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Mark & ChristineR: I added etsy several years ago, which I mentioned here at the time. I cross posted to Etsy about 900 of my 1,200 listings at that time. Years later still at about that same number.
Running Sales 5-7- or 10 days at a time on both, use promoted listings on Ebay and do a dollar a day advertising on Etsy.
Annual Gross numbers comparison:
My P&L shows for 2021 … Ebay sales=$23,000 and Etsy Sales=$7,000
For 2022 Year end [except for these last few days] Ebay=$11,000 and Etsy $4,000
So with the same type, and amount of inventory and doing the same type, style and length of promotions overall sales are down about 50% this year.
Just an FYI .. Mike in Atl.
Yeah. Through the years there were a lot of great threads about how to do this and how to do that on SL. Many active members back then. I have been watching from the time Mike and Wendy headed things up and Jay and Ryanne were just starting with them. Think Mike and Wendy became long distance runners and started traveling around many states.
Leanered a lot here on SL both from and along with everyone. What sold was important, but also how to do it correctly, how to deal with issues and problems, work arounds, what NOT to do from everyone.
Believe it or not, my BETA version of LP does have the ability to end everything on all platforms and also leave the name of the platform the item sold on already. But you do have to click on the item in the LP catalogue and click the Sold button.
They have also added a “What Sold” button to the opening page but again it is only in the latest BETA version and not made public yet.
Yes, I have a fairly long list of suggestion for LP and I am pushing those to the tech guys and Amanda [co-owner] slowly. The problem is the coding they use is not conclusive to doing relational database things. But I think as I feed them SixBit Inventory Management type of suggestions that they will keep getting better and better, at least on the Pro-version.
I have revamped our art and woodworking studios along with adding a huge AEON 24″ x 36″ Laser cutter and engraver to create wood items as well as laser engrave glasses, tumblers and some metal items and will be making a slow transition to items we make ourselves and mix in along with some older vintage things, but very select. By making our own items we can have multiple quantities always on hand. Plus we need to cater to a younger audience these days. In addition Susan had a 3 year fight with cancer then two knee replacements and now both types of arthritis so she just can’t get out and source any longer. Very wobbly on her feet and no stairs for her.
It’s nice to see that some of the regulars are still here. Of course Jay, and others but the list of who’s signed in at times are down to just 5 or 6 as compared to dozens in times past. When Jay began bowing out the drop off was very noticeable and SL then became more of look what I sold rather than the detailed information center it used to be. Troy Satterfield added a bunch of data back then. And I do check in on and off and find some tid-bits but numbers are just numbers and if as Jay taught us, “know your numbers”, then we all know that. But the bigger questions now are how to operate in the newer AI environments and navigate the constantly changing Algorithm’s.
As Jay used to say, “Change is inevitable” and I say “Keep on Truckin!”.
I know Jay always said I did way too long of a post. He likes short and sweet. But many convo’s had tons of data in them.
Take care guys…
Mike in Atlanta
Hello Mark: Has been awhile since I last posted.
We made the transition from SixBit over to List Perfectly the first of this year. We did something almost similar to what you are doing but just further along with it.
We imported ALL of our Ebay store into List Perfectly first. Then we “pushed” [cross-posted all of that to our Etsy and Shopify stores. So all inventory [1,250 +/-] items are on all 3 platforms.
Now we are going through each listing and using the free built in LP photo editor to knock out all backgrounds of all the older inventory items and also using the slider button to lighten the brightness of all the old, darker photos. What a difference that makes. Makes each item look like brand new photos. Then also going through all the various fields and doing SEO and creating tags for the other platforms. We just click “UPDATE” after we finish each one and the new and improved version of each listing over writes the old listing on all three platforms while keeping the same ID numbers on each platform
Yes it was some work, but it all got done except for the SEO and photo edits.
