Tech
• 0:52 Emergence of Online Shopping during 2010-2020
• 2:55 Transition to Marketplace platforms
• 3:54 Important Disclaimer: There is no promotion in this episode
• 4:57 Explanation 1: Marketplace vs Direct to Consumer vs Groups/Communities
• 7:12 Explanation 2: What is Escrow?
• 8:47 Explanation 3: What is COD (Cash on Delivery)?
• 9:36 Explanation 4: What are Digital Wallets?
• 10:46 Explanation 5: Difference in shipping services
• 12:23 Issue 1: Fake reviews on Marketplaces
• 13:38 Issue 2: Fake reviews on Direct to Consumer sites
• 14:12 Issue 3: FOMO and fake discounts/pricing
• 16:05 Issue 4: Fall of privacy and protection on Marketplaces
• 18:02 Issue 5: Fake and generated product descriptions that spread misinformation
• 20:10 Issue 6: Using SEO hacks to appear on top of search results
• 21:06 Tip 1: How to find real reviews
• 22:14 Tip 2: Finding actual discounted products
• 22:54 Tip 3: Being safe using debit/credit cards to pay
• 23:28 Tip 4: Being safe when dealing with new sellers
• 24:18 Tip 5: Avoid direct contact with sellers on Marketplaces
• 24:49 Tip 6: Make habit of leaving reviews, help others in need
• 26:01 Why do sellers try to establish direct connection?
• 27:32 Need to be a smarter buyer in this landscape
• 29:12 Tip 7: Learn to verify existence of sellers
• 32:13 Question for you
• 32:26 After show - Tech ke Totkay: How TCL Smart TV SSO is abusing their access

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to another episode of Tech Made Fun. So in today's episode, I wanted to experiment with something different. So it's been a long time coming, but I wanted to do it in a guided way. And to kick off this kind of episode series, I thought that the most important thing that happens these days is that you have to go and buy a new thing in technology and then you know how many problems there are here, you have to buy anything online. So let me give you some background. So I grew up in computer sales and computer retail. I have a lot of experience in shop-building, business, how to sell computers, how to sell laptops. And I have done all this work for 8-10 years before my university education. And in those days, which you can say was around 2010-2020, there was an emergence in online stores, right? like Kaffee, Mega, I Shopping, Seazon, Tim Kana, whatever the names are. And in those days, because Google's SEO practices and all this was a very easy game, everyone had a wish on Google. Literally, if I talk to any customer who comes to us, let's say, how much is this Dell laptop? And we will say, yes, it's Rs. 80,000. So, he would have googled from home and come, that yes, online you are getting this for Rs. 60,000 at a store. And that used to be like the number one thing we used to hear, that sir, you are selling this much, but online it is this much. You are selling this much, so online it is this much. Now, at that time, obviously, and still, the running cost and operating cost of a physical store is almost always higher than an online digital store, which is selling things locked in a room. which is fine. Okay. Those who want direct access, and want to go and check things, go and check. And those who are selling online, they get a better deal and bargain and they get the good price. But this happened very quickly in those 5-10 years that it was easier to open an online store. What do you want? You want a basic C WordPress, who commerce website. Here are the people who literally... 10-15 thousand rupees and were giving it to everyone by making a website that you open your online store. And people didn't have such a technical sense or knowledge as to how to run an online store. And it started to happen that there were 10 scams. Now how did the scams start happening? That you will often go and buy a product, the one that will be received or another product, or it will be number 2, or if you had the functionality of online payment which wasn't so common but it was, you paid it first and you got something else and later there was no service, nothing. In fact, what was most common was that I think it still happens that you go to an online store and you want to buy something, they will say that first they will transfer money to our bank account and then we will send something. Because there was no payment processor or card charging system here, so the account transfer will work and through this we will send the goods. So that whole trend that was there in the last 5-10 years, it was happening right in front of my eyes. Okay, it started from, why are you selling this much? Online, you are getting this much. Then it moved to, people don't have anything online, they just made pages on Google and optimized it. But when you go to buy, they don't have stock, or their pricing is fake, or they don't have any payment method. To, and guys, stop buying online, there are two numbers, everyone is selling bricks in the iPhone box. You saw the whole transition. 