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Hi Maggie.. VERO is an interesting program and is mainly an Ebay invention. Ebay has a list of all of the companies that have signed up for and participate in the VERO Program. The main focus from the Manufacturers or the “Brand” franchise is that when we as Ebay sellers try to sell their merchandise we are not authorized resellers. In other words the original point of sale authorized dealers. They seem to not want anybody to “re-sell” their stuff unless we have been approved to do so.
Now also many companies also include into the VERO program the protection against any one selling knocks offs, reproductions of their original items which is all encompassing along with the thought that we are not authorized to sell their brand anyway.
and this link takes you to a private web site where the members list over 160 companies that they have recived VERO notices from and or had their listings removed.
As you read down this list keep in mind that basically what these companies want is #1) don’t sell counterfeit items of our “brand” and #2 Don’t use our name, to sell our original items under your store name even though they are genuine and original, while using our name to do so, since you are not an authorized re-seller. Example: Velcro as we all know is a “hook and loop” invention and many of us have hats and other articles that have “velcro” fasteners and most are probably “original” Velcro material [some may not be], but Velcro just doesn’t want anyone to use their “Brand Name” in their listing in order to “RE_SELL” something. They are worried about it being original velcro or not, because all hook and loop processes do work the same. It is just a matter of don’t use our name.
“Coach” takes both stances, don’t sell knocks off and call them Coach and also don’t use our name to go re-selling our merchandise in your little Ebay, Craigslist or elsewhere.
The point though is as an “original buyer” of one of these items have we also bought the right to re-sell our personal items to anybody or anyway we want without the “original” company getting involved and trying to control us as a re-seller. What rights do we have once we buy an item. We can buy a car and re-sell it and use any and all names in a listing. It is ours and we have a title to it. Would not the same apply to a “Coach” purse?
Here is the link to the current Ebay VERO program. You can read down and see that
unless authorized” we may be in gray area of even showing a logo without being authorized to do so? As Ryanee says.. “WHAAAT”! How can we photograph our items and not show the logo.http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing/create-effective-listings/vero-program.html
So this is where the rub comes in. It all boils down to what rights does one have ounce they buy something from someone else and what rights do you have to re-sell it in any venue, anyway you want as long as you don’t misrepresent it. So someone finally last year took all of this to a higher level. I am unsure of the final out come, but click and read the link below for some of the proceedings. As for me personally I just don’t pay much attention to it and list my items and call a spade a spade. except on those items that I too have personally gotten VERO Notices from. I have gotten VERO’s for several uses of brand names in which the items were original merchandise. In the case of really old vintage items where the companies are out of business then most of us are safe and also items made by companies in foreign countries.
This makes it a very interesting scenario and because the VERO Program is mostly an Ebay Invention to cover their you know what’s, it got taken to court and to Congress.
See this link that talks about Congress, the Federal Law and Ebay and their VERO list of companies and the program. It is two pages and covers several topics and questions about the VERO Program.
Page one:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Listing-of-Brand-Names-on-the-VeRO-List/td-p/25364325
Page two:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Listing-of-Brand-Names-on-the-VeRO-List/td-p/25364325/page/2This process of VERO has become such a big deal that BRAND Companies now hire thrid party companies to do nothing but scour the internet to find their names being used in re-sell situation and reporting them. Also on e-Commerce Bytes there is a thread that folows along a re-seller who sued one of the third party companies for infringeing on his rights to re-sell. Unsure if that is what led to the big to do in Congress.
Now the short version to your personal issue.
What we have done is any time we get a VERO, we filter all of our listing by the brand or key word(s) and then edit the listings to try to use another word in it’s place. As for the actual listing taken down, we tried editing one several times and different ways and it got killed very quickly several times in a row, so we just donated it and went on.It is a random hit on you and even though many others may have the same item and use the same words and brand just set it off to the side for now, what a while [maybe 6 to 8 weeks ] then re-shoot the photos and try to use different ways to describe it and then re-list it.
Good luck and you are not the only one at SL that has had a VERO. It happens and will continue until it all gets worked out with regards to the who owns what rights law.
mike at mdc galleries in Atlanta
You create your own business policies then name them what ever you want to call them. After they are saved, those then are the ones that will appear in the drop down list for you to select over and over. If you have policies in your drop down box it is because at one time you may have opted in or tried the Business Policies and had Ebay create them for you. But those are all editable by you.
I create about four or five of my own, like one is named under sixteen ozs. Cal. ship. Then I clciked what shipping choices I wanted in that title for the buyer to see when I listed items under 16 ozs. i also have an easy one, called Free shipping light weight and one called heavy weight. I also have one called Oversized and heavy and show USPS and FedEx and UPS choices under those.
