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See if this link gives you any data that you can dig out.
https://www.worthpoint.com/inventory/search?query=pangborn+designs+tie&category=
WP shows a few sold listings by this designer. Maybe some of the descriptions will provide a few clues plus since subscribe the prices should be showing up for you also.
mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art in AtlantaThat’s me Jay. We have business cards. I just say I am a full time reseller and give them our business card. even if they don’t ask, after I pay for our haul, I give them a card then do like Steven S. does. I ask do they have anything else inside and I mention several items that they don’t have outside.
I ask them do they have any old odd china from the mom’s house, fishing tackle they don’t use anymore, etc. Many times we have been brought inside homes and shown a ton of stuff. Sometimes it is their collection. One house we went into after I asked about old depression glass, the lady yelled at her husband, “take these folks in and show them our Vaseline and Radiated glass collection. Yep we left with 3 pieces that were duplicates of theirs.
I also give them 2 or 3 cards and tell them to give them to any friends who might be interested in selling a few things and not wanting to have a full blown yard sales.
We do 500 business cards at a time with both my and susan name, cell phone number and our regular online private domain store name on it.
And yes, we have had calls before asking if we buy so and so. And we also get calls of people who also ask us if we will take something on consignment. We don’t get many calls any more because we stick more to estate sales and auctions. But every estate sale manager we give our card to and we get advance notices of upcoming sales and we even call a few of and ask if they have any upcoming sales that will have such and such in them. One or two are good friends and they will even call us and say, we are planning a sale that will be in about 2 or 3 weeks and we will have items we know Susan will really like. Hope ya’ll can come on by.
Google business card marketing plan and do some reading and you will see how bznz cards can be a very effective marketing tool.
We run a business. I am not afraid to to say so. What do you think, if you have 6 items on a table that you are getting ready to spend $45 bucks on and you say to a question you are a reseller that they will snatch the item out of your hands and say no way you are going to buy this! heck no, they want the cash.
Here a good one for you. I am also an artists and printmaker. What if you go to a Sale and it is full of nice beautiful lamps and depression glass pieces and you say, you are glad to find these, because when you smash them up into small pieces the pieces will look great in your new mosaic artwork you are working on.
If you are a real business person, then your business is your lively hood. And their is nothing to be ashamed of about your lively hood. And actually you need to advertise and market even more.
We are actually in the process or reworking our own web site and as collateral advertising I am designing a 3 page tri-fold brochure with photos of our old Antique booths and photos of past items we have carried and current ones.
One of the old school business models called the 10,000 business card marketing plan calls for you to leave 2 or 3 business cards every place to stop, lean, sit at. Leave them on counters, I leave some in every antique store or booth I go into, I leave some on restaurant tables, convienent store bullentin boards, I leave some on the pew at our church and inside of hymnals. I will leave or drop a business card anywhere I can.
A good friend of ours Fran, taught us this. She stopped going to Sales because she had so many people calling her to come buy her stuff. I have gone with her to places where we walked in and she had the pick of the whole place. All from the fact the seller had a business card of hers.
My $1.75 and half a cup of coffee opinion again. And this reminds me I also need to order us some more business cards because we are getting low.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Yeah I listen to him occasionally depending on the title-topic of his discussion.
I think his more current focus is more about establishing business relationships and buying wholesale items directly from the mfg. Then he is working on helpers to pull, pack and ship for him.
The buying wholesale creates an endless supply of the same items from fewer listings and less work. But as has been said he does change business models a lot. But haven’t heard much more about where he is at and the direction he is going personally.
This is related but slightly off target but still may give you some insight or things to think about.
As Jay says, any corporation that has a brand and products they mfg. own all the rights in most ways to any words, phrases, images, slogans, mottos, even color combinations and partial pictures of their product. They have every right to go after whomever they think has infringed. And in todays world of e-commerce as Jay also says you are not an authorized reseller.
An Authorized Reseller can use, say and show parts of a product because they have a written contract and included in it is permission to promote the OEM product or company according to the way their contract says they can and also included in the contract is the rules is the things you can’t say or do.
