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Good morning:
Completely understand your “pain”. Hope you don’t have thousands of items, but it is what it is.
The best way in my opinion for anyone just starting up with this, want to do it the fastest way, don’t want to create the spread sheet themselves and write all the formulas is to use a spread sheet already created. I suggest you go to the following link and check out their spread sheet. It is called easy auction tracker, but is really an inventory spread sheet combined with an Ebay Sales record.
I will spare you the details except to say it runs fairly automatically. It is a purchased solution but only a one time purchase each year for each years fresh file.
In essence [after a short set up], it pulls down automatically every thing you sell from Ebay and logs it. But the beauty is that one of it’s “tabs” if you understand what that is, is it’s inventory tab. Click on it and there is already built for you an Inventory system. To use this whole app all you have to do is fill in the few columns that are shown in the Inventory Tab.
>>> Date bought, short description, price paid, where bought [this is for IRS] and enter a SKU number. This SKU number can be as simple as your item number. Start at 101 and then just continue from there entering every item you have. It has a couple more columns but you don’t really need that data but it is usual if you many similiar items and then the size and color columns can be helpful. But you need something fast and you need to hit the ground running and this will be a quick to learn and use way. It then calculates your total inventory costs. Start Jan. 1st and then get the total on Dec. 31st.
If nothing else go to their web site and look at their great videos. About 5 to 8 minutes each about everything it does. Then look at the Inventory Tab demo, freeze the screen at certain point and study the sheet in that view. If you undertstand spread sheets, know how to create them, format them and create formulas then just copy what you see your self. But the neat thing about Easy Auction Tracker is that all the formulas are already written and debugged and it runs on MACROS which automatic everything. It also then provides a monthly, quarterly and annual P&L statements, has a consigner tab and much more. Several members here on SL has used EAT for years and their only method of inventory control. Personally we used it years ago but have now progressed to more robust database type programs. But for ease of use this is fairly straight forward.
Just enter the data on every item you own and also on all items you buy, as you bring them home.Check it out and think you will find this most helpful.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/16/2017 at 2:42 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 297: Being Frugal vs Running A Business #12721Will drop this quickly on this forum instead of S&B but we have a walkout basement in the Atlanta Suburbs. Jay probably knows Gwinnett County and the other side of Lawrenceville is Dacula, GA [where we live], near the Mall of Georgia. We have a full time renter for the last 3 years down there but they may be leaving this June. It is 1,200 SF, Full bath, 2 bedrooms, living room with gas log fireplace, dining room and fully equipped kitchen and separate parking, fenced yard, covered patio, etc. We would only have to furnish it for AB&B rentals.
Do you think it may be an idea to explore the AirBnB aspects of this. We get about $8k rent per year and that includes the space and all utilities. In quick math we may be able to do much better than that at only having it occupied 6 months out of the year!! Any thoughts? If you think a good idea, I will transfer further discussions over to S&B forum.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/16/2017 at 10:44 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 297: Being Frugal vs Running A Business #12702J&R: We started back to hitting our old Auction Trial two weeks ago. We have laid off buying new inventory during the transition from closing down all of our antique booths and transitioning a ton of inventory to our online venues. But it was time for us to just get up and “air oursleves out” after all of the months of listing and culling junk. So we hit our favorite auction haunts.
We have the exact same situation and experiences as you stated. Almost identical. We have couple that are “nice” and higher resell items and then the local, country type auctions. We have gone to these venues for years and spent lots of money with all of them.
