Hello everyone. vulcan.x here. A Happy New Year to all of you. I’ll be guest blogging for the first time on gapnap.com.

Having been an online seller (both locally and internationally) since mid-2006, there’s not much outside of gear and trading that I want to write about. So, my topic today will be BAD HABITS OF BUYERS IN AN ONLINE MARKETPLACE. Sounds interesting enough for you?

Anybody who has sold gear online has probably been subjected to at least one of these unfavourable interactions before:
· Haggling - Aiyo, discount more lah bro, no box, no manual, so many scratches, cheaper laaa bro….
· Lowballing - Your asking price RM700 ah? Ok. I offer you RM300. Can?
· Bad information - BOSS Metal Core ML-2 is made in Malaysia lah. ML=Malaysia. Malaysia Boleh. (Yup, some buyers claim to know more about your stuff than you do…)
· Ridiculous/irrelevant questions - What does your guitar smell like? (WTF)

…but all those have been thoroughly discussed before. Here I’d like to focus on a few different scenarios I’ve experienced several times over the years. To be honest, I’ve not seen many people complain about these, so I’ll take the liberty of being the first

1) “Serious Buyer Here…”

What constitutes being a “Serious Buyer”? This particular term has been used so loosely in online forums over the past decade that it has almost lost its meaning. Interested parties often find this a handy thing to say when competing against other interested parties for a hot item, as they think it gives them some sort of leverage. For example:

Seller <in forum>: iPhone for sale, RM2000, please contact for more details.

Member #1 <in forum>: Hmm, I kinda need a new phone. PM sent.

Member #2 <in forum>: Wow, nice price. I might get it. What’s your contact number bro?

Member #3 <in forum>: ZOMG! iPhone! Contact me bro 012-3456789! I’M A SERIOUS BUYER!!!

Unfortunately, if the item isn’t so hot, “Serious Buyer” will be used as a prelude to haggling. Example:

Seller <in forum>: Laptop for sale, model XYZ, RM3000, please contact for more details.

Member #1 <in forum>: PM me the specs bro. Serious buyer here.

Seller <in PM>: (sends the specs over)

Member #1 <in PM>: Bro, the specs not that good lah, price can lower? I’m a serious buyer man…

Seller <to himself>: *God help me…*

Tell me you don’t find that at least slightly irritating. A “Serious Buyer” should mean a person who knows for sure that he/she wants a particular item, and has the money to pay for it (or is at least able to get the money soon). Many people seem to think being seriously tempted by an item automatically affords them “Serious Buyer” status. Maybe they’ll realize after reading this…?

2) The Indefinite Wait For A Response

If you’ve been exchanging e-mails or just got off the phone with a prospective buyer, and he/she leaves you with the following sentence:

“Alright bro… Thanks for the info. I’ll let you know when I make my mind up lah.”

How will you be feeling? (Time for some MCQs. Heheheh.)
A) Happy. The deal is closed as far as I’m concerned.
B) Positive. I am confident of securing the deal sooner or later.
C) Hopeful. I think I made a good impression on the buyer.
D) Satisfied. At least there are enquiries for my stuff.

If any of you chose a single answer from the four above, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. The reality is that 4 out of 5 times, you won’t be hearing from Mr. Prospective Buyer again.

After achieving several milestones and evolving to become what we are now, we human beings still somehow manage to find it extremely difficult to say “No Thanks”. Granted, it might be basic human niceness to want to spare the seller the disappointment of not making the sale, but leaving him in limbo doesn’t exactly help either. Ladies and gents, if you are no longer interested in an item, it is good practice (and manners) to tell your friendly neighborhood spiderman seller, especially if you’ve made several enquiries about it. Information makes the world go round, y’know.

Oh, by the way, I’m not related to the ugly dude in the photo above, nor do I know who he is. Heheheh.

3) “Bro… Overseas Cheaper Lah”

I am a staunch believer in fair pricing. I welcome any sort of criticism if I’ve set my prices too high in comparison to the accepted local standard, and I’ll be the first to apologize and do something about it.

Unfortunately, every once-in-a-while I get e-mails/private messages going something like this:

Forum Member: Bro, how come your XYZ Pedal RM500? This website only USD $100 lah… (link to site included)

I’m sure everybody can follow this. $100 works out to roughly RM350 at the current mid-market rate of 3.5. RM500 is a substantial mark-up from RM350. But please take a moment to consider the following factors:

A) Inflated exchange rates. Using PayPal or your credit card to go online shopping? Be prepared to pay a premium. The rate of 3.5 I mentioned above will likely touch 3.7 (factoring in the 1% adjustment fee as well).
B) Shipping & handling. Having a pedal wrapped and sent to Malaysia from the States can cost anywhere between $20 to $40.
C) Tax. The leeches in Customs rub their hands and lick their lips with glee while imposing a 10% import duty on your parcel.
D) Processing fees. You’re responsible for the additional RM18 customs processing fee. And the cost of petrol (or Skybus) to KLIA to pick said parcel up.

