Online shopping challenges in Pakistan are something you might want to know especially the E-commerce businesses out there. I would also tell you why I started blogging, and the products I curate to share. So let's start off with online shopping in Pakistan.

Online Shopping Challenges in Pakistan

For many years I was shopping from ASOS and buying clothes, shoes, accessories, and makeup. The only website I knew to offer international standard shipping to Pakistan that delivered without any customs. This website lists high street labels as well as a few big brands in different categories. But Covid struck everywhere and this year the site started offering only express delivery of approx. 26 USD, and once the parcel reaches your doorstep a hefty custom is further charged around 31 USD to 62 USD depending on the parcel weight and value, which gets expensive to pay on top of shopping for a minimum order from the site of worth approx. 39 USD. We don't have the privilege of Amazon and eBay operating here. They ship a limited category and other items have hefty shipping charges on them. There are a few more international websites that offer only express shipping such as Nordstrom but the payment method is the same as I mentioned earlier. I quit shopping from ASOS and then switched to AliExpress but only for hardly a few months. This site mainly offers Chinese products. Since I am talking about premium shopping, I haven't seen any brands in clothing, accessories, and shoes, and whatever brand is available in the beauty category is skeptical. I am saying this from my own experience. I ordered Mizon, and Laneige. The products came out fake even after checking product reviews, seller ratings and directly communicating with them. I don’t use websites like Daraz because although it has a few big brands on it, the latest product ranges for the international brands I seek are not there, prices are high, and seller ratings and reviews are low.

After experiencing that I thoroughly googled websites that offer imported Korean and American beauty brands and I shortlisted about two. These websites import products directly from brands’ distributors and sell online. They have also authorized dealers of a few Korean brands. But not all these websites operating here offer good customer service. Regardless I gave one skincare website The Skin MASKuerade a try and the experience actually turned out to be really good; it delivered to me in two days of placing the order, and the skincare products came out genuine and fresh from Korea. On the whole, I am not getting to shop for clothing and shoes as much as I used to because of not able to access international online shopping, and also because finding the latest product ranges of different clothing, accessories, shoes, and beauty brands is a challenge in the region. The good news is that due to Covid, some new and very promising E-commerce national ventures are forthcoming and emerging with international brands in almost every category, and are offering good customer service in major cities. This led me to try another website JOMO that had a good range of shoes. I ordered these boots and the experience was great again, I got really good customer service, and the boots were extremely high quality which I will show you all very soon. The boots turned out to be even more comfortable than the ones I got from ASOS. Once I see more websites offering the latest product ranges and comparable prices, I would shop from them and let you know my experience and reviews for your help. 

Blogging Inspiration

Drawing and sketching since I was a kid, a self-taught critic on skincare and professional makeup for fifteen years, does professional makeup, loves to photograph outdoor, design clothes, and very selective when it comes to shopping. I have been self-studying chemical compositions and ingredients in products for many years. I decided to share my passions and critic through blogging a few years ago. I would also let you know I have a full-time job which kept me from creating the page for this long. I bought the domain a few years ago and wanted to set up my space all by myself. Since I am not a techy person it took me quite some time to get the hang of it all, optimize the page, and finally get to blogging. I kept getting technical issues and errors all this time which always stopped me from putting up updates. As I mentioned earlier that I’m not a tech-savvy person, it really held me up till now to get past the errors my page was facing, and now I can finally get to post more. When I started blogging I also decided that this would be my last stop in my professional career and I would blog for life, and this is what I plan to do. I am transitioning from job to blogging. I will not give up on it and will keep both creating and curating content, sharing and helping you with it. :)

Curated Products

In the country, most shopping trend is geared towards clothing. Maximum shopping is for Eastern and fusion clothing for women, and eastern and western clothing for men, followed by western clothing for women. Now, I'll categorize the products I curate. I will mostly share high street label brands and a few others in clothing, leading footwear brands for trainers, top Korean brands for skincare, and leading American and other regions’ brands for makeup. Right now I am not able to share big brands like Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld, etc because of low to no access to buy their products here. Any international brands available here keep the stock that is slightly dated i.e. from a year or two ago. We have brands like Mango, Next, Monsoon, H&M, and a few others. In a few shopping malls, more international brands are also there. As the country is discouraging imports, there is a huge tax on them, making prices relatively steep for the consumer.

In the beauty category, shopping is centered on makeup. Only recently a slight trend towards skincare is observed and people are usually seen buying kits of international brands comprising of serums and moisturizers, but without having much knowledge of the products, especially the ingredients within and the brands. There is still less awareness and exposure of people to the brands because of no to low access to buy or have knowledge about them. In makeup, people usually buy whatever drugstore brands are available in the market e.g. L’Oreal, Maybelline, etc. You might have noticed that the beauty products I curated in my previous posts have been in the global market for some time but in my region, they are only available now to shop for. I shop for them and share them because I have been following top international fashion ramp makeup artists, K-beauty, and fashion pages for more than fifteen years. I grew my exposure and in-depth knowledge through Soko Glam, Sephora, Charlotte Tilbury, Burberry, many top makeup artists, and professional dermatologist YouTubers. For fashion, I stay in touch with the latest trends through different top sources. 

    The next few posts would be curated on makeup, shoes, a lot more in K-Beauty, and some winter wear with a thorough critic. I hope you enjoy your time on my blog and find it helpful. Please follow me on Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Check my other posts and get caught up. If you have any questions, please comment down below. Let me know your thoughts, and what you would like to see in the upcoming posts. Thank you so much. Stay safe. Bye.