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.

On Thursday, I made my trip to Lewisham Shopping Centre. It wasn’t my first visit. So I knew the way there and the parking place, the way to the centre mall.

1. Building Service Management: 6/10
I collected store directory from information centre in the centre mall. The Staff in Lewisham are delivering good service as well. However, the information on the website isn’t that helpful and store directory has no updated information about sales offer and A-Z shops information.
(Management certainly have delivered basic support to visitors, but there are still big area needs to improve.)

2. The layout of shops in Lewisham: 5/10
It isn’t good at all. There is no division of “Teen Zone”. There are over 70 stores and 15 categories in store directory. Everything is on one floor. In my opinion, shoppers would not be attracted to shop here because there is not enough choice and they could be annoyed by teenage school shoppers and this could impact their shopping mood.
(Store relocated service is needed for building management.)

3. Food and drinks: 7/10
The eating places are located in the centre of the mall. There are four restaurants in store directory. But there are more choices outside of shopping centre in Lewisham High Street. (E.g. MacDonald, Sandwich Bar)
(Maybe advertising food store for outside of shopping centre could provide more choices to customer.)

4. Value for money: 7/10
As I mentioned before, there are limited choices from one floor stores’ layout. Lewisham shopping centre is not there for tourists or shoppers outside of Lewisham.
(Their target customers are certainly for local area. But they could spread their building management service to outside of shopping centre, including stores in Lewisham high street.)

In conclusion, Lewisham shopping centre is there for their local visitors. And they need improve their information service. This experiment of visiting them has built up my confidence for starting my online shopping centre. My online shopping centre definitely could help them provide more information of store and sales in their area for their customers.

Date to visit: Thursday, 2nd July 2009

Website Address: http://www.lewishamshopping.co.uk/

Opening Time: 0900 – 2000 (The good shopping time is 1000 to 1200 in the morning, because all items in shop floor are tidy which save shoppers’ time and energy to make choices.)

Getting There by Car: The Shopping Centre is located near the intersection of the A20 and A21. The entrance to the car park is from Molesworth Street southbound carriage way (A21).

Parking Fees: Up to 2-3 hrs £1.80 - £2.50 (Normally shoppers have energy for exploring in 2-3 hrs).

News & Events: Summer Sensation Promotion in North Square

Contact: Centre Management team on 020 8852 0094

Facilities: Toilets: for disabled customers and a parent and baby room, are located just outside the West Walk entrance. Additional public toilets are located on Rennell Street

Food and Drinks: Bhs, Greggs, M&S, Muffin Break, Poti’s ( I picked Muffin Break which Located in Centre Square, Unit 74 and Poti’s is my backup which located in Centre Square)

Store Directory: Not available in website.

My evaluation of information I got from Lewisham website is 6 out of 10. There are two most important information I can’t find out which are shops layout and sales offers.

In fact, this is good news for my online business. I could offer this information on my website and guide people to shop there.

In order to attract more people to visit my website, I need to study their requirements from local shopping centre. And are these shopping centres met their needs. How I could offer valuable information /suggestions in my website for people and fulfil their requests before they visit their local shopping centre.

I started from checking out their review of shopping centre. The list of their concerns as showing below:

1. 
   Building Service Management: such as Parking, Lift/ Escalator, Toilets, Baby Changing Facility, Centre Directories/Shopping Guide, Building Security Systems (Shopping Centre Building are required to be designed to protect the health and safety of customers visiting, maximizing their comfort and shopping mood, while minimizing the impact on the environment. The good shopping environment will attract shoppers to drive traffic.)
2. 
   Layout of Shops: the need of division of “Teen Zone” to avoid conflicts of seniors shoppers. (The good layout of shops could save shoppers’ time and energy to maximize their shopping mood.)
3. 
   Food and Drinks: the Food and Beverage Vending Machines are required. In the food shopping peak time such as 2 or 3pm, long queues are always there outside of sandwich bar. (Selling soft drinks and sandwich in shopping centre could ease the traffic for food stores and get hard cash to shopping centre building management.)
4. 
   Value for money: a great shopping centre should have everything you need, but you can easily blow your budget! Although there's shops for every budget so it suits everyone, and you could easily do all your shopping in one place! (Advertising in Centre’s Directories could guide people to find sales offers, discounts & bargain easily.)

