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Also found the same characters in the Chinese alphabet and same meaning. Huge-Giant in Chinese
I agree. Looked at InkFrog and several others years ago. They focus more on just the listing part. Like Jay said what is wrong with the Ebay listing tool. Nothing, now that they got with the program and made those many changes over the last year or so. They didn’t start to do those changes though until they decided to drop the TurboLister affiliation. Now they needed to add more listing “management” type tools and add editing and flexibility.
These other programs have the added inventory management focus as well as the bulk editing and scheduling features which the scheduling feature is free-Ebay charges I believe]. List all day, one right after the other, then go to bed and click up load with a 30 second delay between each listing and you get up in the morning and all photos are loaded as well as the listing. All done overnight. These programs can handle thousands of scheduled listings one right after the other.
Then for those who use EasyAuctionTracker which I have also used, these programs handle all of the fees, what you paid for your items, where you bought the item, which of your sources you got items from that sell the best or most, what your gross profit is, what your net profit is, sales made in which states, which states you sell the most in. Now probably you can get that from Ebay, but these compile all of it so that data is at the touch of a click and archived for years as long as you use the software. Cancel your subscription and you still have all that data.Just so much stuff but one has to be liked mind to see a benefit of having this type of data and also one who knows what to do with it and how to use it to one’s benefit to help their business grow.
With 6,000 items and an employee working for them and now needing to implement an inventory control system, and a process whereby the employee(s) can work more independently without their presence, I would think Jay and Ryanne could benefit from these type programs and just go buy a $500 +/- PC to do it. It is a business expense anyway and out of a such a large revenue +/- Ebay store as they have, it is a small type of investment. But again, as Jay says simple is better but they have made changes through the years also.
mc in atl.
From what I heard from the tech, they are seriously thinking about including the dual management scheme along with the $34.99 business level. But as I said I am still using WonderLister juct fine and may just stick with it for the reasons you state. Who knows, but it has been FREE to this point for me to try SixBit and because I already knew WL, then I was up and running in SB in a day or so.
Now when it comes to being frugal, see my post below about Macs vs. PC’s. People are paying more for a Mac and I ask why? chip set for chip set, processor speed for processor speed, item for item, what makes a Mac worth so much more? I have bought many of both for my printing businesses [for the reasons I stated], but would not put more money in Macs for all of the employees business needs.
Oh and by the way, I run two monitors side by side. I invested the $69 in a second monitor so I could be researching prices within my browsers on my right side screen while doing my listing entry on the left screen. That is a good investment for the increased productivity gained, in my opinion.Well I am also doing just fine with WonderLister at $25 per month and also I have the Consignor Module at that price. I have a few consignors and create their monthly reports within WL. It handles all of my inventory as well as theirs.
Also at the $25 level [it was $20 for the first few years] I have all of the names, addresses and phone numbers of all of my customers for the last 4 years. I can see who has bought from me from years past and occassionaly when I get similiar items I email them. Have only sold a few that way but nice to have everything that Ebay collects on us sellers, pulled off of Ebay servers and all of that data as well as all of those former listings and sales on my hard drive forever. Many times I do a search, find an item I sold months or years ago, hit duplicate, then do minor revisions and submit. How far back can we go with Ebay’s archives? I think only 3 to 6 months or so?
I also last week clicked on local sales tax and instantly got my report for what Sales tax I owed from local sales here in Georgia for the past 12 months.Guess it boils down to the type of person or personality one is, what type of seller or store level-number of items one has and if you re-list your listings every 30 days, if a program such as WonderLister is worth the time or money or not. Then if you are a Mac user, guess you are out of luck anyway.
Your welcome Lindsey.
Don’t want to start a war here but as “scavengers”, I just don’t see why anybody in this day and time want to spend 4 times the costs for a rig, parts or assecories for a Mac anyway? A $3 mouse or a $24 mouse??
Been around computers for decades, way back to the first Apple days. Owned them but gravitated to PC’s long ago because I could get into the guts if I wanted to. Also in the printing business we had to use Macs because every high end client used Adobe Photoshop and it was designed for the Mac environment. The Motorola chip sets they used, bench marked out at a little faster, so would process and RIP large graphic files much faster as we did color separations for 4 color process printing or outputting film. But for Business use, Spread sheeting and word processing once MicroSoft introduced MSOffice, Excel, Access for SQL database creation and Intel introducing it’s Quad Core processors, I don’t think an average Mac user can support why they spend so much more for a Mac.
