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03/09/2017 at 8:19 am in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Projection screens, HeathKit clock & Voltmeter, 8 Track Quadraphonic recorder, Patagonia jacket #14151
Thanks for the input Ryanne. Yep you are correct. We have edited the listing to state the 1919 date and added the “Red Eye” pattern.
My wife said she thinks that when we first ran a check on it about 3 years ago we couldn’t make out that the first character was the letter “G” or the number “6”. I think we thought it was a number six and looked it up on the actual Singer site and pegged it as to the 1885 date, prior to the use of the “letters” they used later. Now that it is cleaned up it is easier to see that the first character is the letter “G” not a “Six”. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.
Now that it is 34 years newer, do you think we should back off on that $495 list price or let it ride and see what offers may come in?
Mike in Atlanta
03/08/2017 at 5:20 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Projection screens, HeathKit clock & Voltmeter, 8 Track Quadraphonic recorder, Patagonia jacket #14106Hey Ryanne: Better late than never. The old Singer Sewing machine was pretty dirty and greasy, and wife Susan just wasn’t in the “let’s get all dirty and clean this thing” mood last week. But we finally did, used Simple Green. Didn’t want to disturb any of the paint or acidentilly shine the brass and lose any patina.
But here is the results and we have it up and posted in the Ebay store.It was / is hard to tell the exact serial number but we went with G 7403528. The Singer site puts it around 1883-1885.
We got the whole thing for $75 at a local auction. We sold the base off of it a few years ago for $125, then we took the machine out of the wood base, disassembled everything and sold the 4 drawers for $40 each. So up to this point we got $285 total out of it. So now we have this main sewing unit up for $485 BO and maybe someone at a museum or someone needing parts for refurbish will step up to the plate. We will see.Take Care… mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Hi Christine:
Thanks for the reply. I will follow up on researching and viewing the videos you mentioned. We are eager to see how it goes also. Will check out those videos before we make our next move onto Etsy.
Will definitely post back the results and the trials and tribulations of the process after we work through it all.
Thanks for the reply…
mike at mdc galleries in atlantaHey Jay:
From what I gather from a couple of sources.. One is that I can use WonderLister to export a file that will import into Etsy. WL will create a .CSV file and then I will edit that file to only contain the columns that will import into Etsy. Doing some experiments this week, but I did one into Shopify and everything worked and moved over except some scrambling of the item specifics.Also the WL Tech. Engineers are also working with Etsy for permission to access Etsy directly and developing a module that will do the same thing it can do on Ebay. Unsure of how long before it goes live. It is not even in BETA yet, but I hear that is coming. If successful, then everything would be automatic, and as you have said before though, it will have a subscription cost associated with it. But we are willing to pay to have “Robots” do a lot of work for us. LOL 🙂
Worst case scenario will be as we create a listing and upload to Ebay from WL, then just copy and paste the listing into Etsy one at a time. I can pull the description from WL as either HTML code or directly from the WYSIWYG view. I use two monitors side by side so having multiple views and screen open really helps. And I think there is either a third party app that helps do this. Depending on cost, that would be an option that would just be classified as a “cost of doing business” for us.
Then of course as you and I have heard we will have to do some interior work on the Etsy listing by inputting the meta tags, tweaking the title and paying attention to standard SEO protocols that Google pays attention to.
Guess you can see we are just on the beginning cusp of maybe doing this. So, if we have to just create two separate manual listings we will. Just more time but probably worth it if Sales increase.
Wonder what Omfug and others on here that have a stable Etsy store do for their process?
But the fear of selling an item when it is cross listed just doesn’t concern us.
mike in atl.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
03/08/2017 at 9:57 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 300: Our 300th Episode!! Now let’s talk taxes… #14063Hi Christine: ..
May I ask why you would not cross list on Etsy? We cross list on Bonanza and was just getting ready to do the same on Etsy. We monitor our account almost 24/7, so if something sells on Ebay then we would just delete it within minutes from Etsy and vice versa. The chances of something selling at the same day, time and minute on both is non-existent, so why not have all of your Ebay items on Etsy since Etsy now allows anything vintage over 20 years of age?To further explore this will re-post over at the Selling on Etsy Topic area.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
03/07/2017 at 3:12 pm in reply to: Missed it by thhhaaatttt much! (missed out on sourcing opportunity) #14013Oh man RTWV.. What a miss. I used to play golf a lot when younger. There are guys that only use Callaway everything and those being almost brand new!!! That would mess my day up also.. Just like when we drop out of the bidding for an auction item just to see it sell for $2.50 more than our drop out bid. Makes your stomach drop.
