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Sure the heck is. Hey an idea. Sell the $250 one, re-buy the $85 one and smile all the way to the bank. And BTW, give them a good feedback in return for the $165 profit they gave you.
Strange business model – SOP if you ask me. If they do that a lot, we can take bets as to how long they can stay in business. 🙂
mike at MDCGFA in Atl
02/27/2020 at 10:59 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74494I agree my Cottage. This is a very minor tid-bit. The only change from the past is that the Buyer will get more days to return and a few extra days to provide tracking as proof of the return. Everything else about the same.
really this point of the Update is of no real concern to use as it applied to our business model and SOP’s. Same old, same old.
Much more interesting talking points in the update of interest to us. But no real concerns.
We are more focused on the Main Category and sub-category changes and the associated Item Specifics changes and how much work will we be involved in to get all those added changes implemented.
Mike at MDCGFA
02/27/2020 at 8:47 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74482RTWV… Yep, like Jay says, this is how it has been for a long time. If a buyer has 30 days to ask for a return, that means 30 FULL Days, so up until 11:59:59 PM in there time zone [a full 30 days] they can ask for a return.
Then if a seller is on the automatic system, a label is auto. generated immediately and Ebay sends it with a message they have 5 days and gives a date to re-pack and ship. If after that period of time the item is not showing a return tracking number a seller can ask Ebay to close the case. But that early closing only applies to the time frame Ebay gave them to return the package after they requested a return and it was approved and a label generated.
The 30 day time frame that a Buyer is entitled too, is what it is. 30 full 24 hour days down to the minute before the 30 days expires.
Now we have heard here on SL about Return Requests coming in AFTER the time frame is up and that’s a different situation. If a seller has 30 day return and someone messages them after 45, 60, 70, 90 days, I think a “NO” to the return is in order.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Good guess Jay. And maybe the punches create the pilot holes for the cobbler to drive his nails in and keep them all evenly spaced.
Or, still some type of pilot holes for a leather item, like Sharyn says, where the hand stitching stays evenly spaced when using a hand awl.
MAYBE .. ??
mike at MDCGFA
02/26/2020 at 10:13 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74413Spring Seller Update..
I like what I have been reading and many changes seem to be aimed at helping or supporting sellers.
Some of the information covers things that have already happened in Oct. and Nov. 2019 and details on some newer things.
It is worth a read, in my opinion, and this time I came away feeling pretty good. The Q&A at the end of each section / topic gives some more perspective also.
I think it does some of the things that the Ebay was discussing yesterday at their first ever live town hall meeting. [links to this are above somewhere].
Also more details into what is still to come with regards to Item Specifics. That topic is still going to have more changes coming over the rest of this year.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
02/25/2020 at 5:32 pm in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74391That’s right. I forgot it was to be a “phased in” approach. Ok, we will see how the first round goes and hope I am not one of the first group! 🙂
They will probably start with the smaller sellers, just in case. Could you imagine the they started with the stores that had 10’s and 10’s of thousands of listings and it glitched! 🙁
mike at mdcgfa
02/25/2020 at 3:15 pm in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74378Yep.. you were first. And true, it remains to be seen, but they did mention some topics of importance to all of us and they are working on them.
What I am expecting though is there going to be a big KA-BOOM, when they force eveyone over into Managed Payments. And if so, that may take all their resources thrown at that to fix as quickly as possible.
We can read more details tomorrow when the actual update rolls out. Oh Joy!
mike – mdcgfa
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This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
02/25/2020 at 2:52 pm in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74376Just finished the Town Hall Meeting and I was impressed. It is quick summary showed to me at least that they are listening, are aware of many of the things we have read and talked about and that addressing those issues are in the works.
Not a lot of detail, but this format is not for that, just a precursor to what is to come. Even things that won’t be in tomorrow’s Update but are still on the drawing board for later on this year.
They touch on the Managed Payment $.25 fee. Also I like that they are willing to change some of the IS and also allow us to write in some of them and in turn as they learn they will add some that are pertinent and also admit their mistake of including some that were not pertinent.