You can also create several payment options policies, shipping and return policies. I even created a link and put in my dashboard short cuts area so I can click on it and it takes me directly to my policy page where I can tweak or edit my policies.
Great time saver, creates standard operating practices for your business and they become your selections from the shipping drop down. Especially handy when using software like WonderLister. Click, select, and boom shipping for that item is done.
I am with you Jay. We did the math and we agree too much. For less we could just rent your farm house, come up to see you and Ryanne, relax, eat out, talk some Ebay at the BBQ pit and enjoy the valley and Shenandoah area, the caverns and have money left over [if we drive].
P.S. How long does it take to drive from Atlanta to Luray anyway??
Mike in Atlanta
We opted into Business Policies a long time ago when they were first introduced. Comes close to SOP’s as far we are concerend which we like.
Agree about standardization. We have about 6 variations on shipping selections and just select the one that fits when we list. We have Standard payment and return policies also. These can all be accessed from dashboard and it shows which listings are covered by which policies if you need to take a look at which items are included.
Did you also see the blurp about Buyers being able to access a Seller’s Customer Service Phone Number”? Wonder what that is all about?
mc at mdc in atl
Yep.. Got my email yesterday evening. Did a quick look over and bookmarked it for further review. Yes, I was surprised at some of the new upcoming changes so will go back and re-read in depth. I saw the comments about having to drop the 20% re-stocking fee and TRS status. Ebay just keeps pushing toward the Amazon model. Free shipping, no restock fees, returns done automatically, etc.
For those who did not get the email yet or who may not.. here is the link.
But as Jay and all of us always say, whining doesn’t help, we have to adapt or die. So onward and upward.
mike at mdc galleries in atlanta
Absolutely brand new. It kills the listing and when it re-lists a brand new item ID number is assigned and your store listing gets the “Newly Listed” flag – sign on it. Many people are using filters to search for newly listed items. Also Ebay gives some “juice” in searchs and placement for newly created listings and that’s why we do it.
We use the GTC setting just in case we decide not to end this month, or if we are away or tied up then the listing will automatically roll over and stay in the store. If you only use the 30 day and forget about it sometimes items drop off.
In WonderLister if an item does end either by you manually killing it or if it ends after the 30 day cycle [if that’s what you use], then all of ithose ended listings automatically go into an “Unsold” folder. There you can review and relist them and do so in “bulk”. Highlight them all at once, click relist, click if you want any time / space between the listings and hit enter. Then go about your business and WL handles everything for you in the background, along with a new ID number.
WonderLister is also just about ready for a new version going from 1.00??? to the newest 2.0?? ver. I have been in their BETA Testing program for many months now and have been able to suggest improvements that fit right into how we here at SL do our listings for unique and vintage items. Those they have incorporated and it is wonderful. This program when released as ver 2.??? is going to be very strong as one of the best out there for doing what we do.
Jay wants to go to a numbered SKU system. Well that is going to leave him with having to create a Spread sheet for tracking. Not with WonderLister, new inventory can be handled in it as it comes in. If Jay buys 150 items on a weekend, just create a rough title, enter a SKU number, where bought, date bought and cost paid and that will start the beginnings of an inventory system. Then you can create folders as to where you want those “new” entries to be placed and show up in, such as New Raw Inventory, or Unlisted Inventory, etc. I named my folder Warehouse Inventory. Everything we have bought but not photographed or listed is contained there. When we did our taxes this year, all we did was print out a report of all of our unlisted items and then a second report of all our listed items, added the two together and there was our total Cost of Goods we owned.
Also WL has a small field for location Bin. When we put inventory away [last thing we do after listing], I take my laptop into the storage area, type in the first 4 digits of the longer sku number, up pops the item and I enter the bin I am placing it in and click save or enter. Now everything that is stored in our garage has a location to it. Well guess what, If I want a hard copy to put in a binder for some reason, I now sort my inventory by BIN NUMBER and just print out or export out a report and print out. The report will have all of the storage bins in numerical order and all items in that bin are shown.
I am going to be working with the WL tech team on being able to convert the SKU Numbers into Bar Codes and printing out item labels with SKU numbers on them in the coming future. But that is down the road.
There is just so much stuff you can do with when your items are logged into and one is using a relational database. It is just like any system that insurance companies, hospital, etc., etc. use. Once you have data in defined “fields” you can filter and sort tons of different ways and then generate reports from the final way that data gets sorted. The beauty of a database system over a spread sheet system.
