Online shopping reaching a dot calm era?

Although e-commerce, especially in the US has enjoyed hypergrowth since the inception of the Internet with sales over the Internet are expected to reach US$116 billion (S$178.4 billion) this year, analysts agree that the growth is starting to decline.

According to market research company, Forrester Research, online book sales will rise only 11 per cent this year compared with nearly 40 per cent last year. Apparel sales, which increased 61 per cent last year, are expected to slow to 21 per cent.

For companies who were cautious and did not catch the first wave, now may be too late. Despite the high overall sales figures, it must be noted that there are many more competitors than before, making individual online sales less profitable.

The conventionally top online sellers have been quick to spot the change in consumer buying habits and have started to make changes to their strategy. Dell - which many had regarded as a master of online computer sales - is putting its PCs in Wal-Mart stores, while Expedia has almost tripled the number of travel ticketing kiosks it puts in hotel lobbies.

This levelling off of online shopping reflects the practical and psychological limitations inherent in the medium. Online stores give shoppers a blase experience. In addition, since online shopping involves a computer, feels like work. Finally, online shopping does not seem to provide the same ‘stress-relief’ effect as traditional shopping – with more physical ‘concept’ stores offering customers a multi-sensory buying experience (without the kind of ennui or exhaustion that sets in after about 30 minutes of shopping online).

It then becomes a lot more worrying that many Singaporeans are only now trying to get in on the act. You can hardly find a day without an advertisement in the newspaper for some seminar or course by some alleged millionaire e-marketer or e-commerce provider, lauding over the virtues of an online business to help just about anyone ‘get rich’ without very much effort (after all, since the market does not or soon will not allow them to enjoy the same level of success as before, the only thing left to do is to make money off ‘selling their past successes’ by selling their stories).

Since Singapore and Europe did/does not have a vibrant online shopping culture, it used to be that you had to target the US market to make money online. Now with these studies suggesting that the trends in the US are beginning to change, it begs the question, who are all these e-commerce ‘newbies’ going to market to? It seems that many ignorant (and perhaps greedy) Singaporeans are about to get severely burnt!

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Chocolaholics beware!

The Birmingham UK Chocolate manufacture is being fined after about 12 to 30 people have fallen ill after eating its chocolate. The fine is likely to be in the tens of millions of dollars although currently reported as ‘unlimited’.

The charges relate to an outbreak of Salmonella at Cadbury’s Marlbrook factory in Herefordshire, that was first detected on January 19 last year. Cadbury later admitted that it failed to report the incident, blamed on a leaking pipe, because it believed there was no risk to human health. Cadbury has already lost around £30 million because of the product recalls and are likely to face private litigation claims in the near future.

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Sinless perfection?

Today I attended two different church services. First, was at Wesley Methodist Church because I had to fetch my grandmother for her service and back home and so I decided to attend it myself. Second, was at my church, GLCC as it was my Pastor’s ordination service (that’s where he is ordained and formally appointed as the Pastor of the church).

Attending Wesley was nothing new, as I was attending that church when I finally decided to become a Christian. However, my beliefs (in relation to many aspects of theology and practice) were different, I decided to leave and eventually ended up at my present church (I believe its always necessary to find a place that you’re comfortable in, unnecessary to find one that you agree with completely, impossible to find a perfect one!).

The preacher delivered a rather unconventional Father’s Day message. She used the passage a Ruth, a book normally used in relation to Mother’s Day messages to highlight the contributions and godliness of lady from which it receives its name. The passage was Ruth 3:7-18. In a nutshell, the passage records how Ruth, a widow, and her mother-in-law were taken care of by Boaz who eventually married her and therefore ‘redeemed’ her. The message naturally focused on his actions.

It would appear that Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, encouraged her to essentially to go to Boaz at night and after he had eaten and drunk to ‘offer herself’ to him. Of course as the story goes, he didn’t take advantage of her and instead, after first seeking out the person who was ‘next in line’ to marry Ruth (there was some kind of hierarchical structure at play in their culture), he married her.