A few good tid-bits in there, in my opinion.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Yeah.. actually Hairspray is Lacquer based which is comprised of Keytones, acetone and Tyuoline. [sp?]
We keep a small pint can of lacquer thinner and of acetone in our office, along with Lighter Fluid which is Benzine, which is essentially dry cleaner fluid.
The lacquer thinner and acetone will most likely take out the color, but the lighter fluid is probably ok [but test on another item or location].
The lighter fluid has a high flash point so it dries very quickly. Soak the tag with it, rub between your ringers and then blow on it hard on both sides. It evaporates almost instantly just like they dry clean a garment at the cleaners only they now use something else that is not as flammable as lighter fluid.
By the way many permanent markers are lacquer based. Lacquer, acetone will melt plastic. Benzine will not. As an experiment, squirt a little lighter fluid out on a saucer, then blow hard and long on it and watch as it dries up just as fast as alcohol.
So you have a few experiments to conduct. Let us know your results.
Mike at MDCGFA in Atl.
Just a suggestion.
02/24/2020 at 2:06 pm in reply to: Unhappy buyer messaged “ripoff”: Do I mention the return procedure? #74335Yes, agree with Sharyn. This is what we do, plus we offer free automatic returns. We also always, reply once, stating approx. what Sharyn said.
That’s it. We ant every customer to be happy. If they are not, then file for a Return, state your reason and Ebay issues then a shipping label and tells them they have 5 days to send it back. Once we get it, we will inspect it and if all is well, we will refund. Easy as that.
I think the Ebay Auto return program is great and takes many people just phishing by surprise. as soon as they ask for a return and click, they get a return label. Too much trouble for most busy people to pack it back up and return it.
Yes we pay for return shipping and it’s part of doing business, but so few actually do the return. 90% of the time if not more, you never hear from them and if they leave a neg. feedback, Ebay takes care of it.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
02/24/2020 at 1:44 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 451: How Longtail Are You Willing To Go? #74333@Simplicio .. Agree with your assessment. Also, there is a lot of “hidden” areas for storage in a home. Some maybe not for long term but will help you scale up some before a seller is forced to go to extra outside storage.
In a garage, park your car outside and create 6 or 7 ft. high shelves and arrange then library style so you can get to them from both sides.
Old refrigerators with the doors off can be used for storage using all the shelving and bins it has.
If you have a garage, then go up high and build a perimeter shelf all the way around all 4 side, even above the garage door.
In the attic, many homes have truss roof rafters. Build shelves between them. Use your attic stairs to go up and down. No stairs, but only a small scuttle hole, have a handyman open that small hole up and install attic stairs.
Store things under all the beds and couches with low plastic storage bins with pull out drawers
In your personal clothes closet use, all above and below space and use plastic shoe boxes and stack vertically.
If you live in a 2 story and have stairs going up, open up the wall under the treads and create nice looking storage under them.
Any furniture that has empty drawers or are full of junk. Dump the junk and use as storage.
Buy-find low profile, flat top decorative storage trunks and use them as a coffee table, side tables and end of the bed storage and put items in those.Use trunk of your car[s] and glove compartment and stack bins in your back seat.
If you have a basement, same thing, store thing under the stairs going down.Exposed studs in an unfinished basement, mount brackets and make board shelves across the faces of the open studs.
Of course, the obvious, free standing shelving lined up library style in an open basement
Then of course the obvious, build a smaller, storage shed out back if you have the property before renting. One it is closer than a drive to storage unit and second, it is much cheaper than $350 a month x 12 mos. = $4,200 per year, well $4,200 or double that [2 years of outside storage] is $8,400 which without looking should buy a fairly good sized outside shed and after 24 months it is free storage. Need more, get a bigger one or buy a second one and put them side by side. But this is a bigger investment up front.We have about 1,200 items, all hard goods, metal and ceramic in our garage and we have space to maybe get that up to 2,500 we guess before we would tap into the attic space. We already have a neat transport system up and down from the attic once we go there. We figure another few thousand up in the attic area with built in shelves between the trusses. With hard goods the attic and basement environment doesn’t affect them.