We have certainly learned though to not buy from the seat of our pants. We do go to the preview day the day before or of. We have an spread sheet form and we log the lot numbers, dealers or items we are interested in. I always carry a small LED flashlight on my belt, a small tape measure and a 10 power loupe in my pocket. We make sure we discover flaws, flea bites, etc. prior to auction time. Then we go to lunch or early dinner and stay there while we eat and look what we can find on our databases we use. We can check about 4 different sources for Sold prices. We do this for what we can identify. Somethings we just don’t know what to call them. 🙂
We use the sheet to write down the avg. sold prices and then in the last column what our max. bid will be depending what gross margins we may be willing to accept. This helps us during the Flurry of the Auction Chant to not over bid. We know our cut off point. This has helped us a whole lot. Also helps us to ward off all the crazy buyers that, like you said, don’t know what they are doing, newbies just buying to get their new booths stocked up and those that just have no idea of what “real” profit margins should be. We win about 2 item out of ten. A list of 24 items will yield 5 or 6 “wins”.
It wa sfun to get back into the auction race. We always enjoy auctions of all types. One of the callers at our high end auction house is the state champion caller and she is lightenting fast.
If you want to see what we mean, Google Auction Chant Champions and listen to how the USA Champions call an auction. One is a 9 year kid. Man oh man, you have to pay close attention. They went through 164 lots in 90 minutes and that includes a description, bringing the items to the podium, holding it up selling it and then carrying it off. My wife has thought she has bought a tea cart in the past and when we went up to carry oit off, they handed her a old chest of drawers. I laughed so hard. Susan said what about the tea cart, he said that was sold a few moments ago, before this dresser drawers you bought. LMAO 🙂Any way they did have a bunch of rugs. About 12 or more each week. Nice ones too BUT we didn’t buy. YET!… Ryanne or other SL members.. what is a laundry list of what you look for as you preview the rugs up for auction or you find at Estate and Yard Sales? I have heard you mention a few things here and there in different podcasts… but would you list just exactly what it is that will make a rug up for auction go on your I want to buy this to resell list?
Things like material, thickness, colors, type, weave, selvage, condition [I know prayer rugs with holes are ok :-)], brand-mfg., shape, sizes, etc., etc. We skipped over 24 rugs in two weeks until we got the load down on what we should be looking for. We like you, will and can ship anything so that is not a criteria to filter out a rug. Really would appreciate it.Thanks guys…
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Ryanne is correct but you can zero in a little bit more from there. First thing that came to my mind was Fuller or Ransbottom but then I looked at one of our older sold pieces and discovered we had found Shawnee [McCoy] we listed. Seems they were the ones who used the USA a lot. There is more detail as to the reason for this below, but if you stay generic as Ryanne suggest there also may be some good keywords or partial description within this.
If you are familiar at all with pottery, you will notice a large number of pieces that are marked with only “USA”. There is not a USA Pottery Company that produced these wares. For a sufficient explanation of why pieces are marked like this, lets start in the 1800’s. Back then, most pottery was created to be used in everyday life by an individual that probably lived near you. The makers rarely marked these pieces because beyond there usefulness, the items weren’t much to look at. (imagine an old, brown stoneware crock) As pottery techniques matured around the turn of the century, many larger potteries were formed. (think industrialization) Many produced artistic works that the creator would want recognition for his efforts. Anyway, every company had their own rules about marking their wares. Marks would sometimes include company name, logo / symbol, an artist signature, mold number, initials, country, state, city, what they had for lunch, etc., etc. Many companies would include no mark at all. Or, they opted for a simple paper / foil sticker instead. The stickers rarely stayed on the pieces long, and they’d wind up unmarked. Around the time of WW I, many businesses felt a patriotic need to include USA on their goods. This may have been also due to their exporting items overseas. Later on around WWII (I think?), the US government passed a law that all imported goods had to be marked with their country of origin. Some American companies saw this and decided that they no longer needed to include USA mark, because the imports would be stamped “Japan”, “China”, or whatever and people would know an unmarked piece was made here. Other companies continued to use the USA mark. Others continued to use it, on some types of pottery. Other businesses decided to use it sporadically. Some potteries were only going to use it on Thursdays. (you get the point! 😉 Basically, if you are going to find out who made your nifty green planter, your going to have to do some research. To start off with, the most prolific of the USA markers was Shawnee & McCoy.