This made me think of something. Many people, I’ve noticed this especially in some Muslim literature that I have read, have highlighted or challenged the Old Testament’s failure to cover up these not so glamorous details of the lives of the notable biblical characters. Many of these people like Moses, King David, King Solomon, Samson, and here Ruth, have committed actions in their lives that are, even by the non-Christian world’s standards, unacceptable and immoral. Moses committed the murder of an Egyptian soldier. David committed adultery, had the woman’s husband murdered, and then took her as his bride. Solomon apparently had many mistresses and committed every conceivable infringement of God’s moral law. And here, of course, Ruth attempted, upon the prompting of her mother-in-law, the mother of her very own dead husband, to offer herself to another man for sex (presumably the intention was that he would get her pregnant and therefore would be obliged to marry and take care of her).

Although many some of them committed these ‘sins’ before conversion, this was not always the case. Yet, these same people are celebrated in the bible as well as by Christians as ‘champions of the faith’, as godly people. So what purpose do these records serve? What are we to gleam from them?

I think that it is irresponsible on the part of Christians to brush these off as pre-salvation experiences or actions or perhaps even that it was a different dispensation. The fact is that if we claim that God doesn’t ever change (and this presumably applies to His moral laws as well since they are derived from His very nature) then it is essential that we reconcile these records with the claimed that these people were godly people.

One possibility is that we need to recognise and appreciate that all these people were human and therefore as susceptible to ‘falling’ into sin as anyone of us today. In addition, despite our tendency to grade the severity of sin or crimes, we have to realise that God does not so categorise them and that they are all equally as repugnant in His eyes. Furthermore, it may be the case that since sins, whether in our own assessment are ‘big’ or ‘small’, ‘serious’ or ‘minor’ are viewed as equally heinous by God, they may not necessarily affect our relationship with Him in the sense of making us any less or more godly.

The fact is each and every one of us commit sins daily (either by thought or deed). Irrespective of whether they are ‘big’ or ‘small’ sins, if they were to have any significant affect of our level of spirituality or closeness to God, we would all be disqualified. Furthermore, I seriously doubt that we are like these computer games, having a ‘god-o-metre’ at the bottom of the screen which rises and falls depending on how are handle any and all situations which are presented before us.

This does not mean that if we commit any infringement there are no consequences –there most certainly are as we can see in all the examples above (and many others in the bible). But it does mean that we are truly saved we are “godly”. Let me explain.

It is an accepted teaching that after a person becomes a Christian, Christ’s holiness is applied to the individual believer such that when God looks at us, he sees us as holy. It should follow that even when we commit sins, it doesn’t in any way diminish our ‘new found’ holiness or godliness. Thus it should affect our standing before God. Of course this is not and should not be a licence to live a life of debauchery, but having this in mind may help relieve the immense pressure and expectation that is often placed on Christians (whether by themselves or by others) to be ‘almost’ perfect. The fact of the matter is that none of us are going to be able to attain sinless perfection in this life, and I don’t believe we should be expected to.

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Minister salaries

As mentioned above the second service I attended this morning was at my own church for my Pastor’s ordination. The Senior Pastor (who’s stepping down) preached a message titled ‘Your Pastor’s humble requests’ which was meant to give the congregation an understanding of the difficulties that the incoming Pastor is likely to face, with the hope that we would be aware and understanding of them and then to act accordingly.

The point which caught my attention above all the others was on how the church needs to support the Pastor(s). Now, with many churches gravitating towards teachings such as the ‘Health and Wealth’ Movement – where apparently God necessarily will bless people materially (allegedly according to your level of spirituality) and that such blessings are claimable, it should follow that the Pastor should be the riches of the lot! In many such churches, some of them present even here in Singapore, Pastors drive BMW 7 Series cars or Jaguars and live in massive million-dollar mansions. This culture (and perhaps abuses) inevitably leads to churches going to the other extreme and Pastors feeling afraid to raise genuine needs in relation to their salaries. Often it is held that Pastors or full-time Christian workers must live sacrificially, by faith. I believe that such thinking is down-right wrong!