You can go to any site, any place Craig’s list, Mercari, Bonanza, even a news paper ad locally and post your ad to resell and you are in violation of the laws that protect a larger company. Even if brand new in the package never opened. They want you to throw it away before they would see you resell it and make money from it.
Buying yours stops them from getting money from the buyer that would go to then. They get touchy, so any larger company that has the money to hire a staff or whole department, these days are searching, trolling and digging for those who try to resell.
We have had a few VERO’s before and certainly we have all talked about it here on SL. Even Jay and Ryanne had to change their name some years back because Ebay reached out to them and told them to take the word Ebay out of the Blog’s name. Jay can tell you more about that, but Scavengerlife was not what they started out with back when Mike and Wendy were around.
Our last episode was from a company that we used to use when I owned a spray foam insulation company. The spray gun had several parts and filters that wore out quickly and were very expensive to buy original replacement parts from the OEM company. So, I went to a machine shop, had a few parts reversed engineered and started making my own after-market parts.
We only said that our parts fit this company’s spray gun. It didn’t take long before we got a letter from their legal team to cease and desist. So, I went to our lawyer and said I have a right to sell a copy of their parts. He said I really didn’t but if I was going to persist then he gave us the following, which we have in our listings for about 24 parts to this day.
I also wrote to the OEM Mfg. a polite letter, told them my story and included the following. Got a reply with a very specific list of what they would not allow us to say in our ad and a reminder that if we try to make money from parts that mentions anything about them or their patented parts, we would be drug into court.
They said their research, their development, their costs to bring their gun and replacements parts and the ordering of replacement parts could not include anything about them and they frowned upon us doing this.
Well since we included this blurb, we haven’t heard anything from them again.* Brand names, Trademarks, Copy Rights and Patented Products: Any use of any Trade Marked names, brands, products or words that refer to those products and their respective companies are by reference only, and by reference does not imply that we are associated with them in any way or any of the items we list or mfg. are derivative of their mfg. or marketing processes. For any industrial parts we sell, they are aftermarket parts and are offered as an alternative to the OEM parts as a cost-effective alternative. Any and all words of trade marked products and uses of such, either alone or in combination, are intended only to refer to the original company and-or its products for comparison only and not intended to create an impression of our company being related to, our items created by or we being licensed by any such company or legal distributor of said products or manufacturers.
So, if you think once you own something and think it is yours, you have the right to resell it think again. You don’t own anything except the right to use the product yourself as it was originally intended by them and not sell any new unused product or any partially used and remaining product.
Think about it, legally we are not supposed to be re-selling anything, clothing brands, shoes, perfumes, camera’s, used cars, anything unless the company is out of business [old vintage like Jay says] or they don’t care. That is the big question. WHICH ONE’s of them CARE! Obviously, car mfg. do not [I guess] but they do have authorized or certified used car selling going on, but what about the person to person sales. Do your own brake job, the brakes fail, and it is proven, who gets drug into the claim, the car company along with the seller.
Finding out is by trial and error and thus how many of us has learned the hard way by and even gotten VERO’s and direct letters from companies.
There is a link on here [SL] that will take you to Ebay’s list of hundreds of companies that have registered with Ebay and I assume other platforms about their concerns and displeasure with sellers re-selling their products. Reselling anything by those companies is as stated by others above is taking a chance, which we here on SL and millions of other sellers do every day.
Who gets caught as Jay says is just the luck of the draw, just like getting a speeding ticket? Most do it but who and how many get caught is a random luck of the draw.It is a quandary and tough to decide what to do. Relist and include a disclaimer like we did, relist without a statement, ignore and proceed, or deal with any legal matters when you get caught just like paying your speeding ticket, even if it a second time getting caught speeding.
Good luck hope you figure it out.This as always is just my opinion and that and $1.75 will get you a half a cup of coffee these days 🙂
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
Here’s something to think about and a system all of have used effectively at some point in our lives. Very simple on the surface but has very complex under structure to handle almost anything, anywhere and any type. Just substitute the word knowledge with object and a 3, 6 or 9 digit code will work.
