Shopping Galore!

Heya!

Today I headed over to the Liquido HQ in São Paulo, Brazil to purchase more stocks. We have plans to start selling in Langkawi, Malaysia, so it was time to stock up.

The Liquido HQ is located in the so-called fashion district of São Paulo, where a lot of clothing wholesalers and retailers are located. The picture below shows the unassuming entrance of the Liquido HQ.

Not too exciting from the outside

Like most pleasant surprises in life, what lies inside was nicer than what could be seen from the outside. This is what greets you as you make your way torwards the offices of the sales and marketing team.

And here's the waiting area with the Liquido 'Hall of Fame'. These are basically framed up magazine covers of some of their past and present catalogs.

I had a brief chat with their marketing team and we made our way to their warehouse. In respect of their privacy and security, I will not post any photos of their warehouse, but imagine this...

Rows, and rows and rows of shelves containing boxes of bikinis in every cut, color, style and fabric you can imagine. The International Marketing Manager and I spent 6 hours looking through them - and we still aren't done with our shopping!

My main concern was choosing the right cut that will be suitable for the Malaysian market. The 'fio dental' style which is popular in Rio de Janeiro will be totally unacceptable in Malaysia (see picture below).

'Fio dental' bikini bottom

So we looked through the pieces and choose styles that were a bit more conservative that covered more of the body. Probably the sexiest cut (in reference to the bikini bottoms) that I will bring into Malaysia will be something like the picture below. Which is acceptable by Malaysian standards and still smoking hot! (Well, in my humble opinion, at least!) 

 

As mentioned above, there were so many styles that after 6 hours, we weren't even finished with our bikini shopping. I'll have to come back another day to wrap-up the bikinis and to also look through their beach wear (wraps, skirts, dresses, etc) and also their fitness wear.

Not that I'm complaining. Which woman doesn't like to shop? :D

Only one way to wear a Brazilian bikini - Proudly

Back home in Malaysia, there are some women who are too shy to wear bikinis.

I remember having a conversation with a friend from Colombia. We were just talking about beaches and cultures in general.

I was telling him about Malaysian culture; how there are some women who cover up, even at beaches, due to their religious beliefs. And then, there are other women who also choose to cover up, not because of religous believes but because they are too self concious about their bodies.

To which my friend Simon responded, "Well, in Colombia, ALL WOMEN wear bikinis. If someone doesn't wear a bikini, they are bad". I never really clarified what he meant by 'bad'... but with him being a 30-something year old Colombian, I would assume that if he had his way, ALL women would wear nothing but bikinis all the time (Hehe). Especially since typical Colombian women look like these lovely ladies below:

Before I lived in Brazil, I was one of those women who felt extremely self concious about my body.  When wearing a bikini, I would cover up (see picture below).

I remember the very first time I hung out on a Brazilian beach. It was Copacabana beach and I was with my buddy Daigo. We had just picked out a spot, planted our umbrella and were settling in.

And that's when I saw HER.

My jaw dropped and I did a double take.
I'm sure all of us (to a certain extent) are familiar that Brazilian bikinis are probably some of the sexiest in the world, but to see this in the flesh still very was surprising.

Walking along the beach, you'll see this..

Women, of all shapes, sizes and ages were wearing bikinis and being completely relaxed and comfortable in their bodies. Some were skinny, others were not. Some were voluptuous with big butts, wearing teeny-tiny bikinis and displaying their curves proudly.

You will see everything from this..

To this.. 

In Brazil, all women wear bikinis at the beach and you will be the odd one out if you wear a one-piece bathing suit (or a t-shirt and shorts). I saw 60-year old ladies sun bathing in bikinis. And even big women were not the least bit self-concious. If you think you're fat (which I always do) you will find other women more full-figured than you, wearing a bikini and looking fabulous. 

That day, I learnt why Brazilian women are considered to be some of the most beautiful women on earth. They are confident and proud.

Just yesterday I Googled 'Brazilian woman' and this is one of the first few pictures to pop up.

This woman is GORGEOUS. She is not super skinny. Nor does she have the perfect facial features of Gisele Bündchen. But she is confident and proud and oozes sensuality. And that, in my humble opinion is what makes a woman stand out.