A Pastor’s job, just like the head of any organisation, is extremely difficult. To make it worse, the Pastor job-scope includes giving weekly or bi-weekly or more messages which requires significant amounts of research and study. He also has to meet up with people to counsel them, not to mention oversee the efficient running of the church. It is nothing like what someone once joked to me that a Pastor’s job is to be ‘invisible 6 days of the week, and incomprehensible on 1’!

It surprises me because I would have thought that no one would understand this more than Singaporeans. After all, with the recent talk on Ministeral salary increases, I would have thought that Singaporeans should be very familiar with the justifications for and used to paying Ministers the amounts that they presumably would command in the private sector. In the case of the incoming Pastor, he is a medical doctor by profession. It must be realised that, at least from a Christian perspective, he didn’t choose to become a Pastor – God did (and we believe that since God chose him, he could not but become the Pastor. Staying in medical practice is no longer an option).

Even if it is accepted that he had to make a sacrifice, believe you me, the nature of the job itself is sacrifice enough (would any of you want to trade places, bearing in mind that you have to prepare and deliver at least 1 different 45min -1hr speech every week, listen to numerous people and help them with all their problems, and be ‘on call’ 24/7?).

Their salaries should definitely be commensurate with the nature, scope and volume of the work and should also be comparable with (although it may not be identical to) what they would be able to command in the private sector. It is only fair.

Fruit (Part II)

I have recently, on the suggestion of my Pastor, begun reading daily devotional passages. This should not in any way be taken to suggest that I have changed my views on whether it is necessary for each Christian to read the bible daily, but is predicated on the willingness to try out my Pastor’s belief that daily readings may ‘sharpen’ my Christian mind. Oh well, I guess only time will tell.

I initially began by reading the emailers that my church sends out daily, but as you may have noticed through some of my previous entries, I found them rather unhelpful (often to the point of annoyance, leading me to become very critical of them – I suspect that is not what my Pastor meant when he said it would ‘sharpen’ my thinking). After sharing my plight with my pastor, he recommended reading the devotional readings prepared by Greg Laurie. He said I would like him. He wasn’t wrong. The name alone produced a natural affinity towards him – it was almost an epiphany – bringing to my mind, one of my favourite characters on tv, Hugh ‘Laurie’ and the character he plays in House – ‘Greg’ House!

Although I have not been blogging about the readings (its mainly because of work), it has been thus far very enjoyable. He comes across to me as a very moderate, balanced and mature person. He doesn’t seem to get sidetracked by all the ‘pet’ controversies that seems to plague many Christians and churches today. Rather than trying to push a particular agenda or theological (mostly extra-biblical) position, he comes across as honest, fair, and merely concerned to bring light to the passage.

One passage that I read this week, which has since stuck in my mind was what he had to say on bearing fruit. I had made a previous entry in this blog about a message that I heard one Sunday in church concerning this same topic. Where I suggested that many things can come under the banner of ‘fruit’ in relation to the commandment or divine desire that Christians would ‘bear fruit’. In that entry, I further suggested that I thought that this fruit did not have to go through a church-organised, church-sanctioned activity – but could arise from mere social situations like chatting with friends and/or providing a listening ear and/or the giving of sound practical advice.

Greg adds another dimension to this assessment. He says:

“What is bearing fruit? Essentially, it is becoming like Jesus. Spiritual fruit will show itself in our lives as a change in our character and outlook… The Bible gives an excellent description a life characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22–23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."”

It would then seem that ‘fruit’ is primarily ‘Christian character’. This would certainly be consistent with other references to the term. The passage cited in my previous entry of ‘abiding in Christ’ and ‘bearing much fruit’ would definitely contain this causal link (constant contact and interaction does facilitate the adoption of characteristics and qualities – since the Person we are to have such interaction with is God, it would naturally produce godly characteristics in us).

How then does ‘good’ works fit into this equation? Well, I guess ‘service’ is a natural by-product and manifestation of some of these characteristics – after all God does love every living person and seeks his good. This is also where my previous assessment comes in – such service can take many different forms (church-sanctioned, church-organised or not).