That is the Dewey Decimal System. Ever gone to the library, walked up to a card catalog, opened the pull out drawer by an alphabetical listing and found a book you wanted, wrote that number down with the decimals and then proceeded to go and find a single volume of a book in a 200,000 sq. foot library, with hundreds of shelf racks, with thosands of shelves and maybe 100’s of thousands of single volume books.
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 12 digits will get you a single item out of every category of knowledge in the world. A single item about Magic Tricks, Magic erasers, Magic Markers, Markers by color, space exploration, philosophy, history, by civil war, north.south.generals., on and on.
So if you know the 9 beginning codes of the DDC ooo.xxx.xxx through 900.xxx.xxx you can create a system to find anything, anywhere, even in multiple locations.
Here is a link to the explanation of the system, which I assume most Librarians must know by heart. So if you have a basic understanding of the sorting and classification of categories I would think you could come up with a way to make a 6 digit system xxx.xxx work for you if you think like Mr. Dewey.
https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/dewey/versions/print/intro.pdf
I am sure Jay and Ryanne will figure it all out.
mike at MDC Galleries
Fun thoughts .. 🙂
And Jay.. Yes and as you stated, you did it “back ass backwards”, but friend, look at the success you still have had, using your and Ryanne’s memory. So kudo’s to you both. 🙂
But now is the point where you want someone else to pull and pack for you, so you are going to have to put in the time on the “back end to save time later on still the back end”. Some of us put in time on the “front end” when we were and or are still small sellers but we can scale with speed if we want or need to now on the back end.
Still while we were creating spread sheets and systems, you guys were creating money. Seems to have worked well for you from what I can see! 🙂
mike at MDCGFA
We have our SKU in 3 places.. In SixBit it is in the SKU field BUT that is autoloaded into the Ebay Custom Field. So yes, once into the custom field, then we also made a custom Item Specific Field, so our sku shows up as the last ine in the IS area and then in SixBit I dropped in a line of code in the description area and when we post to Ebay or Etsy the custom IS shows as the last line in the description area.
Now that you know our long code, go to our Ebay site and look at the last line of the IS and the description area and you can see it in the public view and of course the custom field is not published by Ebay.
That way if you guys are away and you sold a few things you wanted your helper to go pull, she would not need to go to your office and fireup a computer or hers. All she would have to do is go into your storage area and look at her phone and click on see the item specifics and she would see the SKU there and also in the See More area on the phone which is actually the description area.
I don’t even need SixBit open or available to be able to see where an item is, what we paid for it and when we bought it. Helps me take or reject offers out on the road in almost a few seconds. All of that is embedded into the long SKU number and scrambled with the extra “camouflage digits” we throw into the string of numbers.
Try it. Go to our store and sort by newly listed. Then look at the last line of Item Specifics and also the description. Then reference what I said above on how to read [interpret / decode] it you will see the item number, skip 2 spaces, what we paid, skip 2 spaces then comes the date we bought, then g and then the bin number. Everything you need to store, locate, pull, make a decision on taking an offer, give directions to someone when you are away or for them to see it for themselves.
Viola’ a complete “mini-listing inventory system within itself” all contained within one long sku number.
By the way if you ever want to go to a printed SKU tag and print your own bar codes on stickers or tags and have a helper use a bar code reader, by using the longer 23 character number string or 19 if you remove the 4 camouflage numbers it will work and if you use the CODE 128 UPC Coding you can have up to 128 characters, numbers and symbols all intermixed that will translate into a bar code.
But that is for larger companies that have to store and warehouse a ton of parts and pieces. We did so to fill the advertising “kits” we did for our larger customers I have mentioned before.
But on a small scale, still have your brain “think” like that. Numerically, chronologically, alphabetically and most of all systematically.
Thinking ahead now will save you from having to “RE_DO” your system later for some reason. I re-worked our system a couple of times way back when we first started the antique booths and eventually derived a system that I knew would work years down the road later when we would finally go online.