Also maybe visit the Kovels.com website. They have a lot of information on old and antique items of all types. We have had a subscription for years.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Take a look at Easy Auction Tracker. It is a spread sheet inventory program and P&L sheet and logging of new incoming purchases. It does everything for you except enter the incoming basics which you have to do. When bought, where bought, a short title / description, and what paid. From there it handles all your sales, COGS, shipping, expenses and produces reports automatically. Very cheap. One time $50 charge for the whole year. Downloads all your sales and associated costs and itemizes it all in the spread sheet, produces several graphs and business total summaries. They have several video demos on their site and also a full download trial.
Better hurry though because it pulls everything from Ebay and Ebay only keeps 90 days of data. So when you download and do the quick set-up, the Easy Auction Tracker spread sheet it allows you to go gather all of your data for the last 3 months. But after the end of March (90) days then you won’t have all of this years data. It still works just fine, but your Annual figures will be off until you start 2018 over, next Jan. But all of the monthly and quarterly reports will be OK.
It is called Easy Auction Tracker. Several other SL members have talked about it and state they use it.I have used it in the past but now, personally I use a more robust, higher end program but what I use is a monthly subscription and is more complex and has a steeper leaning curve.
link: http://www.easyauctiontracker.com
Take look, many seem to really like it.
mike at mdc galleries in atlanta
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This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Definetly one to run past your CPA but you maylso be able to include the square footage into your calculations as part of your office. We have a full garage with shelves and half the basement where we have an art studio and area for wood working and repairing inventory items. the basement is 12×40=480 SF, the garage is 22×20=440 SF and our upstairs over the garage office is 14×22=308 SF for a Total of 1,228. And it is all used exclusively for the business so that SF along with that portion of the heat, electricity, mortgage payment, taxes, etc, are all part of our office deductions. Along with mileage, raw inventory costs, shipping and other items included in our chart of accounts.
But yep.. get all this set-up with your CPA and also E-Commerce1 here is a memeber of SL and has a strong financial background as does Mark Tew and they may chime in. But since you already have a CPA they are the go to guys.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/11/2017 at 4:59 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 296: Are You Keeping Up With Your Inventory System? #12322Since Ryanne is a Star Trek – Next Generation and Captain Jean-Luc Picard fan why not just call her “Data”. LOL 🙂 :-)..
Unsure at first glace, but may I suggest you unscrew those two screws and see what you may find inside? It might be a home made item or DIY Clock Kit then they placed their own mark on the back. I had two friends once who made lots of clocks from parts and kits they bought and then assembled and then branded them under their own name. One lady worked from her home workshop and the other guy, he opened up a small mfg. facility and had 3 people that worked for him and assembled the components for his own designs.
So who knows.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
See if this is it. Link is below but don’t know if you can see it, but maybe but unsure if online price will show, so copied it below.
Here is a link if you can see the pictures. Seems very close.
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/mens-large-blue-nike-clemson-tigers-1786262676Men’s L large blue Nike Clemson Tigers pullover rain sideline jacket windbreaker
Sold for: $23.50 Item Category: Sports Source: eBay
Sold Date: Oct 23, 2015Excellent condition, men’s size L Clemson pullover wind/rain sideline jacket by Nike. Blue with orange accents, zip-open mesh ventilation on front, knit neckline, and paw print and swoosh logos on chest. Measures 27″ across the chest, 31″ long, and sleeves are 36″ long from the middle of the neck to the tip of the sleeve.
Hey…
go to easyauctiontracker.com
It is a spread sheet built on Macros and does everything you have there but does it automatically by pulling in everything from Ebay. All you will have to do is input a small amount of data into the “Inventory” tab. Min. data you could use, is what you paid and a sku number. But just a little bit more info. like date bought, where bought, quantity and short description makes for a better report.
Calculates all the details without having to manually input all of the stuff. Just some basics.
Couple of other members here use it. Personally as you guys know, I like a more robust system like WonderLister or SixBit, but still with a small amount of input, these programs rock and roll, but are for a PC. But since you are doing an Excel SS I am assuming that you are on a PC.