But isn’t this the traditional or widely held position? I don’t think so. The differences are subtle but significant.

I think that human beings are very result-oriented (perhaps this is especially true of Singaporeans). This is a problem because we gauge our success through results. Many Christians import this kind of thinking into Christian beliefs and therefore become more inclined to judge Christian growth and maturity along those same terms. The more church-related activities we get involved in, the more pre-saved people we reach out to, the more people we bring into church, all naturally determine our success as Christians. Unfortunately, it would seem that many churches have adopted such an approach and this can be observed by the numerous activities that are thought up almost daily and their encouragement of their members to participate.

But if we understand that the ‘fruit’ which is referred to in the bible is internal, this changes things significantly. It removes the pressure, it ceases to become the measure of success. Christianity becomes more personal again.

Another beautiful thing about the passage is that, if you notice, all the characteristics listed in Gal 5:22-23 are things which can only be developed over time. Furthermore, they are very difficult to measure and compare. Its perhaps easy, after knowing someone for a period of time and observing that person, to say things like, ‘he is very loving’ or ‘joyful’ or ‘longsuffering’ or ‘good’ or faithful’ or ‘gentle’ or ‘self-controlled’, but each of these does not allow you to know how much for sure. And it certainly doesn’t allow anyone to say things like ‘I’m more loving or good or gentle…’ then someone else!

It seems like the absolute brilliance of God is displayed clearly here for all to see. Hopefully we Christians are smart enough to see it and follow suit.

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News Flash: Inked & pierced

There was an update in yesterday’s The Times online newspaper about a senior UK judge being acquitted on charges of exposing himself on two separate occasions to a woman in London’s Tube (equivalent to our MRT system).

A few weeks ago there was another story, this time in Singapore, of the conclusion of the trial of a guy who drove into a girls school and exposed himself to some female students (incidentally, I have some friends who know the guy personally and went to school with him).

This theme of ‘flashing’ is particularly relevant to me this week as I have been asked to unbutton my shirt in the office on a number of occasions to show people my ink (for the uninformed I’m referring to my 2 tattoos). One of the NQLs (Newly Qualified Lawyers also known as Associates) was standing behind me when she first spotted it – quickly more people were ‘informed’ and came in asking to see them. Some showed theirs to me first in a bid to make an ‘exchange’ (which was rather hilarious to be honest).

After the novelty wore off, to my horror, this same girl came in yesterday and asked, ‘Do you have any piercings?’

To be continued…

LOL!

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Cyber-vetting of potential employees!

I found this article today of how companies in the US and UK have began conducting web-searches of potential employees to dig up any ‘digital dirt’ on them. The websites commonly checked are social websites like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook (I guess in Singapore it would be Friendster).

All this could mean that that video clip that your friends posted of the guys’ wild drunken night-out could come back to haunt you.

Common internet reputation — or “NetRep” — black marks cited in the poll included “alcohol abuse”, showing a lack of respect for your job, or that the candidate was “personally into some activities that did not fit ethically into the company”.

Although I’m sure that many people would be quick to call foul, claiming that what they do in their own time and in their personal lives should be of no concern to their employers, I think that to a large extent it is a reasonable and expected practice. Employees inevitably are their company’s representatives and as such, their actions, even those outside of working hours would have an effect on the reputation and, correspondingly, business of these companies. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the company ‘owns’ their employees. It merely means that employees must behave responsibly at all times.

Additionally, I think that cyber-vetting might be relevant as many people practice blogging and they talk about their lives including work within these blogs. Trade secrets could be revealed (and if a potential employer sees this potential employee exhibiting this tendency) which would certainly be good grounds for concern. It is also a good source of information about the potential employee’s general attitude towards his work. He is the type who constantly complains about his employers and the nature and scale of his work? All these would certainly be relevant in deciding whether to employ this person or not.

Bottom line: These people choose to put all this information out there. They should realise that it should be done responsibly. And since the information is already in the public domain, companies should not be faulted for making use of these pieces of information to assess the character and suitability of potential employees.