2010 to 2020. Then there came marketplaces, let's say Draz or TeleMart, I think there was another one, so on and so forth. And marketplaces tried to balance this. They provided reliable payment methods and they provided a place where sellers and buyers can interact and then a little bit of pull. protection offer and then a little balance came back from scammy behavior to non-scammy behavior. People started trusting online shopping more and now in 2024, I think online sale and online purchase is a big part of commerce. Like I don't know anyone who doesn't buy anything online, like someone or something goes online and buys something every day. So I wanted to take this episode as an opportunity to go through explaining how online commerce works. because it's really important. Second thing I want to explain is that, okay, what are the issues that are still there, regardless of whether you are buying from Daraz or anywhere else, there are still issues that you need to know about. And then I want to close off with some like best practice stuff, which is usually our motive here, just to educate you better when you're buying stuff online. Right? But before we get into it, I would like to give a disclaimer. Usually, as you may know, I don't like to name names, because what happens is that the circumstances change, the time changes, the things change. then no one knows which company or which person can correct or spoil their actions. But because this episode is about online purchase, I will definitely mention some names, but the intention is just to give you an easy example or to make it easier to understand. Not that I am promoting a company or demoting someone. That's not the purpose. The purpose is that you just understand the thing and then obviously you have the knowledge and information to make the best decision yourself. I will not take names from here to promote or demote someone in this episode. So, this disclaimer is important to give in the beginning. You know our So, first of all, let's come to the section, which is explanations. This is a new format. By the way, I am experimenting with, if you're hearing this, give me the feedback, in which every episode there will be definitions upfront, then issues and then resolutions. Because I think every topic can be divided neatly into three parts. So, let's come to the explanations. First of all, if you want to purchase online e-commerce, you should definitely tell these four or five things. So first we have marketplace versus direct to consumer versus groups. So these are primarily speaking three types of places where you are going online and purchasing. So these three mean that marketplace is basically any app or service, which you can understand as There is no centre, you go to a centre, shops are open there and you buy things from different shops, they walk around. There is the exact same definition of marketplace in the online world. You go to a marketplace, for example, Daraz, and there are a lot of sellers sitting there who have opened their shops, digital shops, and you can go and buy things from them and so on and so forth. That is what a marketplace platform is like, where Daraz is selling itself or not, but it has allowed other sellers to sell their stuff also on their own website. so that you can get everything on the same website. So, Draz is an example of it, as I said. And I think Elo is another example. If we take the example of clothes, their marketplace is also built. What happens is, making a marketplace is a very difficult job. So, what do we usually do? The companies start as a D2C brand, and then when they grow up and become successful, they transition into marketplace. So, what is D2C? Direct to customer. Direct to customer is just another online e-commerce store. where you can directly buy goods from the company. They only sell their own goods, they don't sell anyone else's goods. Which is in their warehouse, in their stock, so on and so forth. This is the most common kind of e-commerce stores you will find. Like, let's say Bata. So, you can buy Bata's shoes from Bata's shop. But if you go to Bata online, which is their website, you can also buy directly online from them. So, Bata is only selling their own goods. Bata is sitting there, not selling goods of any other company or seller. And third, which is... I would say emerging group, it's like the thing that will never die because that is what it is, is groups. And by groups, I mean your Facebook groups, your Discord servers, your WhatsApp groups, which are used for buying and selling. It's very popular. If you use any social media, I'm sure you've seen it before. But... These groups are like the wild west of commerce. People are sitting here selling things and people are sitting here buying things. But there is no regulation, no middle party, no authority. And for scammers, this is heaven. And we covered the tech scams in Pakistan in the last episode. If you're more interested in how to be safe, I would highly recommend you go and watch that episode. So this is our market base versus direct to customers versus groups. Three different ways how you can go and buy stuff online, so to speak. Now let's come to the payments. So payments are... There are two or three things to understand. First of all, you have to understand what is escrow versus no escrow. Escrow is a service that some platforms provide and you have to see who does what or doesn't. Which is basically, let's say, Draz. I go to Draz and buy something for 2000 rupees. That 2000 rupees doesn't go to the direct seller. That 2000 rupees goes to Draz. Draz keeps that 2000 rupees with him. And then the seller packs the stuff, does everything and ships it. And when it gets received by the buyer, after some time... The seller gets the money after taking the deposit of 2000 rupees. Obviously, by cutting their charges and all. But you get the idea. So escrow is basically a trustworthy platform or a trustworthy middle person who keeps your money. And then, until the transaction is complete and everything is done right, the money is not released to the seller. So as you can tell, this is a really