Look at the screen shots to get an idea.
mike in atlanta
Good Morning CT Lady. Did a search on one of the databases we subscribe to and found some information for you, see below.
Yes, find out how many pieces are in the set and what the distribution of pieces are, salad plates, bowls, dinner plates. You can see partials and larger set prices below.
And yep.. they are certainly a BOLO at the right price. Colors do matter.Also as I have mentioned before paid databases are a better source for historical prices, in our opinion. While we still look at Ebay – Etsy solds, they are usually the last place we look. Too many Ebay sellers don’t do their research and many times underprice their items and of course they sell them. I see some of those Etsy prices you list at $14 to $28$ dollars. We would quadruple those prices and go from there working backwards through make an offer [like Ryanne does] and using various, short weekly sales. But again just an opinion on here.
* Block Chromatics Red Lavender Lot Of 43 Germany Dinnerware Set Bowl Plat… Block Chromatics Red Lavender Lot Of 43 Germany Dinnerware Set Bowl Plat Sold for: $408.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Apr 01, 2016
* Large Lot Pink-Lavendar Block Chromatics Dinnerware, Germany Large Lot Pink-Lavendar Block Chromatics Dinnerware, Germany Sold for: $389.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Jun 07, 2015
* Block Chromatics 43 piece Modern Dish Set – Gold/Brown Block Chromatics 43 Piece Modern Dish Set – Gold/Brown Sold for: $360.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Nov 08, 2010
* Block China Chromatics Red-Lavender Set-4+settings Rare Block China Chromatics Red-Lavender Set-4+Settings Rare Sold for: $300.56 Source: eBay Sold Date: Nov 20, 2007
* Block Chromatics Coffee Mugs Red Lavender Block Chromatics Coffee Mugs Red Lavender Sold for: $235.49 Source: eBay Sold Date: Oct 15, 2013
* Block Chromatics Bowls Red Lavender Block Chromatics Bowls Red Lavender Sold for: $213.99 Source: eBay Sold Date: Oct 13, 2013
* 6 Block Chromatics Germany Vintage 70s Red / Lavender Dinner Plates 6 Block Chromatics Germany Vintage 70S Red / Lavender Dinner Plates Sold for: $203.94 Source: eBay Sold Date: Oct 13, 2013
* Block Chromatics Salad Plates Red Lavender Block Chromatics Salad Plates Red Lavender Sold for: $200.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Oct 13, 2013
* Vintage Block Chromatics Germany Dish Set Plate Cup Vintage Block Chromatics Germany Dish Set Plate Cup Sold for: $154.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Aug 07, 2008Hope this helps,
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta-
This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
02/09/2017 at 11:25 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 296: Are You Keeping Up With Your Inventory System? #12140I hope so too for you Retro TWV. But many times blurriness and seemingly slightly out of focus comes from slight movement of the lens. And this in turn usually comes from a slower shutter speed or wider aperture opening or both, trying to let in more light due to low light or under lighted conditions. The slower shutter speed is trying to let in more light by staying open longer and the aperture setting is allowing the shutter to open up wider. Even automatic point and shoot cameras and phones need light and in turn will automatically compensate by slowing the shutter speed down, so it stays open longer to let that needed light in and also pulls the shutter open as far as it can go. A bad side effect of this compensating slowness an opening size is just the slightest movement of your hand, body or even pressure pushing the release button or your breathing can cause a little movement and that in turn creates some blurriness as well as can cause a depth of field issue which may focus on far objects and not closer up details.
My point is, I checked out the light box listing. No where does it state the output of the LED lights in Wattage or Kelvin readings anywhere. So depending on that factor you could possibly end up with the same issue. That is why I would recommend a translucent light box with the LED lights, but you can also ADD extra lighting if you need it by shining some extra light from your current bulbs to bump up the light factor so your camera will open and close the shutter faster and also not open it as wide.
