 We got scammed on both Laz and Shopee. Ang video na to ay handog ng CDKoffers.com. Marami kang mahahanap na ibat-ibang uri ng software dito. May games, apps, activation codes, or Windows 10. Check out our video on CDKoffers in the video description. Mabilis, mura, and, of course, legit dito. Madalil ang mag-order, search for the software you need, add to cart, check out, dan ka sa payment options nila, wala pa isang minuto, finished. May legit working CDK ka na sa software na pinilimu. Gamitin ang aming promo code para makakuha pa ng extra 20% discount sa purchase mo. Kung naghanap ka ng mura, legit, and original software, check out CDKoffers.com. What's up internet and happy birthday to Hardware Sugar. We're three years old this month. And we counted from June because our first sale was June 18. The LG32 monitor, which I reviewed before, personally still love that monitor. And now here we are, three years later. And if you know us, you know we're a big fan of using data to improve our operation. That's why every year, we come up with a report card to look at the metrics nag-improve ba talaga si Hardware Sugar to see where the future can take us. So the good points, number one, of course, would be YouTube, which you're watching this video on. In Feb 2020, we had 1,000 subscribers in June 2020 that jumped to around 8,000. And now currently, we have over 62,000 subscribers. A lot of people find out about us because of the YouTube channel. Also, the bigger the YouTube channel grows, the more brands are interested in sending us stuff. And that's good for us. It makes us more knowledgeable. So really, it's all upside the larger the YouTube channel grows. Numbers also looking very good for our Facebook, which has around 22,000 likes. Up from around 6,700 likes in June 2020. Facebook is really helpful in communicating with customers, especially that first step from them watching a video to them contacting us. Not so good numbers, but actually good news, Lazada and Shopee. In July 2020, we reached level 7 on Lazada, which is the highest possible level for a seller. At and from there, bumagsak na kami. Currently, we're at level 3. It's been a conscious decision on our part to move away from Lazada and Shopee. For one, the messaging system on both sides is terrible. Let's say somebody wants to return an item and I say no problem, send it back to us here at the shop, here's the address. I can't even send the address because the in-house messaging service of those two sites sends or the message. Super basic things we can't do on Lazada and Shopee. For example, customer cancellations. Customer orders, we pack it right away. Then customer decides to cancel. We say, okay, no problem. But Lazada and Shopee say, hindi pwede. Once na pack na yung item, cancellation no longer allowed. Kasala nang pa namin na sobrang bilis namin mag-pack ng items. Instead of rewarding good behavior, like a shop which packs items right away, instead we are left with a headache of following up with CS and possible shop penalties. Because now the system thinks we did not ship out the order, which we didn't kasi ayon na nga ni customer. Worse yet, we got scammed on both Laz and Shopee. Simple lang yung modus. Customer orders expensive item. He receives the item, gets it, and then puts another item inside the packaging. Then, he returns the item, claiming that we didn't send out the proper item in the first place. Sa Lazada, experience namin PSU pinadala namin, pagbalik naging foot pump. Mas malala pa sa Shopee. CPU pinadala namin, pagbalik sa amin, bato. Literally, bato. It happened on both Laz and Shopee and both times, I tried to escalate it. I tried to approach whoever saying na, ay, ito yung nangyari. I think we're a really good shop and we try to be the best shop even through other channels like Laz and Shopee. But the online platforms don't reciprocate. They don't give that love back. You know, it's really not worth it. So, why is this a good point? It encouraged us to go out on our own and to really initiate Project Pizza which is our code name for making it super easy to order from us online. And so, we can do things now that you can't do through Lazada and Shopee. Same day pick up, we got that. Up-to-date inventory na maasahan mo pag nanduna sa site, talagang available yan. Yes, we do that also. You can pay via cash, you can pay via credit card. So, we really tried to integrate all of the usual features into Project Pizza but make it better, make it faster, make it more efficient. And we're transparent. We even have a portion of the site there. We click on it, tapos lalabas lahat ng statistics from I think around October 2020. All of our number of sales broken down by region is there. So, we now ship nationwide as well. So, magadang hamon din yun. Hindi okay sa Lazada and Shopee? No problem. Let's make our own. Sales have actually gone up now that we're focused on direct sales and that's thanks to our increased visibility and social media as well as very timely referrals from very loyal customers. Thank you so much. You know who you are. And last good point. What is the aside? I think we do still have excellent customer service. When we say no BS warranty, we still mean it. We're the only PC shop