Years ago, Apple did a smart thing by furnishing schools with free computers and maybe that is where many grew up with Macs. But bench test them side by side today and I think only a technician can see any difference. On top of that Macs have to use a work around or third party app to handle Office type programs. No big deal but why pay more to a rig to have to do that.
Used to hear that Macs were targeted less by hackers, well in todays world hackers go after anything, anytime, anywhere. And they go after your offline accounts and passwords besides.
To build a maxed-out Mac Pro, you start with the $3999 standard-configuration model. Then you customize it and select all the high-end upgrades. So, how much does a maxed-out Mac Pro cost?
Standard-configuration 3.5GHz 6-core Mac Pro $3999
2.7GHz 12-core processor upgrade $3000
64GB DDR3 ECC memory upgrade $1200
Dual AMD FirePro D700 (6GB of GDDR5 VRAM) video upgrade $600
1TB PCIe-based flash-storage upgrade $800
Total $9599I know this is a far out upgrade but you get my point. Seems like as “scavengers” looking for the best bang for the buck, that Apple products and Macs should not be on the BOLO list.
Now this all just came across my mind, let’s not get a feud going here. Just me thinking about why I would not invest into a Mac, not why you or anyone else should not.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
SixBit is about to come out of BETA Mode and offer it. They are somewhat hush mouthed right now, but I was speaking with one of their tech the other day and it was mentioned that they are about ready to go with it.
I am a WonderLister user for several years and have also spoken with them about it. It is their To-Do list but they are behind SixBit as far as that goes. I just recently posted about my 30-day trial that I am working on with SixBit and from what I see it is going to be great, to manage inventory especially with two sites.
I was originally looking for something to do what my spread sheet does so I could integrate inventory management into the other features and have an all in one program for everything except my financial accounting-banking. Looks like SixBit will do it.
The owner of both WL and SB are from the old Ebay Blackthorn Group and when Ebay abandoned that and now Turbo Lister, these former employees went off and started their own database company to do what Blackthorn used to do.
Go to both of their web sites and watch the videos of how they operate, especially SixBit. I know there are others users here at SL that also use SixBit. They are both paid services and there is somewhat of a learning curve. Probably not for a seller of only a few hundred items, but over a thousand it gets more feasible. Especially if you have implemented and inventory control system and also would like to bulk edit all of your store items at once. Ryanne has to edit all 6,000 items 500 at a clip. That’s 12 different times she has to go into Ebay and work the magic on their bulk lister. On WL or SB you can change multiple things on all 6,000 all at one time if you wish. That would be worth something to me if I had a big store.
Jay asked me the other day what all could these programs do and I gave a long rambling answer, but you can search SixBit and probably find it.
Hope this helps
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Well I am getting ready to make the move over to SixBit. t costs a little more, but also delivers more.
You can create hundreds of templates if you want. Save them for ever. It cpatures every customers name, home address and phone number and keeps iy for ever. Actually it captures everything Ebay can offer but then pulls it onto your own hard drive so you can sort, filter and compile any way you ean’t. Build your own mailing lists and send your own emails. It takes as many listings as I want 2, 4, 6 or 10 and then will automatically submit those new listings to your twitter account. Then it captures all of the fees of PayPal and Ebay, all of the shipping costs and as you list you also enter your cost for those items. Then one of the reports they generate is your own customized COGS sold plus your own P&L stament. It does some of the things that Go Daddy does.
When it comes to incoming inventory you just type in your quick title and it automatically creates a custom SKU number, then will print a tag to put onto your item and it also automatically generates a bar code for that SKU number.
It has several types of Sales reports that it generates. Tell you what sals are made in each state and will also give yo how much tax you owe in your own state. When items sell it generates a Pick List w/ a small photo, your item number and the location where it is stored. It can print your own shipping labels from within itself and also [I belive SB will also match up the output label with the product].
Next what I did a couple of days ago, was i customized the “LIsting”page to be laid out the way I like to see and enter things. You can move Item Specifics around, the description area, prices, etc. Just drag and drop them any where yo want. Then another enat thing is I can create “custom data fields” and these don’t show up in the real listing/ So beside the PRICE field I have a small research prices box.