good practice that scams are minimized. Zero percent never happens, but because of this, scams are very less. Because the seller knows that if I have done something wrong, the customer will complain to the seller, my item will come back, and the money will be refunded. So, generally speaking, not all, mostly where there is escrow involved, that is a safer place to buy than no escrow. No escrow where there is direct e-commerce or Facebook groups, there is no escrow. If a person says, send me money, you are sending money first, then no one knows if you get your stuff or you get it right, so on and so forth, there is no scene of refund. You have to trust your person's world of mouth. Whereas, on the Raaz or any other marketplace, the brand is there, the company is there and their customer service is there. And if you have good experience with them, you can go through escrow and take your money back. if the product was not as expected. Again, it has more issues, but just to give you the basic concept. That's how it works. Then you have COD versus payment methods. So COD is cash on delivery, which is the most common way, I think, to make a purchase and sell. Which means that you first deliver the goods and the person who delivered it or the company delivered it, you then give them money, like, here, how much money did you get for this order? And the other payment methods, which are your digital payment methods, So, your credit card, debit card, coupons etc. Basically, it means that you are not cash, you are paying digitally using one of your bank cards. These are most two common ways to pay on like a marketplace or a good e-commerce store. And then obviously, Facebook groups and what do you call it? Your not a good e-commerce store, there are still some local systems running on that, that this is my account number, I will throw money in it. This is a very risky way, we will discuss why later. And if you use any marketplace, yeah, digital service, there's a trend that everyone has taken out their wallet. So, they have the D wallet or whatever its name is. If you use foodpanda, it has a panda wallet. If you use Kareem, it has a Kareem wallet. These are called digital wallets. And the reason they exist is that your money is stuck in their system. So, let's say you ordered something for 1000 rupees, something bad came up, you asked for a refund. refund, then they will say, if you put it in your digital wallet, then we will give it right now. But if you want it back in your account, then you have to wait for 14 days. So that person says, I keep shopping, wait for 14 days, who wants to put it in my wallet now? And then you use it on the next order or next transaction. So that is exactly why they exist. justify the inconvenience. If you get a refund, we will have to go through the process. The process is two weeks, where will we do so much money? So this is half a thousand rupees, which you have to take digital credits. Because they had money in their pocket, they didn't have to do that money. They didn't have to go to the bank, they didn't have to do anything. But just digitally, increase the number in your wallet and it's much easier. And it ensures that if your money is there, you will spend it in the future on that app. So this is a whole refund compulsion. To take advantage of its hassle, they started launching digital wallets. Because a lot of people tend to like that feature. I just put money in it, I have to use it anyway, next week, I will need it. Lastly, what I want to explain is internal versus external shipping. So typically speaking, you buy from a good marketplace. Again, I am giving an example of Daraaz. They will have verified shipping partners or they will have their own shipping, their own service which will come to your home and deliver the goods. Okay? That is more reliable, they have less cost, you also have less cost, so on and so forth. But when you usually buy something from some other e-commerce store, like I buy from C-Zone or All My Taxes or W, they are not that big, they are not that massive that they can make their internal shipping service. So they have partnered with external services and they ship your item. The reason you should understand that is that depending on internal shipping or external shipping, different rules apply, especially like cash-in-delivery orders because what happens is that cash-in-delivery big orders are not allowed, that we can't take orders from 20,000 or above, from 50,000 or above. Or if there is external shipping, usually they don't let you check the item before paying or they ask for your ID card, so on and so forth. So like these are very strange things that some external shippers do. I still don't understand why you need my ID card number. Like you take my last four digits, why do you need my full ID card number to give me my product? That's such a BS thing. understand why it happens. So all these were a basic explanation on like what are the different things you need to know when you are buying and shopping online. Right? How are the platforms? What is SQro? Cash and delivery payment versus other payment methods. Which ones exist? Why are digital wallets? What is it? And internal versus external shipping. So these are your basics. Clear? Now let's come to some of the most common issues that you will face when you're trying to buy stuff online. Okay, now this is not in any order, it's not that they are talking to each other or something in random order. But the number one issue is that most reviews you see on the