Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
02/17/2020 at 5:16 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74064
Good Point Sharyn. And also this forum has not ever been a kind of “social” platform. Some joke at times, me included, but not a whole bunch of Likes, thumbs up’s, and atta boy’s. We all seem to be more of an informational forum covering all the things sellers at different levels get faced with and trying to get answers to the best protocol of how to handle something, do something or deal with Ebay issues.
Lately Ebay and Etsy have thrown enough screw balls at us sellers and the SL sellers try to figure it out. We don’t complain much, other than an Ugghh here we go again Ebay comment, but mostly, now how do we deal with it approach. Maybe a few have quit SL and Ebay as a whole out of frustration but mostly here seems to be more problem solving or asking how in the world did you do that type of thing.
Of course Jay and Ryanne are good gate keepers also and only the Big Trash Elf Himself knows how many SL members get the boot. I do remember during the Blog / Forum switch, I was getting tired of all the anonymous posters getting very argumentative and Jay said how look we are here to help. If you don’t want to pitch in and help or are only going to be mean and stir up a pot of trouble and make personal attacks then leave.
Now we have to request from Ryanne to join [maybe she does background checks on all of us] LOL :-] but with all of us using some type of name or handle it seems to have been fairly peaceful and focused for several years now.
mc
02/17/2020 at 4:55 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74062@WVR: I remember the thread. My long list of questions and your reply. But as Sharyn just mentioned, I did edits. I waited on the first edit, but did a quick second one and my reply to you disappeared. I emailed Ryanne and she found it and re-posted it, but it is showing under here member name.
Try searching under her name or some keyword contained and you may find it. I saw it after she re-posted it.
But yes, quick edits glitch the forum up. On my longer posts [“walls of text” as Jay like’s to call them]I Finally just started typing replies in MSWord, editing there and then copying and pasting. But that still won’t help if you do a quick edit on the forum.
Hint: If on a PC hold down the CTRL KEY and hit “F” for find and you will get the MS Quick search bar across the bottom of the Forum and you can search for a key word there or use the Forum’s search box. But I like the MS Find because you have 1 or 2 options, one is to highlight the search term so it’s easy to spot.
mc @ MDCGFA
02/17/2020 at 4:45 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74060I remember your posts now because I showed it to my wife. Her two favorite places. Ulta and Sephora. All she wants for Christmas are Gift Cards from those two stores and of course cash cards.
She said when I showed her your posts, she said I wouldn’t sell a thing until I built my personal stash up. When we were first married back in 1969 and we went up to CT. for my grad school work, she worked for Pfizer Corp who owned Coty Cosmetics and she also repp’ed for Elizabeth Ardin. She used to get tons of the left over Gifts that went along with their Purchase specials. very nice stuff, like complete eye shadow kits, foundations, new line perfumes in kits. Not like the Oscar’s bags, but nice Gifts that came with special purchases.
She was a Cosmetics rep before going into the dental field. If we go to the Mall of GA for me to go into Staples Office supply for something, BOOM, she swings left and says I’ll be up in Ulta. I get through and always have to go get her, then I walk around behind her for another hour. How many shades of red go these companies make, and why do women seem to think they have to try every one on or every fragrence. UUggh!!
She also said you had to be very deligent to do what you are doing and she can see how it all works, but you have to keep your eye on every sale, every BOGO or the Buy One Get one at XX? Off. And best of all are to know the Good Free Gift with Purchase.
Well kiddo $19,000 a month on discounted cosmetics is amazing. Also a lot of SL members are more into vintage and used goods and seem to be mostly Ebay, Etsy, Mercari, Posh and the likes for the older, used stuff. All your products, I would assume are NEW and still shrink wrapped.
Have you thought about your own store on like WooCommerce or Shopify and run it along side your Amazon sales until you gain traffic and momentum for your own store? Brnd your store somehow as the cosmetic alternative to Ulta and Sephora. BUT also watch out for VERO’s. Many companies are getting touchy about selling ther new stuff and even used stuff now days, if you are not a licensed or authorized seller. Wonder how that works in the cosmetics industry since they are so brand and image conscious.
Take care… Mike at MDCGFA
02/17/2020 at 2:06 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74052@Something Fantastic: You must have caught some of the members here out with the Flu on the same day and Jay and Ryanne out of the office and out on their job site. Who among us would not Congratulate $57k of Sales in a 90 day period.