Some simple mathematics are in order. [($100 + $20) x 3.7 x 1.1] + RM18 = RM506. Wow. Anyone amazed yet?

It never fails to leave me dumbfounded when some people choose to be ignorant and turn a blind eye to the extra costs associated with buying stuff from another country. If shipping was free, I’d have saved enough money to afford a trophy wife by now.

Before I forget, here’s another related fact: The person who messaged you to whine about your prices was probably never interested in the item in the first place. Find that hard to believe? Take a moment to think about it

4) Tradeballing

My reluctance of accepting trades stems from a rapidly growing phenomena I like to call Tradeballing. This is similar to the practice of Lowballing we all are familiar with, except that the ‘cash’ part of the equation is replaced by ‘garbage’.

Tradeballers are a smart bunch. How else would they have successfully figured out the equivalent value of a musical instrument in junk?! This intellect makes them extremely hard to deter or deal with. Here’s a sample of a Tradeballing conversation I fished out of my e-mail inbox:

Tradeballer (real identity hidden for protection): Bro, I’m interested in your Ibanez RG565. I’ll trade you 24x Coca Cola bottlecaps, one old shoe (left foot), the stapler on my office desk, and a banana skin for it. Can?

vulcan.x: Thanks for the offer bro. Tell you what, I’ll need 35x Sprite bottlecaps, a right footed shoe and a fresh banana. I’ll keep the RG565 but I promise to be your friend. Can?

Anybody else encounter this sort of thing before??

Disclaimer: Before ending this post I want to admit that I myself have probably been guilty of committing one of two of the above offences, and I do genuinely regret my actions. The important thing is always to realize and learn from it, to preserve the harmony of our favourite online marketplaces. If that doesn’t really concern you, think of it as a form of self-betterment.

vulcan.x out. Cheers & love you guys. Heheheh. Heh.

After our first gig at Brussels , Palm Square Jaya One on 24th ..my band had another problem ..

1.my bassist have to go China

2.my drummer have to attend new year party ..

we were 2 men down (bassist and Drummer SUPER IMPORTANT WEI , the Groove of the band )

So , gapnap became stressnap for a period of 5 days …

and on 29th , we found a drummer , another hero guitarist and a keyboardist ..

stressnap part 2 came , how the hell are this 3 last minute rockstars going to learn 50 songs in 48 hours ?

the crowd …

So this gig is a little bit different …again ..

you see ah …Normally , Pub bands play for 3 Sets …around 40 minutes a set ..roughly 7-8 songs lah huh ..

This Crazy New Years Eve Gig requires …

Set 1 (9.30-10.15pm) 10 songs

Set 2 (10.30-11.15pm) 10 songs

Set 3 ( 11.45pm-1am) 16 songs

Set 4 (1.15am-2am) 10 songs

I have never played 4 sets in my life …the most was 3 sets , back then was at Sri Hartamas and The Loft , KL ..Normally events requires 1 set , 45 minutes music during makan time ..thats it ..

so , this was a challenge , a crazy one

.

Some of my friends told me ,

Crazy ah? 4 an a half hours ah ? Guns n Roses MAX also 2 hours concert …

yes , i am crazy ..i guess they are right ..

when you are playing 4 an a half hours , the chances of you screwing up a few songs , is 100% ..

the challenge is how to minimize it ..

another challenge is of course , arranging the songs ..(putting boring songs at the beginning and hot songs at the countdown)

still got still got ..

It is impossible for your front man to sing 5-6 rock songs in a ROW ..so everybody gotta sing (heck even i sang , shit sial , first time ..)

gotta plan the arrangement , who sing first then who rest and stuff ..

and of course the ultimate challenge was , keeping your band hot .. I MEAN HOT and HAPPENING ..

Metallica can go Monster of Rock and play 5 songs …and go down like heroes ..

how do you keep your band HOT , for such a long period of time ..(you can’t)

.

oh yea , and i forgot to mention ..

to you shredders out there ..how about stop practicing this and that technique ..

and start practicing your shredding stamina ? i tell you …

by the 4th set , my left hand fingers were FRIGGIN tired ..wanna shred also cannot ..

if my fingers had mouths , they are gonna puke on my face ..

it was at a point my finger needed some steroids , drugs or something..wanna bend and vibrato also damn no mood ..

but i guess it was still okay , overall ..as in i still can tahan lah…..i think so far ..the smartest decision of my entire life on guitar playing was ..