Good luck guys, this can really get your head spinning and you better make sure that InkFrog is going to be your 3rd party listing and Inventory Control Program. I went from an Excel spread sheet, to Easy Auction Tracker, then to WonderLister then Finally to SixBit. And i discovered as I scaled and expanded each time, there was something my current system was either lacking or was slow at. By going to more “robust” programs as we grew I wished I had gone ahead and went with the higher end, more complex system in the very beginning.
If you ever want to change from InkFrog to something else, make sure you will be able to Export into a .CSV file and re-import back into your newer program with ease.
SixBit had a heck of a time bringing in WonderLister and even when it was also posted on Ebay at the time. Still to this day I have 84 listings “floating” in our inventory system with odd sku numbers that scrambled. I just happen to know those and where they are by referencing my old spread sheet luckily.
Oh, that also brings up the point. Always back up your database and also export it periodically into an .CSV format and bring it into Excel or whatever work around the MacWorld people have to use. think it is “Polaris Office Suite”. But it is good to always have a fairly current version of your whole database, all fields, in a spread sheet format. If InkFrog goes out of business or you ever want to change, then importing in from that .CSV file will be better.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atl.
Yep we do just about the same. If I see an almost empty bin I pull it off the shelf and place it in our office-listing area. Then as we hptograph and create the listing in draft mode, after we inspect the item for flaws we place it in one of the sevral bins always laying around and place that bin number on it’s tag and in SixBit.
We used to take our laptop into the garage storage and as I placed items into the Bins that I found partially full I would just call out the BIN number to Susan and she would enter into the computer [back then it was the WonderLister App]. Now I found it easier to just pull and almost emty bin off the shelf and up to the office to “RE-LOAD” [so to speak], with new items. When full just take it down and place it back on the shelf.
Of course as I said we also always have 3 to 5 totally empty bins either with new numbers or ones we have emptied up or condensed. Only trouble is when we condense you do have to enter the new bin we placed a few in on the software. So rather than condensing, I just wait until the BINS are down to 1 or 2 items and pull it on up to the office to re-fill.
I can tell that Jay and Ryanne are on the right track. You can hear their brains churning as they are now thinking it through. From all these comments they can and will pull enough data to make sense for them and create a good system that will allow anybody to go and pull items for them
And yeah, we all have been waiting for them to jump on the band wagon.
If they do start cross posting, then having a dash -and an extra letter for the platform they post on will help. Troy aka “T-Satt” does this, M for Marcari, P for Poshmark “Et” for Etsy [I think]. But this way they will be able to hopefully use InkFrog [their 3rd party Listing App of choice] filter their complete inventory by date [for aging stuff], by shelf location and for things listed on various platforms.
Once a system is in place, then the “FILTER” functions opens up a whole world of different ways to look at and analyze your data.
mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
In SixBit when you first open the App, on the Dashboard screen you will see a Blue tab on the upper left. Click on that tab, here is where you will find many things that as a user you can set SB to control certain aspects of the program.
Go down to the “Options” title and click. This will open up a main screen for Options, Then scroll down to “Creating Items” and you will see a screen with 4 horizontal tabs. These tabs cover Input Defaults, “SKU MANAGEMENT”, Business Policies and Variation Handling. Click Sku Management. Here is where you can change what SB puts in that SKU field you are talking about. You can turn off that SB enters it’s own consecutive numbers and have nothing show. Or you can create a whole custom numbering system that fits what ever you want, the amount of characters, if you want spaces or dashes between sets of numbers, letters in certain places and padded zeros in certain places. You can create a whole system or way you want SB to create a number in that space, starting with any number or letter you want, and for static numbers or letters that never change.
You can insert dashes after a given number of spaces, underline certain numbers or letters, have numbers placed in front of or at the end of static letters or numbers, just a whole bunch that would allow you to create any system or string of characters you will need to fit your bins, shelves or item storage places.
OR you can just unclick radio boxes and shut everything off and SB will leave the SKU field blank on your listing form. We turned it off and we input our pre-printed paper tag number as outline in this thread into that field on every listing we create.
