Review: Lombok - Eastern Inspired Living

Disclaimer: This is a paid review. However, I have tried to review the site in as unbiased manner as possible.

Lombok is a UK based furniture and home furnishing company. They make high-end furniture and home accessories and sell it all over the world through their website lombok.co.uk.

Their website catalogs all their furniture home and decorative items in an attractive and organized fashion. I found that they have very unique offerings in decorative items like lighting, candles, decorative bowls etc. Although I found them a bit pricey but if you want to create a certain look for your home you might find yourself willing to spend the amount. Right now they are also offering 20% discount on selected items which makes them much more affordable.

The furnishing section is also intersting. Most of their cushions, throws and other furnishings are created with high end materials like silk, velvet and taffeta and are hand embroidered. This makes them attractive as well as expensive. I didn't quit like the fact that most of the furnishings are dry clean only but I do realize that we don't need to get furnishings cleaned as much as we do our clothes so that might not be such a big expense.

The furniture available on the website has more classic designs, with simple, yet stylish structures. The company claims to have built most of its furniture from reclaimed teak planks called "dinglik", imported from Indonesia. This makes the company and its products very eco-friendly because they are recycling wood, instead of cutting live trees to make their furniture. They also mention that this recycled wood is sturdier and less likely to be ruined by moisture. Currently the website is offering buy 2 get 1 free promotion for all of their furniture. Considering the fact that the furniture is genuine teak wood and the B2G1 free offer, the price seems to be about ok.

Bottomline:

The website will be a good resource for people who have a certain look in mind for their home furnishing and furniture and wouldn't mind spending a bit more to create that precise look. Since the raw materials used in the products are quality I would think the items would last. One good thing about the furniture and accessories are that they have a classic look about them so they won't go out of fashion soon. If you're outside Europe then you may have to consider the shipping costs too, which may be substantial. I tried doing a dummy purchase to find out how much shiping would cost me in US but the website says that I'll have to call to find out shipping charges.

Since we have bought most of our furniture used, I found the prices on the website to be a bit high for my tastes, although I caught myself drooling all over their silk cushions and the quilts.

Review - MoveMe - Renting or Buying, Reconnect your life

Disclaimer: This is a paid review. However, I have tried to review the site in as unbiased manner as possible.

MoveMe is a site that provides users move related services and tools. The first thing that I noticed about the site was its neat interface and intuitive presentation. They claim to take the stress out of moving. While my experience says that it may not be entirely possible, I'll hand it to Move me that it offers a lot of nifty tools and services that can relieve you of a lot of move related worries.

The first thing that I found instantly appealing is their move planner. Using it, you can create a step by step list of activities leading up to your day of move. I've a thing for lists so maybe I'm just being too happy, but they have a really neat list of "to do" things that we need while planning a move, like informing our banks and other institutions about our new address.

The web-site has been made to become a one stop shop of all move related needs and it seemed pretty comprehensive. It has lot of resources depending upon your particular situation (e.g. buying, selling or renting, moving with children etc). I felt that the checklists provided and the suggestions given can be a good starting point for anybody considering a move in the near future.

MoveMe has a big section of referrals for various services and move related products. Since the advertisements are practically absent ( there are some but they are not prominent), I guess the website earns some referral bonus for its recommendations. You can request quotes for practically everything that you would need during a move - Movers, Removal quotes, Insurance etc. They even offer financial ( mortgage quotes, credit report etc), legal services for people who're considering buying/selling houses. You can request free mortgage quotes, Home Survey etc here.

I haven't tried getting quotes for any services because I don't need any right now but they have categorized the services nicely. I remember that when we had moved last time I had a hard time getting quotes from movers. I had posted an ad for moving help on craigslist and all the calls I got were by big movers whose minimum was too high for me. At that time we had very little stuff and all we needed was a mover with a truck who would haul our stuff to our new place. Move me has a special "Man and Van" section for such needs.

It is a relatively new site and it shows in its interface, some of its input forms show errors when there are none, but I'm sure they will be able to remedy that with time. The site has advertisements on its homepage but I found them unobtrusive. MoveMe has also been awarded Yahoo! People's choice award and Yahoo! Innovation award for the year 2007.

To summarize, here are the things that I really liked abut the website:

• Easy to navigate interface
• Comprehensive resources and nifty tools
• Unobtrusive advertisements

Few things that I didn't like/don't know about:

• The input form had an error on it.
• Don't have an idea about the client base that it has. It is fairly new so its possible that it doesn't have as many vendors in its database, although I didn't request for quotes so I can't comment on that.
• Doesn't have a special section for students moving to dorms. I strongly feel that this particular group of users needs to be targeted with a special section tailored to their needs.
  

All in all, MoveMe is a resource worth checking out if you're planning a move of any kind in the near future. It even offers a free moving box as a promotion.