It’s time to do Christmas shopping, if you don’t want to wait until the last minutes. As we all know, the gift we want to buy that maybe harder to find and even out of stock already.

Avoid the Christmas crowds and do your Christmas Shopping Online now. If you want to make your Christmas Shopping easy and relaxing with a warm cup of coffee at home, Please follow the steps below:

Step 1: have a Christmas Budget and Stick with it

Unfortunately, each of us has to take a serious look at our financial situation and decide how much we can realistically afford this Christmas.

Step 2: make a Christmas Shopping List

Just like Santa, it’s important to make the list of people and we need to get a gift. Don’t forget let your mum or partner double check for you just in case.

Step 3: research the Christmas gift idea

We can write down one or two gift ideas on the right side of their name in your list. The list will just like:

Mum	Deluxe Afternoon Tea	Heart Pendant Beaded Bracelet
Dad	Touch Screen Digital Golf Scorecard	Molton Brown Men’s Gift Set
...	...	...
Last little stock filler	Don’t Break the Bottle	Pant Purse

Step 4: find the best price for all gift idea online

Try to use money saving website like voucher code or cash back shopping website, you will be very surprise how much you could save by shopping online. And also write down the best price and website address for each gift and against the shopping budget we made before.

Step 5: shop early and look for sales

By shopping early, people can have the time to order gifts online and be able to wait for the shipping time and check their return policy as well just in case.

At last, keep your Christmas Shopping List in your computer and save in your backup disk for next Christmas Shopping, the following next Christmas, the following of following next Christmas... ; >

Stratford Centre is on The Broadway in the heart of Stratford opposite the bus, rail and underground stations.

Unfortunately (for my husband), I started to work on the Olympic project for Ardmore Construction near Stratford Centre. Then as he always known, I become a regular customer there.

Stratford centre is one floor with a four-direction access shopping mall. Also they remain the old style of London Mall with indoor market in west mall. It’s just so lovely if you live locally.

1. Building Service Management and the layout of shops: 8/10

You could grab a store directory on standing information board from all entrance. There are around 90 stores with clear layout divisions, like everyday shopping in West Mall, fashion shopping in South, North & East Mall.

Also in North Mall, there is a lovely Barclay bank with a very modem look and they provide very helpful technical support services (e.g. online banking).

Stratford doesn’t have as many shops as Westfield London, buy it’s definitely a favourite shopping place to visit for people who work or live around.

2. Food and drinks: 7/10

The eating-places are located on the West and East Mall. There are around ten choices of Cafe and restaurants in store directory. (e.g. Burger King, Subway, Starbuks)

There is a little take away food store called Percy Ingle which is a nice place to try. I love their Viennese Finger so much.

3. Value for money: 8/10

They have pound shop and 99p shop, which are good saving for everyone. Also they have fashion store like New Look, Dorothy Perkins that are good for fashion ladies.

Therefore, Stratford Centre has almost everything you need in your everyday live, and visitors could easily do all their shopping in one place.

Croydon is a “home town” of my husband. This is the reason we visit it almost every month. There are two shopping centres opposite each other on North End Street. Lots of shops are around that area. There is a card shop on Church Street as marked on the map which is the best saving for card shopping.


View Shopping Centres in Croydon in a larger map


The Whitgift Croydon:

1. Building Service Management and the layout of shops: 6/10
I got down to level one from Car Park using lift, which wasn’t a good experience for me. The room in the lift is too small. It can’t fit into more than 5-6 people. If with a little buggy it just doesn’t fit that comfortably.

I collected store directory from information stand on level one. It’s showing 100 shops on two floors without showing locations in the list of categories. It is not presenting sales offer or store’s information.

They placed management office and baby changing facilities on third floor. I personally think it is not making any convenient to customers who have babies.

(Management certainly haven’t delivered good support to visitors in the mall, they maybe just target their customers in the local area.)



2. Food and drinks: 7/10

The eating places are located on the first floor and second floor. There are over ten choices of Cafe and restaurants in store directory. (e.g. BB’s Coffee and Muffins, Subway, Starbuks)

3. Value for money: 8/10

Well, they have almost everything you need in your everyday live, and visitors could easily do all their shopping in one place.

Overall, The Whit gift is a good shopping centre for their local people. But they need to improve their building service management and the layout of shops.


Centrale Shopping Centre:

It’s located in the opposite of The Whitgift Centre across North End. It’s much more modem than the Whitgift centre.


1. Building Service Management and the layout of shops: 8/10

I collected store directory from information station on the Ground Floor. There are mall guide and travel guide available for visitors to check out the store location. There are 4 floors: Upper Mall, North end Mall, Lower mall and keeley road & Tamworth Road. We can find store location from store directory very easily. There are over 70 stores; most stores are from high street. (e.g. ZARA, French Connection, Jane Norman.) We could say this mall is designed for posh ladies.

2. Food and drinks: 9/10

The eating places are located in all possible level. They have Café Giardinon, Starbacks, and MCDONALD’s and other 4-5 food places.

3. Value for money: 8/10

This is a modern mall for people who love fashions and high street’s shopping.


In conclusion, the reasons that Croydon become a very popular shopping place in South East London. It’s because there are two shopping centres and lots of shops and markets around.

And you could discover some good stuff is a really save money in some of shops there.

One of the card shop is located on Church Street, I got two birthday cards only costs me 3 quid. Small saving here and there can make our life different.