When we buy new inventory, the first thing we do is take one of our paper pre-numbered tags and create what we call a “Quick Entry Draft”. We open a Vinatge Hard Goods Template and write in a quick short 2 or 3 word title to just help identify it and put in the first part of our SKU. Since our paper tags are pre-printed with consecutive numbers we jsut enter 05160 into that field. We finish that number later on as we open the draft and complete the listing for final upload.
But maybe in your case follow along above and just turn off SB from trying to help out and that SB SKU field will always be blank when you open up a blank template.
mike at MDCGFA
@ CL: We do almost the same as you. We place our SKU number in 3 places within SixBit. One is in the actual SKU number field SB offers, then we put the Bin # in the SB location field and then we copy the SKU into a custom Item Specific field which shows in the Ebay IS custom field. Easy to find on any device we use and if Ebay crashes out on us we have everything in SixBit.
Yes, you can pull inventory reports in practically any format you can think of. By BIN #, by Item number, find full bin boxes, find empty or almost empty boxes, etc., etc.
The only thing we don’t do is use “category letters” like your “J” for jewelry. There is no need for that and just makes it more cluttered. Since SixBit requires a “UNIQUE” sku for EACH ITEM, then just a consecutive numbering system is all that is needed. But we have other things embedded into our SKU.
05160150350830419g1510a
We standardized on SKU numbers of a consistent length. 23 characters. Having SKU numbers, the same length makes it easy to see a SKU number that is too short or too lo0ng which means we missed a character or added a character. But typo errors as Jay mentions can happen. Care must be taken. So, we have our tags that we attach to all items pre-numbered when we print them.
To decipher our SKU, it is this:
the first 5 numbers are the item number. Having 5 characters allows an inventory to consecutively go up to 99,999 before we start over, the next 2 characters are fake numbers and don’t mean a thing. They help camouflage our real details, then the next 4 numbers is the price we paid for that item, the next 2 numbers are again camouflage numbers and don’t mean a thing, then the next 4 numbers are the date we purchased, the g means the “G”arage, but could be “A”ttic, “B”asement, “S”hed, etc., the next 4 numbers are the bin the item is in and the last letter is the box that is in that shelf space.So, the above SKU reads and means this: Item number on its tag is item 05160 then xx [dummy], paid $03.50 xx [dummy], bought 04/19, located in the garage area, shelf space 1510, and box #1510a. We number 1 to 3 boxes for each shelf space with the same number but box A-B-or C. This allows for one large box, or two or 3 smaller boxes in that shelf space. Our shelves are spaced up/down that allows 1 big box like yours with 2 smaller boxes on top.
So, we print a “PICK LIST” form SixBit. That list shows a small thumbnail photo of the items that SOLD, THEN THE FULL sku NUMBER. we TAKE THAT LIST TO THE GARAGE AND GO DOWN THE LIST. go TO SHELF SPACE 1510, the grab box 1510a, open it and find item #05160. We don’t care if #05160 is a vase, a belt, a tie, a pair of shows or a hat. That is why SB makes you use a “UNIQUE” Number for each item. #5160 is what it is. Don’t care. It is #5160 and when we grab that item with the tag hanging on it, that is what was ordered and what we will ship.
If the tag has detached, it is easy to still find the item because SixBit provides a thumbnail photo of it.
Any helper can go to SixBit, print the “SOLDS” list, go to the garage and then go to let’s say 5 different shelf number locations and pull the item numbers from boxes on that shelf spot.
To JandR, yes, number BOTH the boxes AND the Shelf Space with the same number. Reason, we pull complete boxes off the shelves at time and take up to the office. When you go to replace that box, it is easy to replace back in the correct shelf space.
Now why include the price we paid, and date bought. well using 3rd party software we can also filter our listing very easily by date to find old inventory. Just filter using the search term 16g and we will get every item that we still have from 2016 in stock that we bought in 2016. Use the filter search term any number less than 18g “<” then SixBit gives us every item we bought before in 2018 and before that is still in stock. Great to use to find old stock. I did this the other day for any item less than 15g and found we still have 84 items in our inventory that are older than 5 years old. I then did one for 13 g and saw we still have 24 items we bought as far back as 2013. Think those need to go for sure.