One way to help this is to use a tri-pod and a shutter release cable which will eliminate most of your movement but I find that cumbersome and slows us down. So more light and brighter lite is required. We use 4 – 500 watt out put range flourescent bulbs, two per stand. But I find this is not enough for our satisfaction.
I like the model you are buying because of the size. 24″ x 24″ x 24″is a great size. We have one we never use due to the size limitations.
Also we still use our DSL camera in manual mode instead of automatic mode because I can change the shutter speed and aperture setting on each shot I take and can do it on the fly with my right little finger as I point and shoot. BUT with any camera if you are shooting below 1/80th of a second you will be prone to movement thus blur without a tripod. Actually 1/125th of a second is best to have real sharp pictures. BUT in order to get this speed you must have brighter lighting surrounding your object so your camera or phone does not slow the shutter speed down to compensate for lack of light.
Lighter backdrops help because they bounce more light back at the lens and the lens adjust for that and while open and close faster. Darker colors like browns [wood floors], dark blues, and black absorb light and thus less light is reflected back and again the lens opens wider and slows down. But we do use these colors on occasion to showcase crystal / glass objects better, the facets and etchings in glass show better when they pick up some dark color close to them, but we have to make compensating factors in our lighting and camera settings.
Now this is not intended to be a “lesson” on advanced photography, nor is it all inclusive and comprehensive, but hopefully sheds some “light” 🙂 LOL on helping to improve ones product shots.
Interested in your follow-up feedback on how well this new light box does for you.
respectfully Submitted,
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta-
This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Hey Jay: Funny thing came to mind after reading your response(s).
To quote from the movie “War Games”:
>>> Comment from WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), a United States military supercomputer originally programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war and after running through a series of possible nuclear first strike and response scenarios says, “There is no winner in this game. The only proper response is not to play! How about a nice game of Tic Tac Toe Dr. Falken!”
LOL 🙂 mike in Atlanta
I signed up for Hassel Free Returns a good while back. Makes things a lot easier and we can still apply our 20% restocking fee if we wish and also not offer to pay for return shipping. These all depend of your preference settings and also the circumstances.
Also had a “please Cancel” request yesterday for $35 and again today for $104.00 both saying “Sorry, my kids were playing with my phone”. Which is bunk.
I have a whole folder of Word Documents that I click, copy and paste as a reply. Even though we have hassle free returns, I have special comments that I reply with.
In these cases the snippet we paste in the reply box contains, a lower price Offer since we all can use the Make an Offer in the Reply to customers, but also we state that we are seriously committed to customer safety with regards to account security and strongly advise them to change their Ebay and PayPal credentials, since obviously their children now have access User ID, their password for both Ebay and PayPal, and God forbid the kids do it again and charge a $1,000 order.
Kind of let’s them know in a sly way that we really know that the kids didn’t really do it. And then we end with saying hopefully the lower offer will prompt a purchase and we hope to see thier order come through in the near future.
Now we don’t type all of this each time. We have, as I said Word documents that we just have to edit a few words or a line and its good to go. We have one for requests to cancel, how do you pack items, requests for information that is already contained in the description or item specifics and so forth.
Just a tip.
But don’t you just hate the “my kids did it excuse”!!
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
02/08/2017 at 2:36 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 296: Are You Keeping Up With Your Inventory System? #12069Hi Simon: This has been stated several times on SL both in the old blog and new forum. By me, my accountant and other members.BUT get ready, there are a couple of members who have a strong financial background who oppose this method and have good reasons why, and offered them in rebutal to this seemingly simple method.
I have provided these numbers for my CPA for many years and he is good with it but just so have a heads up, be prepared for the rebuttals that will be forth coming, just like I had.
If you are interested, this new Forum format is “searchable” and I invite you to search for Cost of Goods, COGS and the like and you will see many opinions and comments on this topic mostly in the “Doing Taxes” Topic that Jay set up just for these discussions. Take a look, a lot of comments there.
Good Luck…
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta -
This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by
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