products are fake, unfortunately. So it doesn't matter if the website has its own reviews, it doesn't matter if the reviews are on the website, it doesn't matter. Most of the reviews you'll come across unfortunately are fake and paid for and that is obvious sometimes. You have to understand that all the services exist. For example, you go that this is my product, I need 100 reviews on this and they charge you an amount of money and they take out random reviews. Especially since this GPT came, it has become very easy to write fake reviews. And this is a problem that big companies like Amazon also struggle with. It's not that easy to deal with it. This is a simple solution. If you think logically, then you can only give the option to review the product. Right. So that also becomes fake. Because these companies that provide fake reviews, they will do that. They will go and buy your item 100 times and the difference between buying, selling, service charges, they will charge a service cost and then they will give like actual verified buyer reviews on that product also. This is not happening on such a massive scale in Pakistan because again, it is very expensive to do and only big companies can afford it. But you know, most of the reviews you will run across where there is a product where there will be a lot of reviews, they are fake and this is slowly rising in the place of problems like Draz. It is not that much now, I am pretty sure this problem will rise in a couple of years. marketplaces, e-commerce store, which are directly run by e-commerce stores. Most reviews there are fake because the owner has put them in. Because my website is my e-commerce store, I can put in whatever rating I want. So some people do it ethically, obviously. They will send you an email and say, you review and leave your picture. And pictures is generally speaking, the best way to know whether the review is real or not. But I've seen a lot of e-commerce stores where fake reviews are put in. 4 star rating, 90,000 reviews, and this and that, everything is made up. Don't fall for that. Okay? Just understand that most... reviews are fake and I will tell you how to identify good reviews. The second issue that you must have noticed in marketplaces and direct e-commerce is that it's not FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, it's done on full max ultra. Especially I have seen it in Instagram ads. That there is one thing, its price is 500 rupees, it is shown that you can buy it now for 1500 rupees, 70% off, otherwise you won't get it tomorrow or the day after. And you will lose on a good deal. This is also another issue and the price is now at 70-80% discount. Like any random product that you open, everything is 40% off. But it doesn't actually happen, they just double their price to gain algorithm and search and they turn off 40% so that they can be seen in discounted or deals and such sections. Although it is not actually discounted, it is not a real discount, it is a fake discount. This is especially a problem with things that don't have a rough idea of pricing. For example, in tech, I can go and check that This Flana mic from El Gato is worth 100$. Right? How much is 100$? It's worth 30,000$. Okay, I imported it from America. 10-20% goes up and down. You can say that 10% is on import. 10% person has kept their margin. So I should get this mic for 120-130$. So I have a rough idea, right? Now I go to the door. Someone has written there that it's worth 4 lakhs. Discounted to 1 lakh 30 thousand. Obviously, he threw it away. It's not worth 4 lakhs, it's worth 130,000. So, the things that are available internationally or online, it's easy to guess for them. You can make sure that is there really a discount on this or is it really that much? It happens a lot on PlayStation 5, it happens a lot on phones. But there's a whole category of products, that you don't know about the pricing, the non branded things, or those that have nothing to do with the international market, or Chinese goods, or whatever. So, it becomes a really tough problem to crack. Is this actually that much or is there a discount on this? The only recommendation is that you don't fall for that and there is a trick you can use to stay safe from it, which I will tell you later. Then the biggest issue that I have seen recently has started happening. And this is like a big negative of Deraas and why I don't try to use them anymore. Or I try to take it from the direct seller that Deraas is a marketplace, right? And the purpose of marketplace is to protect buyers and sellers. You have to protect both sides. And the way they used to do it is that, brother, your order has come, you have ordered, the matter will be over. For some reason recently, they have started sharing buyer information with the seller. Or they have started sharing intentionally, there is a bug going on in their system, I don't know. But I have noticed that what happens often is that I will order something from the store and I get a direct message from the seller that you should leave my review or you got something. Or they just go straight to the chat. That is not good. That is a very bad practice. So if you are a seller, please leave this one. And if you are a buyer, please understand that this scammy behavior is there. That seller will eventually tell you that you can order directly from the store and I will give you something for free. because what is happening is that he doesn't have to pay the fees for the door. Okay, the door takes 10 to 20 percent depending