A huge “Great Job” from me, Congratulations and Welcome Back.
One of the things that many members have been focused on more so than numbers over the past several years is going more into the weeds as jay calls it about how to handle increasing inventory, building systems and infrastructure, looking deeper into your numbers and knowing what they mean and scaling your businesses than maybe the Kudos about Sales numbers. But I see many, “Wow Great Sales, or Cool Find and Flip here, maybe just not as often as in the past. But your numbers are what many would love to have here on SL.
Great job, keep up the good work and Don’t be Shy. If you need any help ask, if not then try to help some others. You may be a good member to usher in what I think will be an upcoming topic “Buying WholeSale” and things like that.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
P.S. One thing you might also consider. Scroll all the way down to the bottom on any forum page and look at the small print. It will give you the count of the members that are signed in at any one time here on SL. As of right now, there are only a few members logged in and SL has approx. 6,000 members but only a few are active at any one time. It also says that the largest number of logged in members was 18 back in March [I think] in 2018. And if they are multi tasking and listing and reading as i do at times, it may be nothing more of a “shortage of eyes” on the postings and that’s why maybe you got a low number of “Atta’ Boys or Kudos” at the time.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Cool. Thanks for the info Troy. I will be doing some comparison research tomorrow and see what I can decide on.
mike
02/16/2020 at 2:26 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74018Thanks Troy. She has been bed ridden most of the time. But next Wed. is her last chemo and then a month off and then just 2 quick 15 min. radiation treatments on March 23rd and she is done and God willing all the treatments will have killed off all the cancer cells and she will be in remission, we are praying. Then evey six weeks doctor follow-ups for several years to keep an eye on everything.
Yep been getting up most mornings between 4am-6am and trying to do as much on the Ebay and Etsy stores, plus doing some web work and online marketing for the owner of the fellow who bought my old spray foam business. Then meals, our cat got sick, house chores and helping my daughter, I am a very tired puppy.
Glad to hear that you seem to be back in the swing of things and seems that Veronica is doing a great job keeping the item listings and flow going.
Thanks for the kudos and will make sure Susan sees your post.
Take care..
Your brother by another mother… Mike02/16/2020 at 10:51 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74011Hey Guys and Troy you didn’t think I was going to let a pod-cast from you go by without having something to say. I can see Jay rolling his eyes and muttering, “Here we go, another wall of text from Mike”.
Same sales drop for us. We increased the inventory by about 50% from 2018 and by the end of 2019 we were down approx. 23% from 2018 in gross sales.
You and I talked about the Oct. drop when we last spoke. We saw the biggest drop about Oct. also. That was when Ebay did the “Item Specific” big changes in clothing. And Ebay is still making changes in other categories and has been an ongoing move.
Ebay has added a bunch of recommended and required item specifics, but what I am seeing is they are leaving out a bunch of what we think are pertinent data fields. So, I have just added some of our own custom fields. SixBit has helped with doing all of that in bulk.
When cross posting to Etsy don’t forget that Etsy has implemented the “forced” Free Shipping program. Anything over $36 is highly stressed to be Free Shipping so our Etsy prices are higher by estimated shipping to Zone 6 built into the prices.
We also dropped most clothing long ago and we have always been into hard goods and have half of our total inventory cross listed on Etsy and at half the number of items on Etsy, we gross at about half of our Ebay gross. So, we predict if we had all our inventory on Etsy we would do about the same Gross amount on Etsy. And, Etsy is less costly.
We also went to Free Shipping on Ebay last Oct. to try to overcome the drop we were seeing. Over the last 4 months, Sales volume stayed about the same but what we see is that all our close by state sales [zones1 to 3] have dropped off and Sales to Cal., Washington state, Oregon, etc. all Zone 8 increased a large amount. So, we think the phrase pushed by Ebay “build in the price to midway, then the lost money to far away zone 8 will be made up by the sales in zones 1 to 3. Well, the Sales in the closer zones “dropped off”. So, the closer sales are not supplementing the loss on the zone 8 sales because we only built in a zone 5 and 6 into the prices. And in hard goods that are in the 4 to 6 lb. range can be $10 to $15 more to ship onto that zone 7 and 8 that was NOT built in.