If that had been a Weigh and Pay the old man would have been probably run over and had it grabbed from him LOL 🙂 …. Well keep up the search. Onward and Upward!
mike in Atlanta
02/25/2017 at 3:37 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 298: The Scavengers and The Collectors, A Love Story #13299I am with you Omfug. Have two great ladies who run my route. I have a map of the route they “work / run” each day and highlighted in yellow. IThey both gave me their private cell numbers and I can call them any day that I have late day sales and they will swing back by for a pick up on their way back to the main post office.
They are the extension of our shipping dept. and I have told them many times they are a partner in our business and without them we couldn’t continue to have our top ratings. They are why we can ship same day many times.
We pull and pack most times between 6 AM and 9:45 AM [when they first come buy]. But if we have any sale come in between 9:45 AM and 1:30 PM, I pull, pack, label and call them and it’s shipped within hours.
They love it because during what is called the “hard count” period, the more packages that they scan during that official USPS counting period the route gets logged in at a higher rate due to the larger volume of packages. Then the head PO re-rates the route and that route then will pay more because of the increase in packages.
They always come up to our porch for the daily pick-up of packages which we leave on a metal bakers rack for all of our out going and incoming mail.
They are great, love ’em, and the rates are just a cost of doing business. I used to move 18 million dollars of freight through our Memphis printing plant and USPS gave us the least problems of all of them, but we did use a ton of freight trucking lines for most of our “skidded products”.Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/25/2017 at 3:14 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Projection screens, HeathKit clock & Voltmeter, 8 Track Quadraphonic recorder, Patagonia jacket #13298Holy Cow!! As soon as I saw this I ran out to the storage area and went all the way to the end and dug out of a few odd left over piles from where we closed down those 6 antique booths. We have a Singer machine just like this one, with that floral pattern and all AND it is even older. The serial number is 6740352 which the Singer web site lists all it’s serial numbers and says ours is Circa. 1885. We have had it at the booths from July 2013 until last fall when we pulled everything out to transfer everything to online venues. I left it out there because it is somewhat oily,certainly dusty and is heavy so I figured I would leave it until we got through all the “smalls” from the booths.
To dirty to handle and photo right now, but looks like this is something we will be cleaning up tomorrow to get listed.
What a coincedence that this conversation popped up. Thanks for the $1,000 reminder tip. LOL 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/24/2017 at 5:45 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 298: The Scavengers and The Collectors, A Love Story #13261Linda.. I see you finally got your Icon-Avator changed. Great to see you as something other than a checkerboard pattern. 🙂 Did you or your husband figure it out. Glad you got it accomplished.
mike in Atlanta
I am with Jay. Just a super story. Also, like Jay I am full of questions, but know time must be a premium for you but am interested in the “process” of how you or a helper-employee handles each new item you purchase.
You buy an item, walk into your facility and set it down. Now what happens to that items as it goes through your “system” each step of the way until it gets placed on it’s spot in your inventory.
You must have a streamlined process to handle over 200 items per week [800 ++] a month.
We set an item in our office, open a spread sheet and enter on a numbered line, the date bought, where bought, what paid, short description and then hang a tag on it that has the same number that is on the numbered line we just used to enter it. Now we can track that item throughout our process. It is then placed on the need to photograph table, then photographed as we get to it. When we are ready to do a photography day we take each item, inspect it, clean it as needed, the place on table and photo. On the item tag we attached when we first brought the item into the office, we write the date photographed and then the item is moved down our line and placed on the waiting to list table. At the end of the photography day we take the San Disk card and move all those photos over to a folder we create in our master pictures folder. That folder is titled just photos 17-02-22 and all moved there.
Next as we decide that a day is going to be a listing day and as we get to it, we grab the tagged item of our choice and open a listing form and start the listing process. We create the title, then copy the photos from that photo folder into the listing form then weigh, measure the item and fill in the item specifics areas and do some price research on the items we don’t know prices on. Now we finish the listing form and hit submit to Ebay.
Next that item is placed in a plastic bin in our office to be later transferred to the storage area. When a bin or two get full we then carry those bins down to our storage shelves area. I place the bins on a rolling cart. Then I roll / walk up and down our isles of bins and pop a top on any bin that I think will hold an item. I call that bin number and item number out to my wife and she edits the spread sheet and adds the bin number into the cell for that item. Now we move on item by item. Once done, we can now just forget it. When it sells our sku number shows both in our Ebay listing and on our spread sheet [ a dbl back up] where that item is, we go pull it and ship it.