on what you are selling, commission on everything, right? So to avoid the commission, they will message you directly on WhatsApp and say, you can take it directly from us, I will give you the thing for less. And you as a buyer would be like, okay, send it to me, I think it's being beneficial, you will get 20 percent cheaper thing. But the disadvantage is that now you lose all the protections. There is no escrow. your money is not being handled properly and there is no guarantee that the seller will send you a good thing directly when you order it. And then where will you complain? You will go to the store and complain that your person reached out directly and bought the thing and it turned out to be bad. And the seller will say why did you buy it directly? You didn't buy it through us. Right? So when you become direct with the seller, your protections become all levy. So you have to be very careful with that. And the second thing I hate, this is because Dude, information is not a privacy issue in Pakistan. My phone number, I don't want in the hands of those who have installed apps in their phones and then that number is being broadcasted everywhere and the next day I got SMS from 10 AC repairers. It has become such a problem that I have to switch my number. I have separated the number to use online. because of this problem. And the last major issue, and especially due to the arrival of chat GPT, because everyone has started to think of themselves as writers, is that nowadays, there is a full abuse of GPT written descriptions and like your product images and everything. Like if you open any product, there must be written 10,000 words, you should also go to zameen.pk. What happens there? If you open a property on zameen.pk, then there is so much, a glorious house with five bedroom apartment and this and that and there is a broken house in every corner. We call this Black Hat SEO or SEO spam, Google results may a Chanake Lee. It doesn't really work, but they still do it. And I say, Hota yeh, The actual information about the product is not shown. You keep getting spam written and BS written information which you read and you don't get any relevant information that this product is actually there. And even today, it is often that some Chinese products for sale will be there. I don't know what is written below. This shirt will blow you away. This will do this and that. And brother, tell me what is its size. I didn't tell you that. The main thing is that if I buy a shirt, I want its size. I want its size, I want its material, its color. These things will not be written. But the whole story will be written that how the Prime Minister will make this shirt. People think that if they stuff their description boxes with random English words, then they will be better on Google. So, this has become a common problem on many e-commerce stores. Like, if you go to a website like Parkville, which is not a marketplace or anything, it's a classified website, we will discuss that in a future episode. But also, if you click to sell a car, they give you the option, by making 10-15 buttons, that you can use these template options. And that army officer car is an option in that template. If you click on it, So that meme came from here that if an army officer is using a car, what does that mean? It will be much cleaner. Like, okay, they must be good at driving, but that goal was defeated when everyone started using that option. Because there is a ready to make template there. People click on it and put it in the description. So now you will go to Parkfields. Often, the cars have the same things written on them. They are written because they are the template generator. So that's the thing, right? Like... These GPT templates that have come for description, I think they defeat the purpose of people who are trying to actually sell the product and give us its specification and the market has flooded with useless English that no one understands. And one last thing I want to tell you is, especially when you are searching for a price, like a new phone, I want to see its price, Vata mobile will come up first. Neither does it sell mobile, nor has it sold mobile till date, nor does it know that pricing should come, but when you search for pricing, it will come up first. Why? Because they are using SEO spam, English, good optimization, black hat, and because of that, like you have a bunch of websites that are telling the price of a phone, but they are not selling the phone. And when you go to the market to buy, that phone will obviously be of double price because PTA text is also there and the import is also different. and so on and so forth. So it just creates a lot of misinformation out there because of all these practices. And then those who purchase online, there is a lot of confusion because of them. Okay, so these were some explanations and some commonly faced issues. Now I want to talk about some best practices. So if you're like me and you're like, I don't want to buy online because the convenience factor is really high. I don't want to go and deal with people. Here are some like best practice, your tips, which you can adopt. prevent issues. 