Next as soon as you put in your title and select a category then I can click a butto and it automatically does an Ebay Sold listing and present’s the same data that the App “What’s it Worth” gives you on your phone. And, I can also created additonal tabs like WorthPoint and Kovels so whe I want to research sold prices I can get that from 3 different sources all at one time.
It also has a built in editor, that allows photo editing directly in the listing form [just like Ebay now does. guess Ebay copied them, but the photo editor does much more all on the fly. It will automatically insert your title onto the photos with a quick rename feature.
SixBi has many, many tutorial videos. Since I have usd WonderLister for several years I was up to speed, customized many pages and item specifics and am rolling as of today. I also does scheduled listings, but s does Ebay.
Another thing I can create as many folders as i want in a custom directory and in those crate as many different type of templates as I wat and they will hold those forever.
Has tons of batch editing features. Will Append, Prepend titles and descriptions, bulk delete, handle Sales creation and has features that does what Ebay Marketing Manager does but all of this is all within the same piece of software.
I heard you ask for the ability to batch edit more than 250 or 500 listigs at a time. Well how would you like to do it with all 6,000 listings you have at one time?? 🙂 Well you go it here. I only have 725 right now, but once all of our antique booth stuff is listd we will be up around 2,000 and will keep going from there. I can edit all listings in one shot. in L & SB. That is probaly worth the 39.49 price tag to you alone.
I have only spent since Sunday working on SixBit but it is something else. Also back to the Etsy thing, unsure what all they will roll out but they have been in Beta mode for a while and think I will be able, once I create my listing, to also be able to upload / submit the listing to my new Etsy account. Am unsure if they are going to auto synch ended listing or not.
Also I will also install it on my laptop and link my laptop to my local network and then Su ad I can work on thedatabase and everything it is capable of both at the same time.
With what I am listing above, that is not all of it by a long shot. I recommend going to view their web site, like I said before and view all the tutorials.
Yes it is a paid subscription and if you see the price and then immediately click off then none of these are for you. Productivity is going to cost. My WonderLister subscription is $25 a month. SixBit is $34.99 for the level I like, but you can get smaller packages on both.
I know there is another member here that is a SixBit usr because he mentioned it before. I was hopeing to flush out some of those members and we could then get a good topc going on how we all actually use this type of software, the benefits of it and tips on how to make it supercharged. Look at how much we have talked about Ebay format, maybe something like that.
Well let’s see. Sorry for all the typos bu did this fast in reply.
Respectfully Submited … Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yep.. and all of their tape has had that logo since they introduced it and it still makes my packages look like they were packed by clowns in the circus.
All that color going every which way on larger packages. The box is so busy, it is a wonder the USPS folks can even read the label, and much less see FRAGILE stickers on the box. Many times on a more expensive item I still use the clear tape and the box just looks so much more professional when I get through with it.
It wouldn’t surprise me if at some point they add a jester wearing a pointy hat & shoes waving a scepter. Better off just going with the new style lettering with the tight kerning and in a solid red on a white background, or white bold letters on a clear background. But man, what a mixture.
Again, just my own, simple opinion…
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
And hopefully you have a 20% restocking fee in your business policies and apply that. It is cases like this that the fee is good for.
Frostys, I think maybe this would be best posted in the “Shipping – Final Frontier” Topic area but will reply here and maybe Jay or Ryan can and will maybe move the topic over to that section.
In any case having had a ton of experience with shipping and trucking / freight through the years at my other companies there is not good news, but who knows.
I have posted on this topic before but that is probably buried deep in the old Blog Format.
Here is the reason. On larger claims all of the carriers [incl. USPS, UPS, FedEx, Delta, etc], will assign reps to investigate larger claims. I am unsure what that set point is but the bottom line is that they look for reasons to not pay off. They in almost all cases of when I spoke to reps, they wanted to know if we had our packing procedures submitted for approval [which we did=we were a large company that shipped to world class companies], and did we follow our SOP [standard operating procedures.
They will always point back to their online processes and ask did you pack the way you were supposed to and if so would it pass the infamous DROP TEST!