We have run a stop watch on each of these processes. Since we create tags and SS entries all at one time, then we will photograph for a whole day, and then list on another day we have total times for a “pile” of items. So if we photograph 30 items [360 photos] in a day [that includes, inspection, cleaning placing on photo table, shooting 12 photos, writing date on the tag and moving to the need to list table, then transferring the photos to desktop into that days folder, it totals out to about 6 hrs for 30 items which is about 12 minutes on average per item.
Now we have done these time studies on each aspect of the process we use and have found that we avg. these numbers: [all approx.] 5 minutes to log in, 12 minutes for clean-photo-pix organize, 10 minutes open listing form, entry about 15 various lines of item specifics-descriptions-condition-category selection. 5 minutes to weigh & measure each item and place into the appropriate item specific area along with the colors, if price research is needed add another 5-7 minutes but for this exercise let’s skip this, 5 minutes to carry the items to storage, find and place item into an appropriate bin, call out that bin and have entered into the spreadsheet. Then go back upstairs. This all totals out when aggregated into a total number then averaged out comes to approx. 37 minutes per item. For ease of comparison here if we were to do 30 items per day that would equal 900 minutes per day or approx. 15 hours a day. So you must have one heck of a system and I am so curious as to exactly what it is so we can modify and / or edit our system, streamline our process and become capable of listing more than we can at the present time.
So, if you would please, provide an outline of your process that you utilize from the point of acquisition through to the point you let go of the item and walk away. An explanation of your system would be of great help to us and also many of the members here on SL. Even if you have others doing / working the process for you, you had to be the one that worked out the work flow for the process and those steps are the key. We can run our own time studies on that process if we choose to adapt it and compare those numbers to our process and see if it is quicker.
Anxiously await a reply if you can find the time or are inclined to do so..
Respectfully submitted and requested..
Kindest Regards,mike at MDC Concepts, Inc., MDC Galleries, SmartParts and Spray Foam and More divs. all in Atlanta
Here you go.
You are right on. It is a “trinket box”. Used for small ear rings, bobby pins or straight pins, little jewelry, etc., etc. The price on the this link shows sold in 2014 at $17.70.http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-disneyland-hotel-vintage-1497940613
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
This is pretty much what we do, only with a slight modification / customization. But basically the same. Since we use WonderLister [a database instead of a spread sheet] we keep everything within that database. All our current listings, all of our sales, every bit of data Ebay has to offer is saved on our own hard drive for as far back as we want to keep and their new inventory module has allowed us to do what we used to do in Excel only now within WonderLister and have abandoned the spread sheet totaly. No more duplicate data entry. Everything comes from just one form that is used to do our listings.
Just printed out all of our unsold items still in our warehouse inventory for Cost of Goods purchased and handed to our CPA.But the inventory system is about the same as dwb states above. Best system we have found so far and have tried many.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/19/2017 at 10:51 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 297: Being Frugal vs Running A Business #12859Hey Ryanne… you sure about this? I usually make it a point to only ship to “verified & confirmed” paypal address or at least an address that is on the order page or shown in PayPal. I do this because I thought I remember reading that PayPal won’t provide the seller protection if the address is unconfirmed.
I have also had customers do this and I message back, that they need to go to PayPal or Ebay and change their address there and re-confirm or get it to show on the order form somehow. I don’t think an email [even if through Ebay Messaging] will hold up in the end if something goes deep south. PayPal has a place to do this easily on there form, unsure about Ebay. Several customers have done this. A couple did not so I only shipped to the “confirmed” address and the rest was up to them.
Oh… here is what I just found about this from Ebay…
“As long as you ship to the address found on the eBay Order details page or the PayPal Transaction Details page, you are eligible for certain protections under the eBay Money Back Guarantee.
While you’re not required to ship to a confirmed address, address confirmation is useful because it provides a way for a seller to verify a buyer’s identity.”Guess it is open to some interpretation, but I always play it safe and ask that they change. They made the error, I think they should have to do a “little work” to make it right, IMHO.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yep.. Any character you want to use.
mike in atl.
02/17/2017 at 12:42 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 297: Being Frugal vs Running A Business #12765Thanks for the reply S&S. Will pack this way in our minds when we are previewing.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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