Reason we left SixBit was we didn’t need that “Robust” and complex of a program and we are saving about $100 per month. SixBit was $160 month and LP is only $69 AND LP is cloud based so it is always there and our helpers can easily work from home and own their own schedules without having to be here in the office. One other reason is SixBit only posted to Ebay, Etsy and Shopify [even though we could push some Shopify items to several other sites], but ListPerfectly allows 13 platforms currently. Some of which are not suited to vintage hard goods though. But there is a manul method for doing more than the original 13. AND on LP there is no limit on items to list like InkFrog and some others.
No, LP doesn’t do as much as SixBit and not as automated but they are coming along. I am in the BETA program and also making many suggestions to their tech team on how to make LP more automated, though some things will never be able to be done because of the type of coding LP uses, but they are coming along.
Good luck with finishing up your whole LP catalog and getting cross-posted on all of your other platforms. If you have a Shopify store you can use it to also post to Instagram, FaceBook Market Place and get that to synch back to Ebay, thus then in return back into ListPerfectly. Again some extra manual work than SixBit but LP is getting there also.
Happy Holidays Everyone and feels nice to post back to ScavengerLife again.
Mike at MDC Concepts-MDC Galleries-Collins Creek Collections in Atlanta
On the title subject, Etsy has even stopped showing the word vintage in it’s search. If you go to Etsy and type in vintage glassware, the word vintage just disappears and glassware is used. Try it with several tile searches using vintage anything.
Here is a quick guide to what the bots seem to be looking for in those first 5 or six words. Brand, what is is [object], Material, size/dimension, feature #1, feature #2, from there on run out all of the 82 characters with most relevant Item Specific [keywords]. Color way toward the end. Most photos show color now and also Ebay new item specifics even pushes the use of multi-color. No punctuation of any kind or #, @, [], * etc., etc. and no “and, buts, or, with, from, by, etc.
Value those 82 characters as “prime realestate”. Remember vintage is anything over 20 years old, but that changes every year, so as of today anything before 2002 is “vintage”. Feeling old yet? LOL :-). Long tail run on phrases are becoming “old school”. Yep it’s a new world and things are a’changin!
Yep.. will keep you informed on laser update. Ordered last Oct. and just now getting crated to ship to me from Melbourne, FL.
Hey you two. Thinking about you also. I was sitting here drinking a cup of Sumatra and thinking about ordering another sample pack from you guys.
Hope all is going well with ya’ll. Susan has had 2-1/2 years of health issues as you know but also had to have 2 total knee replacements 90 days apart. Lot’s of terrible pain. As a result, I have fired up my art studio, expanded my wood working shop and have a huge laser cutter and engraver coming in next week. I am going to gravitate over to making my own products with some vintage one of a kind mixed in. By making my own products I can have multiples in stock and just replace as needed.
Fine art paintings, limited edition prints, custom clocks, lamps and artist designed and signed household-kitchen items along with custome engraving of other owners items as gifts. Will see how this goes.
Still say you guys need to rethink those first five or six words of your titles. All of the algorithms now look to those first 5 words as a way to quickly discover what your item is. Vtg. red, fuzzy, foam, used is wasting “title real estate”. Try Baseball, Sports Cap Hat Snapback. Algorithyms then knows what it is you are trying to sell. Also both Ebay and Etsy have now altered their bots to start crawling the discription areas and want to see keywords and tags being used in the description areas. Etsy may even be doing away with tags altogether.
But that would be a long thread for Jay and us to battle out like the old ScavengerLife days. :-). In any case miss the old tit for tat messages we used to create in a more active SL arena.
Ryanne, you have my email addy, if you need pricing on anything don’t hesitate to send me a request. I am in fron of the computer almost 24/7 these days. We still have two helpers but only for a few hours each week to do the speed typing for us.
Keep mentioning to Susan that when she can walk better we should come up and visit, see you guys and also maybe bring my daughter to tour the caverns. Susan can’t do it because of having to use a walker. Same reason she can’t hit up garage or estate sales any longer.
Good to char again.. check you later. Will be ordering some coffee this week.
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc. MDC Galleries, Collins Creek Collections, SmartParts Craft Supplies … Susan, Kim, Lisa, Karen, and Michael “Live to Create and Celebrate!”