Here are a couple of links. FedEx assumes you, your staff or your in house training provides the systems for proper packing in order to withstand the following. Once you check out these links, I think you will get the idea.
http://images.fedex.com/us/services/pdf/PKG_Package_Test_Application.pdf
And the last two above are simply amazing plus very educational videos of what these guys really can do and how amazing they really are. Well worth the 20 minutes in length on the last one. the others are just a minute or two.and the Chinese guys are hilarious, especially as compared to the high tech of the FedEx and UPS guys, but they are aware, they must PASS THE TEST!. They are just trying to see if their package will pass that “infamous drop test”.
Considering what all that these guys do, it is really amazing.. BUT I have been told numerous times face to face on the floor of our plant that it is up to us as sellers, shippers to make sure our packages can withstand these types of conditions. They can’t baby us. The do 25 million packages a day. That means every person in the USA every 10 days.
Bottom line, they will questions us as to how well we packed, especially if you are a small home business doing something like Ebay. I use a method I call the “Cocoon” method [sort of like a sarcopagus concept] and my breakables have a 7 layer process my wife and I use. We DO TEST occasionally and take items we are going to donate and pack then up and do the following: 3 foot high drop test on a corner from 3 ft. up on the garage concrete, we roll boxes down our office stairs, we even have stood on top on a test box. AND be fore warned those FREE USPS boxes are not 175 Test Rated burst strength. The flutes are thin and so is the overall wall thickness. The Ebay boxes are much better.
A design problem we had in art school decades ago was to design a package that had nice graphics and exterior design but had to contain one raw egg and to get a passing grade for that assignment it had to pass a drop from the classroom window down to the outside ground [concrete]. I passed!! 🙂
But with a box showing no exterior damage and no photos to prove it. Well, you can try.
We have only had 4 items broken since 2002 using our method and that fourth one was just last week. A tall glass compote 16″ high. But I made sure to ask the customer for a photo of the outside of the box. It was crushed. I included that along with two other photos and a written description of our 7 layer “cocoon” process. We have gotten reimbursed the first 3 times and still waiting on this last one, but am confident.
Good luck..
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yes me too pythonesk. We use bubble mailers at times to keep items in either sharp or delicate items separated. With the knives I mentioned, those are all boxed sets. But we do have hand tools and such, again use some padded envelopes.
Wonder what it’s like to dig through a bin or box full of 25 all red trucker hats, all snapbacks, all used with some slight wear and only the logo to identify each one. Fun, o Fun. I remember something Jay saying that is funny about how he sent two left shoes to a customer. Digging through a full box of all brown men’s shoes. Rumbling through the box trying to find the matching right shoe and the correct brand and size. Funny. LOL
Yep.. We do the same now. We got the foam plate tip from Linda Shields. Great tip. We also use stretch wrap to hold several associated pieces all together [with bubble wrap padding of coarse]. Also we use the stretch wrap in our packing process also. On almost every item we ship. Holds everything tightly together. We buy it in 5″ wide rolls and it comes with a small hand holder. we just wrap it around and around. It is also good for bridging spaces between even even areas of an irregular shaped object. Great stuff. A main stay in our packing area.
Speaking of dishes, and I knew better and could kick myself in the butt for just the reason you mention. We had a stack of 12 Limoges Made in France dinner plates in one bin and my wife said go ahead and put the salad plates and saucers in the one bin. I knew that was going to be too heavy for the structure of the bin and also for my arm that high up. So I split the set up. Dinner plates in this bin, found a partially empty second bin for the salad plates and again same thing for the cups and saucers.
We also use a metal rolling cart that we pull in between the rows and down the aisles when we pull bins so we don’t have to lower them all the way to the floor when pulling. So, I had to use our 3 step small ladder to put it up there and did OK. But we went to pull it one day to take them all out to our antique booths and BAM! While I was lifting the bin with the dinner plates down, the top [it was latched-we only use snap over latches on our bins. Pop on lids without latches just don’t cut it] and latch snapped off due to the weight and it fell off my right hand, hit the cart and dumped all the plates out and they all broke as they hit the concrete floor.
What I should have done is only put 4 in a bin, spread them around, then just put 4 bin numbers on my spread sheet for the location. But nope, and all was lost on the plates. Just had to sweep them up and dump.
But point is many like kind items can weigh a ton and a numerical system allows you to pace any where for any reason. I will admit most of our items are one of a kind [I dislike plates due to weight and length of time to pack and protect. But we have wine goblets, Asian vases, ash trays, many drinkware sets and they are all spread around in various bins.