100% but you will be safer than most. So first of all, as I said, most reviews are fake and you will only have to make up your own default idea. All the reviews are fake and it will be over. So learn to use filters, learn to use how to filter products, how to filter listings, and you'll put 4 star plus reviews on it. And one of the things that will happen is that those who don't have reviews will not come. So you don't have to lift them. First of all, those who have reviews, they have to take them. And then you should do this on those who have reviews, that the natural photos that you think people have taken at home or people have taken actual products, just trust them. If you see a very templatized photo or a very good to be true photo, that is usually a fake photo. And if you're buying something very expensive, when you want to be double, double sure that this photo is real, you take that photo, put it on images.google.com and it will tell you that this photo has been used somewhere else or not. Because if it is a unique photo, then it will not be anywhere else. It will only be available at the door or wherever you are buying it. So if you are buying something really expensive, it is very good to do a little extra search just to make sure that the photos on the review are real or not. Okay, search reverse image and you will know that this review is most probably reliable. Okay, then the second problem is that the prices are double and the discount is real or not. I found a way to put it in my wishlist. It will stay there for a while. So I will know when the price has actually fallen. Because it's on discount all the time. It's on 50-60% discount. So let's say I want to buy something, I want to buy a phone case for Rs. 5000. I put it in my wishlist when it was for Rs. 5000. Made a mental note of it. Now after 2-3 weeks, I will see that it's for Rs. 3000. Then I'll know that it's actually on discount. It was 5000 before, now it's 3000 in my wishlist, so it's actually on discount now, so now it's a good time to buy. But I don't buy a game after seeing the first discount because it's a fake of everyone. On the third number, I would say that if you are charging a card online like your debit card, or are using something. Just use an account whose purpose is only online shopping. Don't mix and match your personal bank account with it. We had covered this in our episode on Sadapay that if you make a card of a service like NehaPay and put only 10-15 thousand rupees in it, then in case your card leaks or spoofs, you will only suffer as much loss as is in that card. And in services like NehaPay, you also have spending control and limits so that you don't have any extra charge, so that your card doesn't charge a large amount. Right? Then comes the point that if I am buying from a seller for the first time direct e-commerce stores. So my attempt is always to always do cash on delivery in the first order. Don't transfer any bank or online payment. Always do cash on delivery. And if they don't support cash on delivery, then unfortunately I say I'm not buying from you. And to be honest, you get that option somewhere else. So if there is an option for cash on delivery, I only buy from new sellers. Otherwise, I don't buy. Because trust is not built. When trust is built, then there is no problem. Then I will transfer the money online first. But there are two or three orders at the beginning. There is one order at the beginning. I always prioritize cash on delivery. Otherwise, if you really want that thing, just understand that it can be a deception. Then don't say later that no one told me. And that's why I suggest that if you are buying online, always prioritize escrow sites like Deraz or any other place, I'm not sure. Where the money is on the side, the seller will get it when you receive the product and you get a good product. Lastly, I don't... like to interact with sellers directly. As I said, if I am buying something from a seller, I have ordered a NADA from the address, I am not talking to you on WhatsApp. This is not a valuable product for me. It was just another accessory that I ordered with my 10 items. Because the thing is, especially the sellers who sell small items, like 500-300 rupees, they are most likely to scam you or do behavior that is not ethical. Unfortunately, that's just the mindset, like the shortcut mentality, right? I'm not saying that everyone does this, but usually, the trend I've seen is this. The cheaper the item, the better the chances of scam. So, please avoid direct communication with those sellers. You have a direct message from their Asport, you can archive it and delete it. If you have any problem with that product, go and comment on the comment section. And if you like that product, then please go and share it with a good review image so that other future buyers can also help. So that's the thing I want to emphasize a little bit here. We as Pakistani people, when there is some negativity, we are very good at broadcasting it. We will go to the news channel, but we never tell the positivity. We never leave reviews, we never give feedback, we never say that this thing was good, you also take it. Please start. making a habit of that. Like if you like this podcast, then leave a comment below. Shameless plug. But that's the thing, like that's just a general audience problem here, that they will see it, enjoy it, take advantage of it. But they won't even try a little bit to promote it, someone else wants it, it gets spoiled. They say it's a common good. So reviews are the same thing. If you get something and you want to benefit from that seller, then direct chatting and direct buying and selling won't be beneficial. You will most probably get scammed by that. The benefit of that is that you go to the shop, leave a good review of that product. And if the seller has tried to harass you by sending you 10-15 