Hey Ryanne:
Sold for 10 lb. [about $16.84 american]
Mike at mdc galleries in Atlanta
Also check TerraPeak in your seller hub. I see 4 Megadeath solds in the last 12 months from $400 to $700 but the thumbnail is so small I can’t confirm if it is the same image or not.
Mike at MDC C0ncepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Here ‘ya go. $89.95 sold in March 2017.
Mike at MDC C0ncepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries in Atlanta
That particular patch shows it sold for $12.51 in 2010.
There are two other ones listed..
* Both were sold in 2019 one for $66 and the other for $35 BUT… These two both had the wording “Cherryland” around the top. The one you showed and shown on WP does not have the word..Cherryland on it.Hope this helps..
Mike at MDC GalleriesWow.. Yep felt like I have grown up on Ebay with you guys. You are right there is a ton of stuff out there online and much is very specific and topic related.
You touched on my question and that is, is there going to be a way to still get all of the past episodes. I have many of them but not all. With over 700+ posts that I have done and many specfically addressing art topics and inventory systems, I would really like to capture all of those.
Are you still going to charge $99 to get all the past episodes or maybe offer a deep discount for those of us who would like to get and save all of the episodes.
Again, sad to see you guys pull the plug. Is Steven Schultz still going to be making his what sold vids on his own and if so, where?
Wish you guys all the best life has to offer and may you “LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!” V
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
HEY RTWV..And.. it saves you money.
How.. Re-configuring a box shape still leaves you with the same amount of Cubic inches, just in a different shape. But after you have either reconfigured a box or are going to use a regular box, either generic or any of the regular USPS Priority boxes, place your bubble wrapped item inside along with dunnage and place back on the scale.
If you get a weight of just a few ounces over any pound mark, then use the resizer to pull an extra inch or two off of the top and also shorten two of the flaps slightly. Then re-weigh the box and you may find you have dropped below the pound mark and saved a few dollars per box.
Example. Take a 12x12x12 box. Place your final bubble wrapped item inside. If you discover that you have an inch or two at the top, then size it down to 12x12x10.
If that box was 5.2 lbs. on the scale before hand you will have to ship it at the 6 lb. weight [rounded up]. But, now after reducing the size down those 2 inches you weigh and discover your weight has been reduced to 4.9 lbs. then you will ship at the 5 lb. mark, saving you a lb.
We do this several times a week, every week. Even just shortening the flaps sometimes does it without having to drop the box height down but usually need to do both the flaps and height off to get enough of a weight drop.
The whole process takes about 60 seconds. If we save $2 to $3 on a box 2 or 3 times a week x 52 weeks we save hundreds per year. this measurement and process we do on every box we ship as the last thing before we seal it up, and have done so for many years.
So for safety of your item, having better interior spacing re-configuring a box as you have shown and then resizing the box with the re-sizer is a no brainer for us and a SOP when we ship.
mike at MDC Concepts, Inc. – MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Another thing just came to mind. To help organize things per project, when you get credit cards bills, especially if you have a business C/C is you can “split” the line items or even one line item into separate categories. Order let’s say 100 towels for the rentals. You can split that total purchase into the 3 or 4 places and allocate 25 to ea. of 4 or 50 to the Farm house and 25 ea. to the other locations as long as you have set-up your COA and expenses by say the b usiness names or addresses.
Also a good idea is to start issung Purchase Orders for goods and services. It helps all the way around. Ask your vendors ro bill you by your business names and or separate addresses. Have your cleaning service send you 4 invoices, one for each location and then pay by invoice.
And yep, Quicken allows you to create Purchase Orders and will remind you when certain bills are due if you set them up on reminders in your Quicken Calendar.
Never pay bills by stament. Always pay by Invoice. That way you can select and pay your payables by Inv. number. If you have a problem with a particular product or order you placed, you can pay the before and after invoices but hold up on that specific invoice until you resolve the issues at hand.
Worth mentioning since I forgot it in last post.
Mike – MDCGFA
The simple answer, which I am not known for is yes and yes. Absolutely on all accounts.