So, after I got those answers from Wabash River Valley relics and studying his store, and hearing Jay and Ryanne tried Free Shipping and changed back I am going to do the same. So, today I am bulk editing in SixBit and changing everything 100% back to calculated shipping and make an offer no matter what the selling price or size or weight. Our helper said she was so glad to get back to a much more simplified listing and cutting down on the number of templates.
We are like you troy, we dropped using wrappers in SixBit and just have templates set up for our most popular categories.
Lastly, we have been ready to go public with our Shopify store but have been holding up due to Sue’s illness, but she is a few weeks away from being through, so think I am going to go ahead and do a full export into the Shopify store. My thoughts are why not just build a store of our own.
We use the Duo version of SixBit so just like you say, we create the listing in the Ebay tab, then click the “populate from Ebay” option and the complete listing from Ebay is moved over to Etsy. Then we update the selling price and it’s good to go. And if we also add Shopify that will automatically be populated also.
We have also renamed all our photos going back 8 or 9 years and stored them in a 4-terra byte external drive and also have that drive backed up in the cloud. The same photos are used for Etsy and as I said they are auto added to Etsy and Shopify.
The trick is to always use the square camera, which we have on our camera.
One other trick is to use the double bracket codes [[color]], [[brand]], [[title]], etc., etc. in the SixBit description area and not use the wrappers or put description like copy in a wrapper. With use of the codes, SB pulls all of these IS into the description are along with the title and then this allows all the item specifics and description text to be pulled over into the Etsy listing when the Populate from option is used. So a complete Etsy listing is created except for a few minor quick clicks and tags that takes less than 30 seconds to complete. All of the shipping wieghts, photos, full description which thanks to the codes, contains all the Ebay Item Specifics now into Etsy.
Yes Jay, Troy is correct that you would do very well on Etsy, but to do it by hand without SixBit Duo version. You would have to create them by hand like Troy is doing for his fewer items. It will take you just as long to list your items by hand on Etsy as it has taken you on Ebay.
Troy, remember I told you about the hard goods categories last year. I told you so, LOL 🙂
And don’t forget, like I was mentioning back then, sell higher cost items, aim for selling items over $40 up to $100 and be willing to pay more for the items.
Buying Wholesale is something we do with the SmartParts we have mfg. And an advantage of being a Corp. business structure we have a Fed. ID number and a Georgia State tax Exempt number so we can buy wholesale with almost any body and have been thinking about this also. We have a good friend who is a retired International Lawyer and knows a lot about importing goods from other countries also.
Ok… got to get going here and get back to removing all the free shipping off 1,200 items and adding Make an Offer.
Good discussion guys… great to hear the comments targeted to where our heads have been for a while now.
BTW… Couldn’t think about scaling 3 platforms without SixBit and yes, I am 71 years old and Susan is 68 so, we must do this because we need the extra income streams plus, we like it also.
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment-
This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
I would take my phone, go to the closest PO large enough to have a post Master and show them-report them. That is against the law, even though Ebay doesn’t do much about some sellers that are still selling the free supplies, maybe somebody local will tell Value Village to knock it off or be prosecuted.
Oh or better still, take all the boxes up to the store manager and tell them that you are taking all of these and not paying for them because they are free and selling the USPS boxes is against the law. If he doesn’t agree, tell him you are going to report them and if they want to call the police go ahead. That won’t help them and will only make it easier for you to report them. Then see what the store manager says. Then as a last straw, ask the manager if he will help you load all of the free boxes into your car!!! LOL 🙂
mike at MDCGFA in Atl
Oh and Thank you for the link. $170 is not bad. That maybe the answer. Just go ahead and bit the bullitt and pick one up. Have to read up on that model a little more and see what all it does and is compatible with.
P.S. Not only kiss cut, but perf, score, side guide, bi-fold, tri-fold, foil emboss, rad. rnd. corners, tympan sheet, build up, powder machine, burn a plate or screen, take off, pile wedges [to level], and a ton more if I had time to think about it.
thanks mike
I remember us talking about the old Thompson’s and Kluge presses.
My old partner died last year and I saw where his widow sold off the business in CT. and auctioned off all the machines.
He and i built that business up from doing hand printing work in a single garage to that new building we eventually built.
It was sad looking at all the auction photos of the inside. All the shelving I made, all the die cutters, silk screen presses and guillotines, laminating machine, ink room, everything I laid out and we installed over 22 years together. All hauled off by younger and newer competitors. Those were the prime years of my life all auctioned off in a day or two. 🙁 🙁
Now here selling used candle holders, dishes, vases urns, ceramics and what nots.