Now why the price paid. Well you said you are using team viewer. We remote in but those using the Ebay app can also see that SKU number. If we get an OFFER, then right in front of us is the price we paid and how long we have had it. Perfect data for us to decide if we want to accept or decline any offer.
If I got an offer for $20 for an item we have listed at $65 while we were at a live auction and I saw that the SKU showed me I had bought it 7 years ago and only paid $2.50 I would take it in a heartbeat. But if I saw I had paid $10 for it a year and a half ago, nope, decline.
So, our SKU number works for more than telling what the item is and where it is, it also helps us make selling decisions by providing us with how old it is and what we paid for it.
I have heard Ryanne say many times, “When did we get that?” then Jay say “That long ago. What did we pay for that?”. Then Ryanne says, “I don’t remember, or guesses at a number, then states, but I am not sure.”. Well a SKU number like ours covers all of that.
Jay was right in this episode when he says, “just like Amazon”. Well an individual item ID number and shelf and BIN location is all the Amazon robots need to go and pick an item. Those robots can care less if it is jewelry, shoes, ties, a monopoly game or whatever. #05160 is #05160. Finite.
If you pull the wrong item and ship it, that is why Amazon has Free Returns. Just send it back. excuse us for having an admin error.
A tip. When you mark the shelf spaces with the same number as a box bin and you decide to not use a box, who cares, just put your tall lamps, or weird shaped items that won’t fit in a box, in that space. I have a couple of shelf slots for loose large, oversize items and they just sit in that spot, WITH THEIR TAGS on them. Go to that spot and grab the item with the tag #05160 on it and ship it.
We used this system to stock 10’s of thousands of items in our storage area at several of the large printing companies I used to work for. we stocked parts for KFC, Taco Bell, Home Depot, Michelin Tires, Stanley Hardware and others. Works great.
Here is a YouTube video by a frequent poster but he has something interesting that starts at the 16:17 mark. He lives in NY so he drove 4.5 hrs up to an Ebay Open in New Hampshire and turns out Harry Tempkin from Ebay was there as a speaker. After it was over Crazy Joe had a sit down at a table talk with him and video tapes Harry and for the next 4 or 5 minutes Harry sheds some light on what has been going on, what they are doing, and what is to come and why they are doing it. Interesting at least to me.
Also right before Harry comes on at the 16:17 mark… Joe talks about offers to watchers and gets answers from Harry at the Ebay open about the offers. There are a couple of good questions I never thought about on those offers to watchers that Joe brings up.
I think those few minutes are worth a listen. The first part and other stuff is just Joe the crazynydriver talking about his usual weird stuff. But Harry Tempkin talking is worth hearing I think.
mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC GalleriesI agree. But to the specific part of your question. We have not found [as of yet] where there is a toggle or option to set some type of default to change from the West Coast time either PDT or PST over to showing only EST. So unless someone tells us different we will just have to keep either adding or subtracting 3 hours +/-.
We usually use a standard starting time for our Sales of 6:00 AM [which of course is 3 am PST and an ending time of 11:30 PM PST which is 2:30 PM on our EST. This way we just always use the same times. On occassion we will also select to satrt a Sale using the start now option.
mike at MDCGFA in Atl.
Yes there is a BIG issue with Ebay right now. It involves changes they are making to categories, item specifics and glitches connected to searches and missing item specifics. Not going to even try to explain what I have read, but Google it and zero in on several of the better and more popular YouTube video posters and all of them seem to be saying about the thing in describing what has happened. several of the ones I follow have direct connection into Ebay and they also are confirming.
Some of the issues is Ebay has deactivated some listings from being seen but not deleted them for not having ceratin Item Specifics in certain categories. They will be making what seems to be a lot of changes. It was spelled out to a small degree in the Spring Seller update and again in the Fall Seller updates.
The better Gurus are offering about 3 ways of dealing with it. I am choosing the wait and see how long before Ebay gets it all fixed. Sales are dropping like rocks for some people. The hardest hit over the last two days are in the clothing categories, next is jewelry. Home Goods and Home decor is also on Ebay’s target list.