But there is more to the story.
- Yes, it synchs with every account you have. Businesses, stock and investment portfolios, mortgages, savings accounts, credit cards, auto loans, HELOC accounts, any type of account you set-up with it.
- But just like with GDBK you will have to set up those accounts, give account and routing numbers, passwords, etc. It has its own password vault that is locked up inside of Quicken, very much like RoboForm.
- Every morning, all I do is click the “One Step Update” button and Quicken goes out to every account I have set up for it and does an update to all activity, deposits, payments, reimbursements, refunds, stock trades, 401k interest, and updates all of those accounts and places a red flag on those accounts. Then I get a chance to click the red flags and approach them as a whole batch or one by one if I wish.
- Then it synchs to the cloud automatically and keeps a back up of everything, plus I also have it make a separate back-up to our 4-terra byte external hard drive. Nothing like having redundant back-ups. J
- With regards to handling separate accounts and also separate businesses. That is where property Management Module comes into play. When we built those 4 houses in North GA, I set up each house as an account by it’s address. Then taught Quicken to “learn” which is nothing more than mapping certain expenses to certain accounts [addresses] and from that point on, those get categorized by that address [i.e., project, or property].
- This all functions just like Ryanne did with GDBK. Daily she clicked to update. Everything she had already categorized in GDBK went directly to that module [i.e., journal sort of]. AND ANY new type of purchases/expenses or income [i.e., payables or receivables] that were brand new, of course she had to map them to the chart of accounts.
- Those charts of accounts would have to be set-up in the beginning [Your CPA] will help you with that sequence and then each business would have its own “set of COA’s] so you could separate each type of Pay./Rec. would go to it.
- It can get as complex or as simple as you want. Example: Maid service you pay for, you can have just one COA entry as “Janitorial” for all of your business combined OR you can have a “Janitorial” category under each AB&B rental and the coffee shop as 4 or 5 different business you set up. I did the 4 houses as 2514 House, 2519 House, 2534 House and 2546 House. Set up my COA [payable and receivable categories] for each and ran those 4 projects just like 4 separate businesses. We did under one bank account, but I could have just as easily set up separate bank accounts and even separate credit cards on each.
- When using any of these programs one needs to have an understanding of basic bookkeeping.
- All the programs work approx. the same EXCEPT with Double Entry bookkeeping there is a GENERAL LEDGER that tracks every journal that satellites off of it. User entries are made in the “Journals”. Just the little green manual handwritten books. A stack of journals represented a journal for each category type. A payables journal, a receivables journal, purchasing, bank accounts, etc., etc. Modern day journals are all digital.
- The General Journal is where all of those entries are “compiled” into one main master LEDGER. The reason it is called DOUBLE entry is you would hand write everything in your daily journals, which ever one represented the topic you were dealing with. Cash payments, or payables [paying your vendors], THEN you would also have to come back and do the same thing in the GENERAL LEDGER. Thus, Double entry. You could make an error in the journals, erase and correct them, etc. but VERY CAREFUL SCRUTINY had to be paid to the GL. Usually your CPA would reconcile your daily journals, cross reference to the GL and make sure everything balanced. Thus, the rise of the “Bookkeeper” profession. Just too much work for a business owner when they had a business to “RUN”.
- Well modern tech. made everything digital. So, the journals are still used, and also the General LEDGER connected [double entry] but all is done automatically. But make an error in the journals, and if you know some accounting, one can figure out the erroneous “posts” in the journals and correct them. Make a bunch of errors and they get posted to a GL, then usually it is a trip to the CPA to get everything back in synch and balanced. Many CPA’s will password protect the GL to keep you out of it. A novice can really mess things up by adding or deleting within a GL. It needs to be handled according to the American Standards of Accounting principles.
Now this is all very basic, glossed over explanation and as we all have said for years. Talk to your CPA. Call yours Jay and ask, do I need to pay $365 per year for a Dbl. bookkeeping program or will a single do the job. He may like the Dbl. because it gives him more control and CPA like QuickBooks because they have the CPA version and can work remotely easier. Also, if you are going to have a lot of invoicing to do, carry WIP [work in process] in years end and carry these over as either assets or liabilities at years end, and need to operate on an Accrual basis instead of on a CASH basis, then the Double Entry system is a better choice.