Thursday, I made my trip to Blue Water Shopping Centre. Because we have been there before, we drove the car there without going through their website before the journey (Car Park Free). http://www.bluewater.co.uk/

1. Building Service Management and the layout of shops: 9/10
As soon as I entered the shopping centre, the huge “Sale” signs are certainly draw all my attention. There are two floors and mixed designer shops and high streets shops. Then I found out it doesn’t matter because of the triangle layout designed building. You’ll never get lost. My husband collected store directory from information board in Ground Floor, while I was so excited for Sales and forgot why I’m here.

2. Food and drinks: 9/10
The eating places are located in the centre of the mall, water circus, winter garden, and village restaurants. There are over thirty Cafe and restaurants in store directory. They have almost every possible well known restaurant there. (e.g. Yo Sushi, pizza express, Nando’s).

3. Value for money: 10/10
Well, they have everything you need, just think before action.

In conclusion, blue water is a great shopping centre for everyone. You don’t have to make your shopping plan and the layout of building is helped saving our time and energy.

As a sole trader, my aim is to survive for the first year after it starts operation.

My family needs stable income from me. So this business is not just for fun, but also for the profit. I don’t like to talk “money” here and there, it makes me less special. But the fact is we cannot live without it. And I also believe I’m a valuable person and able to make profit somehow.

So making profit becomes another main objective.

Then I don’t want to my online business ruin my family time and my interests of cooking, travel... you know spend time to enjoy my life, so profit satisfying needs to be set as well.

Over all, there are three objectives: Survival, Profit maximisation and Profit satisfying.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Today, I made my trip to Westfield London in Shepherd’s Bush. I took the bus with my husband and two babies to there as I planned.

1. Building Service Management: 9/10
I collected store directory from information centre in Ground Floor. There are touching screens available for visitors to check out the store location. (It’s so convenient for visitors to find the way around) However, the information on the website is a bit complex, I took quite a while to find store directory on the website.
(Management certainly have delivered the best support to visitors in the mall, but their website need to upgrade to the simplest layout for visitors to make their shopping plan.)

2. The layout of shops: 10/10
In general, they divided over 185 stores into two sections: the designers’ shops “in the Village” and high street shops. My suggestion is we really need to look into the wallet before you enter the store. Almost everything there is well presented in stores. It’s great place to shop.
(There is no suggestion that I could think of at moment.)

3. Food and drinks: 9/10
The eating places are located in the loft, southern terrace restaurants, and the balcony. There are over thirty Cafe and restaurants in store directory. They have almost every possible well known restaurant there. (e.g. Yam Yam to go, Wagamama, Nando’s). The only concern is these three places which are allocated so far between each other. Is it possible all allocated in one floor?
(If all restaurants were allocated in one floor, visitors will have a good chance to look all around and make their food choice better.)

4. Value for money: 10/10
Well, they have everything you need, but you can easily blow your budget! Although there's shops for every budget so it suits everyone, and visitors could easily do all their shopping in one place—Westfield London!
(Certainly, this is a great shopping centre, no word to say.)

In conclusion, Westfield London is a great shopping centre for everyone. And they need to improve their website design to simplify for visitors checking information and make their shopping plan. My online shopping centre definitely could help them provide more information of store and sales in one page for their visitors.

1. Date to visit: Tuesday, 7th July 2009

2. Website Address: http://uk.westfield.com/london/

3. Opening Time: Standard 1000 – 2100

4. Getting There by Bus: 148 to Shephard’s Bush, alternately download map http://uk.westfield.com/london/images/london/downloads/transport_map.pdf

5. Parking Fees: 2 hrs free parking: http://uk.westfield.com/london/getting-there/car-park-rates/

6. Offers & Events: Lots of sales offers from more than 40 stores. (e.g. FCUK, Warehouse, Reiss), but there is no RSS Feed Function on the site. So I’m not sure this is latest information. http://uk.westfield.com/london/offers-events/offers/

7. Store: there is a search function on the page. Is there for us to find the store that we are planning to visit. However, there is no PDF format store directory for us to get from page. http://uk.westfield.com/london/stores/

8. Luxury Shopping: there is an A-Z store list there for user to follow and find out the location of Brand Store. Also relevant map for each floor are provided. They have done beautifully for people to use in the page. Surprisingly you could find Download Store Guide from here as well. (http://uk.westfield.com/thevillagelondon/assets/thevillagelondon/pdf/westfield_london_mall_guide.pdf) So I print it out. It will guide me shop there. http://uk.westfield.com/thevillagelondon/

9. Plan your visit: you could find the information you need from here before you visit them. Plan ahead. http://uk.westfield.com/thevillagelondon/plan

10. Services: They provide the wide range of service to their visitors from Free Wi-Fi to Hands free Shopping which are quite helpful. http://uk.westfield.com/london/services

11. Contact: Centre Management Reception +44 (0)20 3371 2300 wlreception@westfield-uk.com http://uk.westfield.com/london/contact-us

12. Facilities: Toilets: for disabled customers and Family room, are located on both Ground floor and First Floor.


13. Food and Drinks: There are lots of choices from CAFES to Restaurants which are arranged at The Balcony and The Loft. (e.g. Nando’s, Wagamama, Pizza Express)

My evaluation of information I got from Westfield website is 8/10.
They provided all possible shopping guides to user, but the layout of website a bit complex. It’s not easy to find the information you really looking for like Store Directory or Site Map.
Therefore, this became good news for my online Shopping Centre. I could offer the simplest website to guide users shop.