An Opportunity Lost

Last week I had an opportunity to do shopping worth 5000 bucks for free. How? But I lost it. How? Well this is the story about that opportunity lost.

I keep participating in blogging contests organized by blogadda. They have many interesting contests organized with many partnering brands. There are some opportunities where you can get a copy of a book to review. I love to participate in these activities, and I have received lovely gifts and goodies from blogadda for that.

This time blogadda arranged one activity with quikr.com. We all know about quikr.com a mega buy and sell portal, which acts as matchmaker of buyers and sellers.

The activity was like this. A shortlisted blogger will shop a few items worth 5000 from quikr. He would write a blog about his experience about the site, and the items he purchased. Once the entry is validated against all the rules, he will get his 5000 back.

I was shortlisted for this activity, and I confirmed my participation. I was excited. I immediately called my wife and told her the news. I started looking for all the items on quikr. I asked my wife to do the same. The site first asks you for your location and then shows you the items for sale in your area.

There are many categories and subcategories like electronics, furniture, books, vehicles, and you have many options to shortlist your items using many filters. It is good practice to upload pictures of items you want to sell.

What could you possibly buy in 5000? There are a lot of things. But I didn’t want any random thing just because I was going to get it for free? Someone told me a cleaning funda. Our home should be occupied with only those things which are actually useful, which satisfy some need. Any other thing that is there for no reason, and unused, you should get rid of it.

The portal like quikr is started for this very purpose. To get rid of something that is better sold than used at your place.

So when I started actually looking for stuff to buy, I started realizing lot of constraints. The first thing I could think of is some furniture items and books.

I recently did small makeover of my house with some new furniture items. So there were only 2-3 kinds of small furniture items like a corner stand, centre table on our wish list. I surfed a lot for this. The thing with the furniture is, suitability. There are two ways to decorate your house.

Either you do it once and for all, with help of interior designer, or your own creativity and a big hole in your pocket. Or you keep purchasing the stuff according to priority as you go on over time. I am following the second route.

This way even though you don’t have the option to select a theme and follow uniformity in designs of different items, but the theme automatically shapes up with the items you already have. You have to keep this theme in mind when you purchase next, so that it suits well in your current home interior.

I came across many likeable items I was looking for, but they weren’t suitable to the theme our house needed. Some were in far off areas of Pune.

Then I realized the second constraint, i.e. locations. I stay in one corner of Pune, and work in another. The items were located in third, fourth, corner of Pune and so on. On a weekday, there was no way I could go and collect these items.

I found out another feature of quikr, to filter by locations. I entered the areas nearby my residence, and narrowed down the list. Although this eased the item hunt, it reduced the choice I had.

Simultaneously I was looking for books also. I love reading, and was excited with the number of books I could purchase with this amount. But the books available were mostly English books by Indian authors like Chetan Bhagat, Shiva Trilogy, which I have read and have already in my collection. Some of them actually seemed to be pirated copies.

The previous problems prevailed here. I couldn’t have picked up the items on weekday, on weekend I had some plans with guests coming over. This activity got side lined in my work and weekend plans, and I missed my deadline.

I regret the lost opportunity. More than that, I regret that I failed to inform blogadda about me being unable to finish the activity, or else it could have benefited someone else willing to participate. Sorry blogadda and quikr for the blunder. L

I thank blogadda to give me this opportunity to write this post of redemption. This is just to feel better about it. As they say, opportunity never knock your door twice.