Many reports can be printed from Quicken just like QB. P&L statements just not only for your over financial picture, but if you set up different companies [or properties], you can track P&L by each property you rent. Would you like to know which of your “businesses” are more profitable than the others? Which property is your weakest one? Knowing this may help you to decide if you want to maybe sell off one of them.
Sure, your CPA can do this, but at a cost. If you get to know your accounting software, you can do the same yourself. AND also, this applies to investments. Did you do a “Proforma” for your Coffee Business and a break-even scenario? I sure hope so. It will inform you way ahead of time if you are failing or succeeding so you can forecast a corrective measure. Like should you lower wages, fire an employee and split duties between others.
A good accounting program and knowledge of it’s use is a business tool every owner needs to have and know what the reports mean. The P&L will tell you what percentage of your income is going to which parts of your COA [chart of accounts] and show you where your overspending problems are so you can respond and correct.
This can all be done in either a single or double entry system.
Quicken also has a module for you to create personal and business budgets and will track actual against hypothetical [a budget]. Pull daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly reports on everything. The days of receivables go into my left pocket and my payables come out of my right pocket and if anything is left over in either pocket, I am OK or making money, has been over for a long time.
OK now that I have ventured into this topic, as a non-accounting professional I am sure Sharyn, Mark Tewes will shut me up fairly quickly. There are many on this forum who know there accounting very, very, well much more so than I.
You waited years to get into an inventory management system and a centralized storage area then jumped in but had to make up a lot of ground which took time. Then went to GDBK which again was not “robust” as you called Quicken and QuickBooks back in the day. Now it is time to get into solid accounting software. Troy and I were spread sheet guys, but they all fall short when it comes to locking in on an accounting program, complex or not.
Here is a suggestion, for your next employee-helper, why not hire a person with accounting experience, either Quicken or QuickBooks, let them help you guys set it up, set up a proper COA, categorize your business into separate customized categories AND cross train them to help with the Ebay business and as a fill in at the coffee shop. Cross training is a great way to cover your basis with only one employee. Teach them to take phots, create a quick list draft, serve tables, and do your books and help with simple social media tasks. Our two helpers are cross trained on 4 or 5 things they can do for us.
So how is that for a wall of text. Been a while for one of these. 🙂
Just a suggestion and all of this is of course respectfully submitted for your consideration. Now here comes all the accounting types to set all of this straight. 🙂
Kindest Regards,
Michael with the MDC Concepts, Inc. team
Susan, Lisa, Kim, Christie, Loruhama and Michael
- MDC Galleries and Fine Art
- Collins Creek Collections
- SmartParts Craft & Equip. Supplies
- “Live to Create and Celebrate.”
Hey J&R … Here’s a FIRST. Just sold 4 decorative plates to someone in Luray, VA., Kimbell Rd..
Sold a few pcs. to buyers in my own town, but first to someone in yours. 🙂
Mike – MDCGFA – Atl.
The word on other forums from some admins. who correspond with Ebay employees [so they say], is that Ebay is trying to “FIX’ the way buyers use the Shopping cart and to allow buyers to buy less costly items, and stretch out over sveral days to buy multiple items and sellers to build up sales.
Many collectors of smaller items like cards. many ephemera / paper / advertising pieces want or need to be able to buy and combine shipping and also allow sellers to ship in multiple boxes.
Now if this is true, that Ebay is messing with allowing delayed payments for these and other reasons, then here we go. I see more messes coming from Ebay on top of the restructing of categories and Item Specifics. They will probably wait until fourth quarter to start messing with that. LOL 🙂
Mike – MDCGFA – Atlanta
- Yes, it synchs with every account you have. Businesses, stock and investment portfolios, mortgages, savings accounts, credit cards, auto loans, HELOC accounts, any type of account you set-up with it.