We have only had 3 breakages since 2002 [one just the other day] and only 2 items not located in 14 years, so think the system works fairly well.
to 1sourcesales: “Why wouldn’t you”:
Couple of reasons
* Weight. If you have heavy items like we do the boxes get heavy. We have a few bins already clocking in at 40 plus pounds. If we put all “like kind items” that were also heavy in one bin, it might grow too heavy. I have a pair of Men’s Shoes Dr. Martens on my table right now and they weigh 2.6 lbs. Now multiply that times 25 pair in a bin and it will weigh 65 lbs. Our shelves are 7 feet high and we put bins on top, so we would have a 65 lb. bin to pull down and put back up at 7 plus feet over our heads?? Or have to just leave them down low close to the floor and again, if we had a lot of heavy bins we would only using the lower areas we would be wasting a lot of over head space. But this all depends on the type of inventory people have. Lrg. Mfg. [like we used to be], always utilize overhead space as high up as they can. Just like Jay’s second story on there building.* to conserve storage space. You mention “a” bin. Our numerical bins are up to number 536. If we had them all just partially full do you have any idea how much space that would take up. Example, steak knives sets, we have about 4 or 6 sets, they would only take up about half a bin. But they are gently laying elsewhere on top of some jeans, or shirts, etc.
536 boxes “half” full would mean over a thousand bins which would mean we would have to go “rent” outside storage at $75 per month.* Putting things in the wrong box can happen to anybody at any time for any reason. I could see a like kind seller accidently putting a pair of brown men’s shoe’s into the black box just as easily.
* If you hire someone or you are away on a trip and have another person pull something for you it is easy to say, on your phone or text, go to bin 423 and take out item 3853. They don’t have to know what it is, what it looks like. Just execute two manuevers based on a numerical system. And yes, mistakes can happen with any system, garbage in = garbage out.
So, barring human error for a moment, we think, in our opinion that there is just more benefits to using the numerical placement system. There are some benefits also to the “like Kind” but we personally [ioho] think the number system far outweighs them.
Many MBA programs and LEAN Mfg. programs advocate, the numerical systems over like kind systems and there is a lot that can be searched on Google about the benefits of numerical computerized control systems, perpetual inventory systems, year end inventory control by way of numerical date control for calculating cost of goods sold, and things along those lines.
But if space / storage is no issue, weight is no issue, and no long range plans to grow ones business to a larger size by using helpers, no plans for computerization, then other systems that work for a personal preference is fine.
But if we had mixed our customer’s [Walmart, Home Depot, Stanley Tools, General Electric Co., Michelain Tires, etc., etc.] items all together because the hangers, hooks, headers, end cap displays, printed banners were all like kinds we would have been in a world of hurt both from an inventory cost point and also from a FIFO / FILO Re-order, Purchasing and stocking point. We just use the same inventory control logic we did in our large business on a very small scale now we are retired and doing this as our full time living. Spent 40 years tracking stuff before so why scrap a perfectly good system we work out years ago, just because we are smaller now.
BTW, we have about 3,000 items in a 20 x 20 space and it is only about half full. We think we will be able to fit approx. 6,000 items in that 20×20 space eventually. BTW we sell mostly vintage ceramic, glass, metal, hard goods, some small furniture & mirrors, artwork. The paper goods, stamps and jewelry we keep in metal file cabinets in our admin. office which is approx. 15′ x 22′.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Same here Pythonesk. Think we discussed some of this a while back and is probably searchable on the new forum format.
* Clear bins so we can see how full and which bins to put new stuff in.
* Consecutively number the bins and the bin number then gets added to our sku number in the custom note field in Ebay and also our Spread sheet as a back-up
* Each item is assigned it’s own custome sku number that includes the item no., price paid fot it, buy date and final bin where placed.
* Agree, like items create space voids in the over all space management. Amazon has a Star Wars toy in a bin right along with a chocolate mold and a neck tie. Doesn’t matter as long as the items custom sku number is associated with that bin number. [How we did it in our large printing company which we also did fullfilment for our major customers].
* If you want to put “some” similar things together then just look up where you put your last two sweaters and go put your new purchase in that bin.
* We strongly suggest some type of written log, ledger book or especially a spread sheet. Very quick and easy to use.mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