I will leave it there for now. Just so much to cover.. also search SL for past discussions.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Check into WonderLister. We have used it for years. It is a total listing, inventory, financial reports, taxes, type program [with some limitations]. There has been several long discussions here about WonderLister as well as SixBit. They have plans that start at $5 per month and allows up to 1,000 listings. Not bad at all. Then goes up from there. My subscription is $25 per month on WonderLister, allows up to 5,000 listings, I also have the Consignment module because we have 4 consignersa we list for, and we are allowed to create custom fields to hold any type of data we want to enter. We have where we bought, what we paid, where listed [Etsy, Ebay, Bonanza, etc.].
This program just takes almost anything you want to do with an online store and puts it all into one program. It has a free trial period. Sign up, and it will down load all of your current listings from your Ebay store. [same as what TurboLister used to do]. It is fast and a pretty slick solution to an all in one program. Of course one program can’t do everything but it’s pretty good. Look over the list of what it can do on their website.
It has a full editor, scheduler, many financial reports, imports and exports. It does everything that Easy Auction Tracker does combined with what Ebay’s Lister does.
With regards to the ending listing and relisting. I just did a end listing and do a relisting on 17 listings and it took 32 seconds. You can go to “grid view” then sort by end date, high light those and “bulk end listing”. Then WL puts those in a special view for you and here you can then edit those listings one at a time or do a “Bulk Edit” by adding a line to the description or anything in any area you want. Change prices up a dollar or down a dollar in bulk, basically anything you want, then I hit “Bulk Relist” and back up they went. You also have the option right at the re-list mark to have WL spread the re-listings out at intervals, separated by minutes or hours.
Go to WonderListers web site and look at everything it can do, as well as use the SL search boxes here at SL and search for WonderLister and read over previous discussions about it. We used to use Turbo Lister and Easy Auction Tracker but left that years ago when we wanted something faster, and all in one. We too haven’t used Ebay Listing tool in a very long time.
In WonderLister as we buy new inventory, we log it in, assign a SKU number and fill in the blanks in the Simple Editor. From there it is pretty automatic. We can pull reports of sold items, but also reports for all of our UNSOLD INVENTORY Not even listed on Ebay yet. Everything in our death piles are accounted for. We also have a folder in it for donated items and we can get a report of what we paid for items we pulled off ebay or never listed and have donated. It is a relational database and can basically search, filter and order the data you have filled in into almost any type of view or report you can think of.
WonderLister will also post a Tweet of any item you list on Ebay for you automaticaly. Click on the tweet box of say 10 or 12 items at a time and out it goes automatically.
And BTW, WonderLister is for PC’s only. It runs on MS SQL Database Manager which is part of the install and does not work on an Apple product.
But by all means if on a PC, go to
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
You bet Jay. Here is the long version.
With 5,000 items even at 15 min. per item “pre-boxing up” that is tons of work up-front and you have no idea how many of those 5,000 will sell. I know that some would say, will if you pre-box you don’t have to do it later, but if items don’t sell and you purge your system yearly and you donate hundreds of junk items, then that was wasted time and supplies for nothing.
As you know we have been transitioning from 6 antique booths to our online efforts over the past year. We thought we would have over 2,000 items by now. Well we just made our last donation back to Goodwill and to date have donated back approx. 600 ++ items. Just think if we had pre-boxed all of those. Then we would also have had to unbox them to save the interior packaging.
Now to “inventory space”. A cubic inch may not seem like much but think of this. So for every item we have, just for giggles, if we put 1″ of dead space all around for protection and let’s say we take an average box size of approx. of 8x8x8 “box size” for each of our items, we will have used up about 384 cubic inches per box. Take this negative dead space used to protect our glass, crystal, ceramic, pottery, china items which 80% of our inventory is, then multiply this times 825 items and we would have consumed approx. 316,800 cubic inches or 183 “cubic” feet of space. Enough to stack 183 one foot square boxes. That is sveral shelves worth of “precious space” not to mention all of the pre-used up supplies to pad-protect and tape up those 183 boxes.
In your case, that would be about 1,000 +/- extra cubic square feet. Think how much room in your new storage unit 1,000 extra boxes would take up?
Just sometimes things may seem simple but when you project it out, it may not be a “best practice”, so why start down that road in the first place.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Thanks for that post and Link “Attic Thread”. At one time I had a whole bunch of templates I had used by copying and pasting from another source. After Ebay made the annoucement we spent months, slowly changing out those templates to just plain text. Also minimizing the length of copy and content after reading about “short” descriptions here on SL.