messages, then in that review, he also mentions that the seller was being directed. Because the sellers here, I'll tell you, and I'm saying this because I'm a freelancer too. We have the same mentality of freelancers here, that they will go to Upwork or Fiverr, they will work there, but because Upwork cuts 10-20% of their work, they try to be direct with the client so that they don't have to pay. Look, you wouldn't be a freelancer if these platforms didn't exist. So to a certain extent, respect the boundary there. The work that is done directly, you are hurting the platform, and if that platform closes tomorrow, then what will happen? And the same thing in the secret, the sellers, they would not be selling Deraas didn't exist. Now they have come to Deraas and Deraas has said that, brother, I will take 10-20% of my own, you increase your price by 10-20%. So everyone should respect that. Like obviously there are more complicated issues. Some people use hacks and workarounds here. But I'm just saying, there is a service, you are paying for that service. If you have a problem with that service, then don't sell it, sell it directly. Because when a seller does two numbers of this, Deraas finds out, Deraas stricts his rules. And then the one who wants to become a new seller, then more trouble is created for them. More problems are created for them. Then they will call the students bad. And the students will say that brother, I am not bad. Your predecessors have done so many things that we have to strict so many rules. And now the rules have become so strict that new people have problems while coming. And then the whole market and industry gets destroyed. So that's why, prior to being ethical and moral, generally speaking, that would be my advice, just to make sense of it. So yeah, you can buy it from a direct seller if you're buying it from direct commerce or Facebook groups or anywhere else. But if you're buying it from the marketplace, try to respect the rules of the marketplace because they are protecting you and the seller. They're trying to protect both sides. Really hard to do. So in conclusion, if we talk about today, 15 years ago, if we had to give a lesson, they would say, 100% of it is one thing. So, as a buyer, because unfortunately, we don't have consumer regulation, consumer safety and all these things are not there, as a buyer, we need to be smarter, right? We need to learn all this that, come on, we have to buy things. and there are 3-4 ways to buy them, so we need to just be a bit more informed and a bit more smarter of how we make these decisions, right? Because when I was selling computers, and people used to tell me that this is being sold online, this is being sold there, and I always used to tell them to go and try to buy them. And what happened often was that things were not actually read. They had put the price on their website only because people came to our website or show up early in Google results, so on and so forth. But when it was stock time, they used to call us from behind. Sir, you have big stuff, I want an online order. So everyone is in the backend. This is exactly the reason, let's say if you want to buy a computer, all the online computers are sold, 3-4. The laptop that they are selling, they have the same laptop that they have on the model. What's the reason? It's not that everyone has the same stock, the reason is that the stock is on the same place. When the order comes, they start calling each other. That I have an order, please give me this thing. Like there is a website called Tejar, I think. Tejar, literally everything is available. They are selling everything in the world. Do you think they have everything? No, they don't. You place the order, after 2 weeks they will say, Oh sorry, this is not in the stock. this product out of stock. But we will not mention it online, it's out of stock. Because online, they try to get an order once and then we will arrange it and give it to them. And what happens when you arrange it somewhere, is that the price goes up, the dollar hike happens, okay, it's not in stock, so the order is cancelled. And then you keep getting lost as a buyer. So this was happening before, it's still happening. Again, as I said, all the companies that I have mentioned, I have mentioned it from personal experience. But the purpose of the episode is not that you say something to these companies, you will be informed and educated yourself. These are common trends when you buy anything online, right? Just learn to verify that is the concluding thought. Learn to see that, okay, if someone is selling online, does the website work properly, or does the icons work properly, or is it not loading? Learn to see that the person is actually sitting, their location, office address, phone number, call and ask, brother, you are real people. Look at Google Maps, these days, this is my favorite hack, that I get an online website, like these days, I am thinking of buying online parts of my desktop computer, so I got a couple of stores. I went to Google Maps, I saw that there is a store, people are doing all these things to show that we are real verified people, we are not doing anything wrong. The shopkeepers are doing this work. So when they are selling online, they become more trustworthy. Or if you want to take advantage of social media, you get an online store from where you want to buy something. Take its name and put it in Facebook groups and get feedback. People will say that who bought it from a good store or not. So on and so forth. And if it's a popular enough store, enough people will tell you that it was a good or bad experience. Obviously, people can lie there too. But you get the idea. The idea is that the bigger thing, the more expensive thing is, these are some different ways you can research it, right? You can confirm the reviews by doing reverse image searching. You can check the location of the store, whether it's there or not. If it's a phone number, you can call a little bit and see if the boy is alive or not. Send the video to him, whether the thing is in stock or not. These are just different things to be aware about, right? Like right now, if I talk about direct sellers, I have taken a lot of names of Daraaz, so don't think that I buy things from Daraaz. 