I know of na pag may nasira na component tapos may extra naman kami dito sa shop will lend you that extra component kung PSU, CPU, AIO, CPU cooler just so that you can continue to use your computer habang naghiyintay tayo ng replacement. And yes, we don't get it right all the time but we do our best to try to get it right most of the time. But I think we try to get it right a lot harder than most. Kumay the good, of course, may the bad. And number one, just aesthetic, medyo na pupunon talaga yung shop. I've talked about it before where I wanted a shop na it's easy to move around. But now our inventory has increased so a lot of the time the boxes are scattered around and it's really messy. Ayoko yun. So we do need to do something about that perhaps a bigger place. Number two on the bad is we still make a lot of stupid mistakes. For example, a customer will order two fans and we only send one. Our customer orders Cooler Master White Sleeved Extension Cables and we send Phanteks White Sleeved Extension Cables. I mean, you know, those kind of errors are kind of unforgivable. I can understand if the customer is frustrated when stuff like that happens because hindi talaga dapat mangyari yun. We should double check, triple check everything that goes out to make sure na yung napadala yun na talaga yung na-order. So it happens very rarely but it still does happen and we're actually prototyping our own inventory system to ensure that things like that don't happen again. Number three, it's still kind of difficult to order a full rig from us. We do have our PC Builder on the site which is super useful. It's super easy also to copy that to the clipboard so you can post it, save it, and send it to us. But if you're a newbie to the PC Building world mali dito ka talaga sa PC Builder. And so again, usually what happens is the customer contacts us through Facebook which is its own nightmare because the UI for Facebook Business Messenger is crap. It's really shitty. It's so hard to search for messages. It's so hard to find specific messages. You can't even find specific customers. Like you remember the customer name. Uy, dumating na yung replacement PSU ni Ted, for example. Hahanapin mo yung message thread ni Ted. Hindi mo mahahanap. Even though you know it's there. Kasi madaling mawala yung message. It's hard to search. We might be getting a third party provider that comes up with a better UI. So that is a service that we're looking into. We will need to pay, but I think it will be worth it. Another thing I don't like about hardware sugar is the inventory is still limited. To be honest, we have very limited budget dito sa shop. Kaya masakit kapag nasa-scam kami tapos walang pa kayong online channels. On the positive side, that's why super helpful talaga yung regular sponsor like CDK and the YouTube membership. Those stable sources of income really go a long way to helping us dito sa budget nung shop. It's really a hand-to-mouth existence here at hardware sugar. Let's say makabenta kami nung 100K rig today. Tomorrow, gagamitin namin yung pambayad sa suppliers namin. So umi-ikot lang talaga yung pera. For a small operation, that's why we need to choose items which we think will sell right away. Kahit ako, parang paminsan, inisip ko na legit pa to hardware sugar na to. Pat pala gineng sorry we don't have that or ang konti lang nung CPU na available, ang konti lang nung GPU and things like that. It's a labor of love. Money is always tight. One of the things I always wanted for the shop is that it has these cool hard-to-find items. So we're really working on that even with our limited budget. So to sum it all up, what kind of year has it been? Yung simula namin ng year two, medyo kakatapos lang ng mga hard lockdown. So that was June 2020. And people were still emerging from their homes and wondering pano ba tong new normal nato? Component shortages, price increases, decreased mobility, masks everywhere. Needless to say, year three has been super challenging. Pero awan na, Joss. Here we are at year three, going stronger in some areas. Many areas still for improvement. But overall, it's been a fun ride. Maraming shortages ngayon, but one thing na wala talagang cool ang dito sa hardware sugar are our ideas. We have so many ideas to make the shop better, to make the shopping experience more comfortable. And useful and interesting to the end user. Nakakatawa din kasi it's not just us, me and my brother with ideas, pero kahit yung staff namin. You've noticed some new faces here on the YouTube channel. So Rocky the programmer, Jay the tech guy. And even behind the scenes, we've added people that have the same passion for what we do. Looking forward to what the next year will bring. And again, I have to say thank you to all of you guys. Thank you for watching, subscribing, liking. Thank you for buying from the shop. Our goal has always been cool parts for cool people. And hopefully, we get to meet more cool people and bring in more cool parts this coming year. And thank you to our top fans. Na-affordo namin to kupuwa na to. Andejok lang. Thank you to Leah Magnaya, Ian Meru, Richard Ongkinko, ITX Addict, John Ruben Ocha, Christian Espinoza, and Raphael James. Thank you for supporting the channel.