Having lived in São Paulo for some time, I may have picked up a habit or 2. I am no longer self-concious whenever I wear bikinis. I have a few dozen in my wardrobe which I looove wearing.

This picture below was taken recently.

After seeing with my own eyes how some Brazilian women who are more full-figured and curvaceous than me can look like Goddesses wearing teeny tiny bikinis, I started to believe that I could look decent too. Once I believed it on the inside, it started showing on the outside. And others started believing it in too.

So to all my liberal girl pals, wear your bikinis proudly and shine like the beach goddesses that you are! ;)

The Kinky Blue Fairy

Good morning folks! (at least it's still Saturday morning in São Paulo, as I am writing this).

Recently, I got in touch with Joyce Wong, Malaysia's celebrity blogger, which also goes by her (online) alter-ego, the Kinky Blue Fairy.

I have been advised that I should get in touch with people within the 'community' (online fashion and lifestyle bloggers) and introduce Liquido Beach and Fitness to them. The idea is to have these bloggers feature Liquido in their blog.With more online presence on various websites/blogs, more traffic should be directed to my site.

So I checked out the blog of the Kinky Blue Fairy.

She seems like a really cool chick. A petite beauty, with intense eyes and flaming red hair.

Picture taken from www.kinkybluefairy.net

We got in touch. We discussed if I could feature Liquido on her blog. She was super cool and we discussed some options. At the end of the discussion; we came down to a win-win conclusion.

She was heading to Thailand, and then Pulau Rawa and could use some new beachwear. I will sponsor the following outfits:

Tropical Palm Bikini

Mesh top and sportsbra

She will head for her trip, wear the outfits, take pictures and post about them on her blog. For her readers, we will run a competition on her blog. The winners will get to choose ANYTHING from the online store as their prize :)

It is going to be an easy competition and will take place sometime in June, so stay tuned. I'm excited to see the results of this little exercise, and of course I will share it here.

That's all for now. Have a good weekend, folks!

Working Lives: Rio de Janeiro

While surfing on the BBC website today, I came across this lovely article.

It's part of a BBC segment on Brazil, titled 'Brazil Direct - Going Beyond the Headlines'.

There were lots of articles, some interesting, some boring. There was a particular piece done; an insight into the lives of 6 different people living and working in Rio de Janeiro.

The people featured were the following:

A Doorman, Musician, Actress, Fashion Designer, Flight Attendant & Beach Seller

I watched all 6 of them, and my favourite was the doorman. He left his hometown in the Northeast of Brazil and headed to Rio at the tender age of 18 to find a decent job. He managed to find one as a doorman and has been working in the same apartment block for 55 years.

He earns USD 11,000 a year. Despite his humble lifestyle, his oldest son is now doing a postdoctoral fellowship in physics in the United States.

Awesome.

Please watch this video and read the article that follows. It's heartwarming and will bring a smile to your face.

Click on the picture below or click on this link here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-19531315

A doorman in Rio de Janeiro talks about his life

My Experience as a Seller on Zalora

I have been selling Liquido Beach & Fitness Wear on Zalora ever since January 2013.

 

So far, I have found my interactions with them quite professional and their services satisfactory.

I was introduced to a contact within Zalora by the awesome folks of Futsalworks. Futsalworks is an online store selling everything futsal related. It is run by 2 friends who are passionate about the sport. We met in São Paulo when they were in town to meet with their Brazilian vendors.

Back to Zalora. My first meeting with them was back in August 2012, where I presented Liquido Beach & Fitness Wear to them and we discussed the terms (margins, payment terms, etc) After a couple of weeks of back and forth negotiations, we settled on some terms that were agreeable to both parties.

I'm quite impressed by how they displayed my products on their site. They hired a model to wear my products as they did the photoshoot. Some of the bikin designs came in more than one color and they took pictures of all the colors. Zalora beared the cost to hire the model and the photographer and I was not charged for this service.

Liquido Chain-Link Design, available in 4 Colors - Red, Blue, Black & Teal

Let's take my best selling design, for example. The Liquido Chain-Link design that you see above comes in 4 colors. The model wore all the colors and pictures were taken from 5 different angles. All the pictures (of the different colors and angles) were them uploaded onto their website, for customers to view. You may view the pages here.

At the begining of each month, the zalora sales team will send me a report of the previous month's sales via email. I will check the figures and send them an invoice. And then I get paid based on our agreed payment terms.