All in all, I have to make a journey to all the shopping centres in London in order to evaluate whether the shopping centre management’s objectives met shoppers’ expectations and find out how I could help from my website.

Today, I got the first comment of my blog from the stranger. He said:” You're hilarious: You are funny. And I mean funny ha ha, not funny weird.”


My first reaction was why he said I’m funny. I’m a very serious person. I’m telling my real story. And I mean it. You know, it’s a serious stuff.

Then I seek my answer to my English husband. He laughed at me and told me its positive sign. He said:” you got your first fan.” “Really?!” I think I don’t understand English Sense as good as him. So I changed my mind and treated as a positive feedback.


Now, let me tell you my process of my online business. I finally pursued my classmate from University and made him help me for the web design. He was the best in the class in my memory. And I trust him better than anybody else. “No pressure, my friend.” It’s not that easy. Because I need to convince him that no matter this website will make money or not I won’t regret this investment. As you all known, I have done job seeking for 4 months. The information I got it’s that I have to pay for one year IT training to get the IT job even I had my IT degree with me. So why not, I invest money and time to train myself as my own boss for my own IT business. See, me – I’m getting the IT job by myself.


And my online business is to build up an online shopping centre in London for people to find sale offers, discounts & bargains at whatsonoffertoday.com. The definition of people is that include students, tourists, and local people who love shop in London and love to have sales information about high street as me. This is what I’m passion about my life in London. And I’d like to share with everyone in the world.

There are some family issues like how to balance time for working on business and home.

In the day, there are two babies that need me to take care. Plus housework and making dinner, I'm always very busy and no time for my own business. So all the work has to be done in the night. It's very hard, no sleep in the night, the morning sleeping quality is not good while I have two babies in the house. Ma Ma and my husband help me a lot to encourage me to keep working on my destination.

After long working hour during the night, I started to feel tried once I got up in the afternoon. My body is very weak. To adjust my life style to suit my dream job is major problem at moment.

Me -- A mummy with two babies and a happy family in London.

I'm a positive person somehow, but not everything goes as smooth in my life as everyone else in the world. But I believe “There are two sides to every coin". You'll never know how the worst time lead you to the great opportunity for your life.

My Daddy became so ill so I quit my job at the end of last year, so not to miss my last chance to take care my dad in China. I lost him in December 15, 2008. Then I packed "the home" in China and flew back to my own home in London. Not only my heart was still bleeding for losing the best daddy in the world, but also I have to face the finical problem of my own family. The only thing I could do which it's to search for the job. It wasn't going well. I couldn't even get a average of one interview each month after 4 month job seeking and 1000s CV have been sent out. "What I am doing wrong?" I kept asking myself and my poor husband. He always encourages me and tells me "you are doing well; it's just tough time for everyone these days."

Last Saturday 6/6/2009, I made one of the biggest decisions in my life that I'm going to set up my own online business. "Where to start?" and "what to sell?" were questions for me. Do the research and see what other people do. I started with online business guide from Startups.co.uk . After 8 pages study, I got an idea. "Nowadays, people go to the same place for shopping all the time, but they could miss out the perfect sales time for not been told." I told myself "it maybe the great opportunity for you to make saving for them, just use the website advertise all the sales offer and send to them by email in the real time."

First of all, I started with searching if there are any competitors who are having same idea as me from our best friend Google. Well, there are quite a few websites here and there. Okay, then I wonder how I can make differences...

Secondly, I went through their sites to find sales offer for saving money. Somehow I ended up to the other retailer's web page and lost my way to saving. Then I knew how I could make differences. I'll set up the money saving website for people to find offers, also they have the option of shopping here and not leading them to others' web page.

Now, it's time to think how to make profits. Well, there are two options: Advertising and earning the difference between whole sales and retails.

In the end, I decided I'll do it. I'll become my own boss...