For fun we ran your link and the app and it displayed 38 listings we had missed. It was a great help and within about an hour we got all of those remining listings cleaned up. A pretty nifty tool. We used the “filtered” tab to create the corrected HTML Code, and all we had to do was cut and paste that back into the listing and Viola’ we were done.
Just to be sure we ran the checker 2 more times and we seem to be all clean now for when Ebay discontinues listings with active content.
Interestingly, Ebay not only sees embedded video’s as active, but if you have anything you have ever copied from another web site or anywhere else and there is a back link in the code somewhere Ebay is going to call that active copy also. This tool picks all of that up. I think that is where these 38 came from. Just little small links embedded where we may have copied a line or two from Wikipedia, another web reference from an old Google search or an old canceled Ebay listing or something like that. But seems we are squeaky clean now and good to go. This tool did a good job of finding those and helped clean them up fast.
I suggest everyone follow his link, put in your store name/ID and then click to run a scan on your store. It took about a minute for our 811 listings. Of course longer with more. Then it highlights your listings in yellow that will need to be cleaned up in the next few weeks. Then if you have some [and I bet many of you do], then you can easily follow the direction and get the corrected code and just insert the correct code. Good luck.
Good job on that find by the way.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
Here’s a thought. I did something similiar only not as labor intensive. I saw a newbie question not long ago on How to ship a hat. Talk about a topic that has had hundreds of answer’s and many are pretty much the same answer. I suggested to use the “Search” box on the “Home Page”. This is a GREAT FEATURE and one of the reasons J&R went to the Forum Format. Just type in how to ship hats and Bingo! tons of answers. Sort of like our own ScavengerLife mini Google within the Forums.
By doing this we can cut down on the SL use of bandwidth, save J&R some costs 🙂 and also save the seasoned members some time retyping the same old answers to those very frequent questions.
Guess it relates to the old adage.. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time”!! So use the Search Function-Field first and see what you get. I use it a lot when I don’t remember what everyone here has said BUT I KNOW it has been discussed before.
Just a thought….
mike at mdc galleries in Atlanta
Ditto all the above. As a “newbie” you will eventually see “unpaid” items or requests for delayed payment and the such. Part of maturing in this business. As soon as you take something “from” a buyer you will become obligated in some form in their eyes. Keep quite, you have better things to do, they bought from you and they are renegging on the deal.
After 48 hours I always open an unpaid item case. They renegged and this way Ebay gets to know about it. They do that a bunch and Ebay will handle it.Welcome aboard this “ScavengerLife” train and hope you have a great and prosperous journey. We are a bunch who will, try to help you when we have the spare time to chime in.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
This is true. I even include a quick blurb and link when I counter offer informing the potential buyer who is making the offer that it isn’t standard Ebay protocol. There are a few other posts if searched about this topic also.
To overcome the Sales events from dimishing the shipping costs, I would think just take the 16 oz. 1st class “OVER THE COUNTER” rate [do not use your TRS discount rate] and bump that up by say 15%, to accommodate for a 5% to 15% SALE EVENT and add that amount to your “Selling Price”. Our Sales are running almost all the time so that would bring the amount the customer pays back down to about the regular 16 oz. OTC Rate and that should take care of it.
So, First Class Commercial Package Weight is 15.999 ozs. at $4.30 walk in ove the counter rate x 1.15% = $4.95. So just add $5.00 to every item under 16 ozs. and you are good to go.
Then if you are feeling real generous, then just use your discounted TRS rate and bump 15% and add to your selling prices on all 16 oz. and under items.
Our situation is opposite of yours. Out of approx. 800 listings only 90 or so are under 16 ozs.
Seems fairly simple if Offering Free Shipping is the way one wants to go.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
First I typed into my Google search box .. “What is Ebay’s Customer Service Number” and it brought back a doazen replies of which all of the top one’s show a number. Unsure if it is still an active one or not.
Secondly, make sure you are signed in and click on the “My Ebay” tab. This takes you to your Account DashBoard”. Then click on Seller Center from the left side bar selection short cuts, scroll to the bottom and on the very last line, in small text [of course] on the far right says Help & Contact Us.
Thirdly, if this link works, this link will take you directly to the Seller Center and again scroll down to the last line, far right.
http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/index.html
When you click at the bottom on Help & Contact, it takes you to the Ask Us Contact page and scroll down and there is the Contact us “tab”. Click on this and at this point Ebay makes you give a reason for your call, select best you can and ususally they will give you a one time code to use to call them.
Others here may have a direct number or maybe those Google result numbers are still active. And surely Ryanne can give you a number but R&J are Anchor Store owners and have a special number just for them and that may not be available to you.
So, this should give you several choices and good luck.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