Also, we have a way to account for the location of any bin within our SKU Number system built into SixBit already.
So, some creative thinking may help to delay the jump to an outside storage unit.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Showing on my Manage All Orders page. And maybe customize tab may be out of view.
I know this may be obvious to an old pro like yourself, but try signing our of Ebay, closing Ebay and everything else, reboot your rig and then open and sign back in again and see what you get.
At times, just like our cell phones, everything needs to be reset and let it “Burp”, then things start working correctly again.
Mike @ MDCGFA
For Ryanne: We do as Clarity does. We include our SKU at the very bottom of our description area also. And in SixBit we have a custom field.
nother sugesstion is that we used to put our SKU numbers at the end of the “Condtion” field.
If you guys are using InkFrog does it have a section for a SKU so you can use InkFrog as a stand alone Inventory Control System like the old Turbo Lister, WonderLister and SixBit does or does InkFrog not handle Inventory Control?
If Ink Frog allows you to make custom fields, make one and put your SKU there as a backup. I am not saying use it in place of but as in addition to. In other words have your SKU in to places. On Ebay and within your 3rd party app.
If InkFrog does allow Custom Fields, then you can hopefully do a bulk copy of the regular sku field into the custom field. Yes it is duplicate data but those SKU numbers are your life blood of finding, reconcilling and reporting on your inventory as a whole.
By also having then SKU numbers in InkFrog [2 places], you can every month or so, export a few chosen comuns of data into an excel spread sheet as a .CSV file and have a stapled together printed hard copy log of your complete inventory. Just last week I had to refer back to my hard copy for something I had to find left over from the antique booth days.
Just a few tips that may help in the future.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine art
02/18/2020 at 12:29 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74103Troy.. this is killing me and our helper Lisa also. We still have listings left over from the WonderLister over to SixBit transition about a year and half ago.
I think we still have several hundred to go. Tedious, oh man yes, because not only are we dealing with the New IS fields, but also we still have to delete some old WL wrappers and also apply the new SixBit templates to all of those and re-list as new.
Very time consuming and then to get everything croos posted into Etsy if it qualifies.
mike mdcgfa
02/18/2020 at 12:12 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74102I am right here with Sharyn on this. This all was mentioned a year or two here on SL and the message was the same. Track everything you use for your business or business purposes. It adds up to a whole lot. It is these things that are the hidden [soft] costs to running a business, being at home using more resources for your business during office hours.
We have 3,923 of house, office, garage and full finished basement. We take the business SF as deduction. That is square footage of dedicated bonus room office over garage at 264 sf., 440 of garage for storage, and 640sf of finished basement for art studio and wood working / framing shop. So, 1344 sf of business only space. That’s about 33% deduction off mortgage, taxes, elec. bill, gas bill.
Then we take a portion of the internet as subscriptions for research, Worthpoint research as subscription, business cell phones, mileage [we use Mile IQ that tracks our every movement in the car and creates a report of all our sourcing and business trips] for travel mileage, then also all our cleaning supplies like metal polish, Windex, paper towels, toilet paper for cleaning and stuffing, solvents, art supplies like paint, canvas, painters tapes, shelving, brushes, framing materials, wire, screws, nails, new tools [depreciate these], all shipping supplies, boxes, shipping tape, misc. office supplies, computers, software, research books and magazines, office furniture, and actually even more.
Now of course these are all categorized in Quicken as broader categories and once classified and mapped to a specific category, then once a month we do our bank and credit card downloads, and everything is categorized into its proper accounting category.
The devil is in the details, and if you watch those details then you are good to go. This detailed process has cut our business profits down to Zero and taxes to zero for about 10 years now. But you must have an infrastructure set up to capture and classify everything that is business related.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
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