Some of the new item specifics have a * beside the new field indicating mandatory and some other fields do not.
Also some of the Ebay IS are also populating into the Etsy platform for those of us who cross list.
Some of the gurus I follow are posting every couple of hours and have several monitors up and running and watching what is happening and watching certains stats showing the Ebay hits and then fixes. They report that some things will change then change a second or third time within hours of each other. Then stabilize.
We have had about 35 listings pulled and put on hold by Ebay in the last 30 hours or so. There is a place on your seller hub where you can see which items you have that are being affected and which Items that need attention. I saw one of ours a few minutes ago that only needs two “mandatory fields in IS” filled in. Right below that is an item we are told we have 17 fields we need to fill in. We have many custom fields that has the info. they want but now they have added a bunch more that never existed before and if their white background fields don’t have data but you do have the data in custom fields they are stumbling all over that also.
Example: We have a custom fields that says “COLORS” [plural with an “s”. They have now added the field “color” to some categories that didn’t have it before. Well our custom data in the field with an “s” doesn’t seem to be being seen and since the new “white background” color field is empty they have “parked” that listing until we can either batch edit all of our 30 or so listings or do them one at a time.
I am just sitting tight for a few days and will see how they get it worked out.
Sorry I can’t be more specific but it seems like a fairly wide, varied and complex set of changes with down stream repocussions from those changes. And the insiders are mentioning there are a lot of categories and subcategories that will be effected over the coming weeks.
Yes sales are being lost by both the sellers and by Ebay, but Ebay is reporting that it was something that was planned and fortold in both those updates.
Jay’s response was back then he would wait and see. Well now we are seeing things stumble over themselves but have to still take the wait and see position if a seller has thousands of listings. We don’t want to get caught mid stride making batch / bulk edits and right in the middle even more categories get added to or changed.
Just what I am seeing and reading over the last few days.
Maybe others here know more of the details of what’s happening and some time frame for Ebay to pull out of the tail spin or repairs to happen and when.
So for now I would suggest a Google search for some of the YouTubers with titles what is happening to Ebay, what’s up with Ebay’s new category changes, etc.
I know personally you can do what you are asking with both SixBit and WonderLister since I have used both. I would imagine you can do it with InkFrog [if they allow multiple stores with your subscription level].
With SB and WL you can have various number of stores which will stay in synch but you have to have a higher level subscription. 1 store for x amount of dollars, 2 stores for next level up and so on.
But as Sharyn says, go to the source and ask InkFrog what you can and can’t do with your sub. level and what would it take to be able to do it.
As far as Ebay goes, yep you can have two stores, just like Jay and Ryanne did. Most people have two just to keep their buying and selling activities separate. But as Ryanne has mentioned before, the new store will most likely come with a few restrictions-limitations in the beginning, have no feedback of course. Then you will most likely want to separate the connections to PayPal so Sales and expenses will relate to the selarate stores. Also your accountant will like that and you personally can keep an eye on the numbers to see where your P&L stands with regards to both.
mike at MDCGFA
Howdy: Just had a long online “chat” with PirateShip. They are an upfront mail source. They are only integrated to the point that you buy and print labels from them and they pass your information back to Ebay and Etsy. If you want the shipping data in your WonderLister, SixBit, InkFrog program, those programs will then have to pull that data from Ebay, Etsy and Shopify.
They said that presently they do not have a way to have third party apps access them directly, control all your shipping from your 3rd party app then they report that along to Ebay or Etsy. So be it, but what one has to do is keep the PirateShip tab open in your browser and then when you are ready to ship you go to Pirateship and do your shipping from there, they send to Ebay, Etsy and Shopify for record keeping and of course SixBIt, WL, and IF will pull that data in by way of their “agents” every ten minutes using the SQL agents.
Here is the snag for us. About 30 percent or more of our packages are larger sizes which forces them into DIM Weight. And as such FedEx is a much better rate than anything USPS or UPS has to offer. PirateShip agreed and said that they can only offer USPS rates and can’t offer anything cheaper or any FedEx labeling. They are working on it for the future but have no idea when.