3 of the stores I can recommend, which are still running for me, next week they might have murdered someone, I don't know. But right now, 3 that I like are Paklab for laptops and stuff, Sezon for computers and computer parts and all that. And Allmatic for accessories like mobile phones, KS, headphones, so on and so forth. These are my 3 favorite ones, which I currently use. But as I said, I don't buy that much stuff. Sometimes I have to buy it. And because I mostly buy tech stuff, I know the price, how the box should be, what the genuine piece is. So it's easier to buy tech online than I would say other categories. Because it's very cheap. Especially in clothes. It's very cheap in clothes. You will get things for 10,000 rupees, things for 1,000 to 500 rupees, it's the exact same thing. And that's just unfortunately how it is. Anyway, this was like the first kind of it's episode, I think. In which we made a guide a little bit, you have to buy. I have other plans in the future. I want to do an episode on like how to buy a used laptop because there is a very good market for used laptops in Pakistan as I mentioned in the first two episodes. So I was thinking of converting it into a guide. So let me know what you think about that. And then just tied to this, I feel that after every one or two episodes, we have to cover scams and these things. So there is an episode coming out in which we are going to talk about the issue of affiliate links for ads and sponsors, especially in online digital marketing and how... basically every influencer in Pakistan is lying to you. Stay tuned for that. If you enjoyed this episode, like in, let me know, are you an online shopper? Like what's your best tip for shopping online? If there is one, like leave it in the comments below. That would be really nice to look forward to. And as always, thank you for listening. Please send any questions or feedback to podcast at sknexus.com. Welcome to after show, tech.k. I'm pretty sure no one listens to this section. So, this is only for those who are a few very bad listeners. I can't say it properly, I'm sorry. But there is this thing I do every, let's say, 3-6 months or once or twice a year. Which is that I check out my primary email accounts on Gmail or Hotmail or whatever. I check out their security once in a while. So, in security check-up, basically, you go, open an account. And you see that I have logged in from this account in so many services, saved so many passwords, so on and so forth. Right? It's a basic security checkup. If you go to your Gmail account right now, it walks you through that also. That these passwords are hacked, change them. Or this, that, that. And it's usually good practice to do this a couple of times a year. Recently, I was doing this. And my account connections, where I have logged in with Google, I have enabled. My account was logged in there and this was obviously bad on my part. Inside my TV, I have a smart TV from TCL. And nowadays, everything is smart, so everything needs an account. When I got that TV and turned it on, it asked me to log in with Google. And I thought then that I have logged in with my burner account. But that burner account was no longer my burner account, it became my secondary account. So that TCL TV has access to my account. And usually, these services, login with Google, which are called SSO services, they just take your email or name. That's fine. But because it was TV, they didn't have the UI for it. He didn't tell me which services he was asking for access from me. Or maybe I don't remember. When I was doing this security checkup, I saw that he had all my access, my contacts, my photos, my drive, everything. Obviously, I disconnected that account. But the reason I'm talking about this is that today, if you're listening to this, the main accounts, go check it. connections, how much access have you taken of your accounts? Just the name and email limit or the rest of everything you have given access to? Because this is very, very scary and very dangerous. And obviously, it was my secondary burner account, so I didn't have that much of an issue. As I said, I am a person full of best practices. But it's still surprising to see how many people have TCL TV, it's a very famous brand. And how many people who have logged in from their primary email accounts, who takes a burner or secondary account? And TCL simply has access to everything they have. They have full access to Google, they have access to photos. access to life. What else do you want? So yeah, that was kind of interesting. And I thought I'd share today in the tech part that yes, please go check your account through SSO, which is usually sign in with Google, sign in with Facebook, and sign in with Apple ID, I think. So good luck. See you in the next episode.