The items I’d bought last week were delivered today…
If you’ll believe it, I’ve never actually bought anything off a Facebook ‘live’ session before. Actually… have you? I know you can buy anything from fresh seafood, to durians(!), to gadgets and clothes from sellers on Facebook. But I’ve read about Facebook live-stream auctions and ghost bidders, and I’m wary. However, last Friday, I decided to tune in to a Facebook live session organized and hosted by two social enterprises, which I shall not name here. It wasn’t, in fact, an auction. They simply showed you the products for sale, stated the quantity available, the expiry date (if any) and the price. And to get your pulse racing, there’s a timer for 5 minutes on the screen. While there’s no one to outbid you per se, it’s fastest fingers first. And along the way, I made a few mistakes and hence learnt a number of lessons. SO here goes:
(1) Avoid impulse buys and unplanned purchases (@_@)
Now I have 24 bottles of fabric softener (each holds 1 litre) when I don’t even normally use fabric softener at home and 360 dryer sheets (when I don’t even have a clothes dryer at home!) (@_@) This purchase only makes sense if I own a laundromat, I think. But hey… they were being sold at a steep discount. So at that point in time, it made sense to buy first then decide what to do with the items later. Haha! Is your birthday coming up? Fabric softener for you then! 
I think it’ll probably be wise to have a family member seated next to you to rein you in, so you don’t just buy whatever’s being sold. Then you won’t have a headache like the one I have now regarding 2 entire cartons of fabric softener. What was I thinking?!
(2) Fastest fingers first means you can’t even wait for product code announcements
For this particular session, we had to key in +1 (or however many units you want) and the item’s product code e.g. PD1. So it’s +1 PD1 if I want the item, and if the admin ‘likes’ my comment during the FB live, it means the product has been reserved for me. So always type in +1 and have it on standby even before the next item is revealed. In fact, many smart folks guessed the product codes and keyed them in even before those codes were even announced. So if I know the current product is PD1, I may even want to type ‘+1 PD2’ for the next item even before the host is ready to move on to that item, thus I can be sure I’m among the first few to ‘chope’ it when I hit ‘Enter’. If I decide I don’t want to purchase it after all, I can let the organizer know ASAP, either during the session (so others can get the item) OR after (though this is not recommended, ya?)
Since the organizer’s a social enterprise, well, I didn’t back out. Just so you know.
(3) Apparently, some people “abandoned” their cart
Because you have to spend $150 to qualify for free delivery, many chose to ‘abandon cart’ after the session ended. I don’t blame them because there were really too few items to purchase – probably 10 or so. And not everyone needs Red Bull or car polish or that fabric softener. And if you don’t spend at least $150, then you’ll have to pay $15 for delivery. Which I think is fair. Because those cartons can be really heavy, and they’re sent all the way to your doorstep!
I probably should have told the admin to remove the laundry-related items. ARGH…
(4) Set an alarm so you’re ready when the live session begins
I was actually watching a Kdrama – can’t remember which now – so I missed the start of the live session. And I missed their Snapple deal. Don’t even know how much it was being sold for. Haiz. Lesson learnt: Set an alarm to go off 5 minutes before the start of the session. Enough to have a quick pee break, grab a cup of water and camp in front of my laptop.
(5) Don’t be greedy.
If an item is expected to be really popular (such as a special bundle deal) and there are only a handful of units available, just go for +1. For one such bundle, I typed +3 and I think there were 4 people ahead of me so by right, I should have been able to secure the last set out of the 5 available. Unfortunately, I’d keyed in +3 so the admin liked my comment, realised her mistake, then unliked it later. So the item, which I could have gotten, went to someone else who’d just used +1. 
(6) Don’t share about the Facebook live sessions and invite ‘competition’
OK, this may sound totally selfish to you but hear me out. The organizers will usually ask people to share their posts so as to get more participants tuning in. However, unless there’s something in it for you, why would you want to share? During this particular session, I missed out on some really attractive bundle deals because there were too few of those items (5 only) but some 300+ participants. It seemed like everyone wanted those 5. Having more ‘competition’ is nothing to be happy about, really. So, to put it simply, unless I’m getting a discount or some freebie for sharing, I’m not going to.
(7) Watch out for expiry dates
I bought a whole carton of dryer sheets and when I opened the box, I found that the individual boxes within (40 sheets each) were almost falling apart. It’s like they’ve been kept in storage for too long. Now I probably can’t give them away to friends because the glue that’s supposed to keep the flaps on the sides of the boxes together have actually dried up and lost their adhesiveness so the flaps come out naturally. Now they look like something I’ve opened, probably took a sheet out, and decided I want to give away the rest. Haiz. I’d definitely have trouble trying to re-sell these too. So how? I’m not sure yet. And these things don’t even have expiry dates.
So whenever possible take note of the expiry dates. And ask the host if he/she doesn’t explicitly state upfront what’s the expiry date of the item, ya?
~
If you’re wondering whether this will be my first and last purchase off FB… the answer is no. I would probably tune in again for the next live session that this company is hosting. And since I’m not inviting competition by telling you which enterprise it is, hehe, obviously I want to score those deals the next time round. I’ll certainly be better prepared. XD