One can expect to receive the sales report by the 5th or 6th of the month. If you don't receive your sales report, you can just drop them an email and they will usually respond within 24 hours. No complaints there.

They are also good paymasters, so no complaints there either! :)

Overall, I am quite happy to be selling Liquido through zalora. The only problem I am facing is that my sales are not as spectacular as I was hoping. I guess I was naive enough to believe that once I had my products online, potential customers will magically pop out of nowhere and start buying.

Not the case! It dawned on me that no random person would actually go to Google and search for 'Liquido Beach & Fitness Wear' if they don't even know that we exist. I'll need to do a lot, a lot, a LOT of marketing. 

I'll have to start getting creative and work HARD. I am a small startup with minimum capital, so it's not as if I have the luxury of throwing a lot of money into a nationwide marketing campaign.

Well... That's the fun part, I guess. If this were easy, there would be so many Brazilian Bikini Tycoons in Malaysia already :)

If you readers have any tips for me, please share them in the comment boxes below. Any feedback/ tips/ advice will be very much appreciated!

Little know Brazilian Culture

Every country with 4 seasons will have these:
- The summer blockbuster movie of the year
AND
- The summer hit song.

In 2012, there were 2 particular songs that caught Brazil (and the rest of Latin America) by storm. The first was 'Ai Se Eu Te Pego' by Michel Telo. For those of you who do not know this song, you are missing out on the most awesomest thing that ever came out of Brazil in 2012! (You can't really go wrong with a YouTube video that has 498 Million views)

Here's the video, please watch it now! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcm55lU9knw

'Ai Se Eu Te Pego' was crazy popular. During Carnival in February in 2012, this song was played everywhere, over and over again. Back then, my Portuguese was still crap, but yet, I still memorized this song.

This song came with it's own dance. The dance moves involved grabbing someone and humping them (I'm serious... hahaha! You can't expect anything less from a Brazilian summer hit song!)

In fact, this song was so popular amoung college students in the USA that Michel Telo made an English version. The lyrics sound ridicolous in English, but it is still very, very fun. The English version can be seen here (amoungst beautiful Brazilian women in Brazilian bikinis).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pavp93_RweA

In my humble opinion, the Portuguese version sounds cooler compared to the English version.

The other song worth mentioning is 'Tchu Tcha Tcha' by João Lucas & Marcelo. This song is really fun and silly with ridicolous lyrics, and was crazy popular during the summer of 2012 in Brazil too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO-DatNb5D8

Here's part of the lyrics (translated from Portuguese to English)

" I arrived at the party, craving for a beer
The guys here are in the vibe, everyone wants to dance
A girl called me and said: Do the "tchu tcha tcha" to me
I asked her "What is it like?" She said "Let me show you"
It's a sexy dance, it catched on in Goiania
It was an explosion in Minas (Gerais), it catched on in Tocantins
The girls from the North dance to it, it's gonna catch on this summer
So do the "tchu tcha tcha" to me. The whole Brazil will sing it along
With João Lucas e Marcelo"

For the benefit of those who are not familiar, Goiania, Minas & Tocantins are names of states in Brazil. 

In 2013, a popular Brazilian summer hit song was, 'Ah Leleke Leke Leke Leke'.

Remember the first time you saw 'Gangnam Style' on YouTube?
I remember mine... I was like.. "What the hell IS THIS???" Well, you might have the exact same reaction when you watch 'Ah Leleke Leke Leke Leke' for the first time.
Don't say I didn't warn you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPhmwR3cIeo

'Ah Leleke Leke Leke Leke' is Brazilian Funk, popularized in Rio de Janeiro. Here's what wikipedia had to say about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_carioca. "increasingly popular amongst (mainly) low classes in other parts of Brazil" - kinda explains a lot doesn't it. :P

If you enjoyed 'Ah Leleke Leke Leke Leke', you might enjoy this next video that I am about reveal to you. It's like, the ULTIMATE Brazilian Funk; you will either love it or hate it; laugh ot cry. The choice is up to you to click on this link. Again, don't say I didn't warn you !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CpKLRxtFzmI

That's all and have a great weekend you all !

If these videos inspired you to go shopping for a sexy Brazilian bikini, check out this awesome website here: www.liquido.com.my