So, if your overall dimensions LxWxH = 1,728 cubic inches or more you are far better off with FedEx labels which you can access directly through Ebay and Etsy and as such, PS admitted we are better off going directly through Ebay, Etsy and Shopify for those.
Also, at 6.01 lbs. and higher our in-house pricing spread sheet we created and use, show that FedEx is cheaper than USPS by several dollars and of course that increases as the item gets heavier.
Any item UNDER 1,728 cubic inches from 6.01 lbs. up to 30 lbs. [where our chart ends] shows $3.39 to $51.49 cheaper by using FedEx than any USPS service at all.
Then when any item gets over the 1,728 cubic inches, DIM Weight starts to get applied depending on the weight and FedEx still comes out much better.
One of the Scavengerlife member’s Josh created the “FlipperTools” website which has 3 great shipping and pricing tools to use one for when you don’t know where a package will eventually go but you need to price it to build in free shipping, one for when you do know where the package is going but you want to know the least expensive cost to send it there and of course his dimensional weight calculator. His DIM weight calculator based on weight and the 3 sizes [lxwxh] calculates the total cubic inches and then only tells you which pricing tier to use in both USPS, UPS and FedEx. Then we look at our spread sheet and FedEx is always cheaper even though Josh’s calculator says to use the higher FedEx tier.
Here’s an example:
An 8 lb. 18″x14″x13″ box using Flipper Tools DIM weight tool shows it is 2,730 cubic inches. Too large for PirateShips Cubic pricing tiers. Then it shows us that this package falls into the DIM weight status and a “Surcharge does Apply”, then it shows us which Tiers we need to look at to get the pricing which is how USPS, FedEx and UPS price for DIM Weight. [AhHa] That is how the USPS and others calculate for the DIM weight pricing. They jump up in Tiers and charge those higher rates.Well then Josh’s tool shows us that to price this package’s shipping since it does fall into DIM weight, we are to take the 17 lb. rate for USPS and the 20 lb. rate for FedEx and UPS. Well guess what, even though the FedEx surcharge tier is higher their costs are lower.
The Flipper Dimensional Tool shows us which tier to look at and according to my spread sheet chart, the USPS price at the 17 lb. [surcharge for DIM weight tier] is $39.23 and the FedEx charge for this same package at the 20 lb. tier is $21.81] = $17.42 less expensive.
So, our chart shows anything over 1lb. 1 oz and under 5 lbs. 15 oz. goes USPS and anything over 6.01 lbs. goes FedEx. Then anything over 1,728 cubic inches goes FedEx.
PirateShip said the only thing they can offer at this time then is the “Cubic Inch” Pricing tiers and can’t compete with the larger or heavier stuff. Maybe in the future.
So, for now we will try using PirateShip for the under 6 lb. mark and under 1,728 cubic [not DIM Weight items} anything over goes FedEx.
Hopefully this will help some trying to figure all this out. I heard Ryanne say, boy all this shipping stuff is complicated. In a certain way yep, but with a few spreadsheets to use as cheat sheets and Josh’s Flipper Tools it is easy.
Oh and by the way, Josh’s other tools which will show the cost for any package by its weight and 3 sizes does show the cost with the DIM weight already figured in and it will show you what it will cost for zones 1 thru zone 9 and the best carrier to use for the best price.
We used this tool to determine what costs to build in for our whole store in switching over to free shipping. Most of our 1,200 +/- items we got repriced for a zone 6 build in cost for free shipping in about 2 days. Etsy is completely free shipping now, since they used a forceful maneuver to edge sellers into free shipping and over half of Ebay is done and the estimated shipping costs are built in.
I asked Pirate Ship if they could project costs like this and they said no. So, Josh’s tools are a great aide to SL members and BTW his site and Tools have been mentioned here on SL many, many times by other members as well as Jay and Ryanne. I also think the Flipper Tools site may be in the SL “Resources and Tools” section and if not it should be. They also did an interview with him some years ago, if I recall.
Good listing, good shipping and much success ya’ll.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta.