Not even fun doing this with Susan as sick as she is with her cancer treatments and me by myself everyday except for a few hours on friday and sat. with our helper. Only one helper now also.
Oh well onward and upwards.
Think you got what I was saying incorrect probably because of the way I was saying it. I meant to say, that I will wait until the laser printer “drum” goes out and needs a new drum which the last drum cost about a hundred dollars, I would use that as the opportunity to buy a thermal printer instead of repairing it.
I replaced the drum head a year or so ago and they usually last about 10,000 copies or so. The replacement drums in some models go for more than a new printer, which is par for the course.
But I certainly prefer a laser to an ink jet any day. For Years I used a four color laser printer because I print brochures and sales materials for my other businesses at that time. It costs almost $400 for toner on it back in those days. About $65 to $90 per color and I printed several hundred, 2 sided, tri-fold brochures on them that we gave to customers. It was like a mini printing press. But it finally gave out and I also no longer needed that service any longer.
As for the current ink jet. I too will just use it until the heads get screwed up then dump it. But may do it sooner rather than later. The person who took over my spray foam insulation business when I retired has asked my to come out of retirement and start doing his advertising and marketing both online and off for him to build up a new residential division. I may get another 4 color laser printer and print the brochures I design for him again on a color laser. At that point the ink jet will be history.
So the thought of decommissioning the laser for the ink jet wasn’t what I meant, it would be to dump the laser for the Thermal printer.
mc mdcgfa atl
Ryanne: So you turned off the GSP for your whole store, if I am reading correctly? Then made the change over to the new International Shipping?
It does seem to work about the same as the GSP program. Wonder if all of the same type of restrictions apply and if they also screen out the “do not ship to” countries like the GSP program does. Our “excluded” list of countries in the GSP prgram is twice as long as the countries our items will ship to. And some items won’t ship to some countries because of the nature of the item.
Our kitchen steak knives are one example. Some countries allow a wood blocket of kitchen knives some don’t. We even tried changing titles to Kitchen Cutlery, still some countries won’t take them but some will with the title changed. Strange.
We all laughed about calling them meat dividers, surgical steak manipulators, precision meat slicers, and on and on. We all had a good laugh! LOL 🙂
So we will explore this further at this weeks Friday Production meeting before we all start to work.
mc MDCGFA
She went on to say that after she read that info. in what she was mulling over online, it was an Ebay, purple header document from some Ebay area, that she then called her Ebay concierge service and talked with them and they confirmed that deliveries could take 6 to 8 weeks.
Then she gave just one example of her own, but the main focus was not on her having one complaint about one package taking a longer time. The package she sent was an experiment she did on her own after talking directly to Ebay. She was to try it herself for a comparison.
But rather than conjecture about it further any of us, if we have the time, could call Ebay and ask them the same question. Are you expecting your new service to run on a 6 to 8 week delivery schedule and the answer should put it all to rest. Personally I am in the GSP but only sell maybe half a dozen orders out of the US per year. Not enough for me to worry about. Will just sit and take the wait and see approach until we all have to deal with the managed payment switch over and then will also probably adjust out the shipping policies some.
But not trying to downplay or degrade the service, just thought I would what that one lady was reading about from the Ebay posting about the service.
Take Care…
Ta Ta for Now … mike at MDCGFA in ATLNow that you mention the phrase “hoarder house”, I do recall some dialogue along those lines and the huge volume you were asking about. Well at least we got some more details about how it all is being handled and stored.
mike mdcgfa
Thanks Sharyn: I suppose I could do a little rearranging and get a board across my main desk area and place it up on top of it above my monitors.
Currently my ink jet printer is by my desk and that’s where the packing lists and or the SixBit Pick List print out. Then the label is already waiting in the Laser printer over in the packing area as I walk over there. Guess I could have both the PL and Label print out here at my desk and walk both over to the shipping area.
Wonder if any one has tried printing out a Packing List onto a thermal label. Format the PL to a size that would fit the 4×6 label. Have the PL print first then the label be right after it. Guess that would be too small and hard to read, if it could even be formatted that size in the first place. Oh well, just thinking out loud.
I probably will wait until my laser printer drum-cartridge gets depleted or the next time I run out of toner will be the time to make the switch. Unsure how much toner is left but usually lasts about a year or so.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
-
AuthorPosts