PLAYING 009-042 gauge

yeah seriously you wankers who diss us 009-042 ..you think we are pussy huh ?

lets see you soloing for 4 an a half hours gig with 011 or 012 …your fingers will BURN AND BREAK !!

.

another thing is , when you’re on the stage , the adrenaline is pumping ..wah steam steam ..rock rock ..feel feel..

i tell you , when you come down , you suddenly feel DAMN TIRED and DAMN thirsty ..zzz..when the gig was over , i wanna drive home also no mood..

.

The other day , i was reading some discussion in Lowyat , about how the temperature affect the wood , the glue etc and stuff ..whether the guitar goes off tune or the neck wrapped ..

well , i am not a guitar tech kinda person , i don’t know anything about those ..all i know was ..

last nite’s show was 4 an a half hours , i only tune my guitar ONCE

together with lightings , open air bullshit , sweats , massive bends , massive vibrato ..
my guitar stayed in tune all the time ..

I am the type of guy who believe in Good hardwares , a Good Setup that suits me perfectly ..yea
All my gigging guitars are either Schaller or Gotoh Machine Head..

oh hey , maybe its the player that determines the guitar stays in tune or not ^^

anyway , the point is , screw it you know , why waste time worrying about whether your guitar will go slightly off tune or not ..

just get a good setup , get a good hardware , get a good guitar …enough lah ..go use the spare time to practice or something lah..

.

fuh , look at my feel face …

anyway , special thanks for those who came to support us..

Darren and his gf , Andy , Vincent , Esther , Joyce , Shae nee , Terrengganu boys , Jess , DA , Kevin’s friends, Keith (Rockstar) and Sean ..

and Brussels for giving us rockstar treatment ..( Free Flow of Beer and Free Buffet )

my 3 new heroic bandmates who finished 50 songs in 2 days , and the organizers , agents…etc

and for those who sms’ed me Happy New Year , yeah ..happy new year to you too !! sorry couldn’t reply cause i was playing til 1am …

and here is the …

Pic of the Event

see how ganas am i or not ? i shred too fast , even a SONY Cybershot couldn’t capture the movement ..

i pawned you , Cybershot

cool thing about this event was …it was snowing !! wow !! ..

i wish lah …tonight i learnt not to take pictures when a hydro-fan-sprinkler is around

First Set , everything was cool ..we used our own equipments and their PA system ..i mean , we had fun

during the break , other pubs (we were hired by Brussels) started complaining that we were too loud and stuff , they even called the jaya one management ..

i guess it was either

1.we suck and we were noisy

2.Starbucks and the other chinese cafe completely didn’t understand what the hell a band does (attract attention)

3.Starbucks and the other chinese cafe were jealous of the attention..

after all the super complains right up to Jaya One’s BOSS , the sound engineer forced us to plug everything into his shitty PA system for our second set ..he even told me ..“just do it , i don’t want my boss to f*ck me up” ..

and the worse thing was , he didn’t even use a DI BOX , everything was plug STRAIGHT to the mixer ..

i was like thinking ..“right..wait til your PA system overload and blow , that you lagi gone “

but i am a mean guy , so i kept quiet , and let it burn

and of course , as predicted ..the whole shit started going down and down during our second set …

PA system overloaded with my guitar , bass guitar , my singer’s guitar , 3 Mics and bass drum (mic up)..7 inputs in his pussy mixer…tell me how lah ..

the whole performance was shitty …people couldn’t hear me or my singer ..whole show hear drums only ..my singer also sing until no voice ..we sounded like shit ..

bloody hell think you so smart ah… never handle a band before , don’t act smart ..aiya , don’t wanna blame you lah ..its your boss ..yeah ..

then on the 3rd set ,he came and told us , “okay use your amps , do whatever you want ..i dont care about the complains anymore”

thats the way brother , i love you .

pic of the event ..

best shot , thanks Mr Camera man ..

so remember lah ,

i faced this problem already ….for those who are going to gig ..

be prepared for situations like this ..bring a back-up DI box or Pre amp (Sansamp GT-2) …

Surprisingly , the pub called us back to play for their new year eve party ..31st 9.30pm-1.30am..we are gonna be there…

i am considering…to bring my full PA system there and charge them more…