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Sharyn has it. Years ago lots of links came from or went to “link Frams” in order to catch Googles eye and get ranked by Google. All those links caused Google to cause a bunch of trouble for Ebay, who was also using the tatic.
So as Sharyn says, Ebay started going to “structured data” i.e. the Item Specifics area and having sellers put pertinent information in those fields, which Google will safely search and no links can go into the IS fields. Then Sellers started to skinny down the description area as a result. Now a lot of sellers put very little in the description area. Much more than 250 characrters is not going to do you much good any way.
It is suggested you put only information that is specific to describing your item in more detail than is allowed in the title area and that is about it.
I have seen as few as 2 or 3 words now in the description area, including some of Jay and ryanne’s listings [guess Ryanne has trained their listing helpers to be short and specific also].
So if you are using the descriptioon area for a lot of Wikipedia background information in order to provide a historical perspective on your item, that is probably a waste of time and space anyway. But if you must, then do nothing more than name the location to send the viewer too, not type it as a URL address which will change to a link.
69% of our buyers are now buying from their cell phones. That 250 character limit is about all that they will see any way and most buyers now seem to just see the picture, look at the price and click to buy. But that is just my opinion.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
@ Jay: Good point. That’s what we have been doing up to this point. Maybe just let it ride and wait and see how it is during 4th quarter. It’s not so much the quantity is the waste of time to open, read and decline the very low ball ones. But that just a short minute or so. And belive me it’s not that many in this sales climate.
Cheers
mikeI would say probably not worth it. Our Ebay growth has really suffered. We wanted to be close to 2,500 listings in both stores now and we are only at 1,191 on Ebay and 551 on Etsy. Now we have grown some, but very little.
Add to your equation, how much more would we have been making if we had another 750 or more listings in each store. Especially since SixBit does the Etsy listing and auto removal after sales.
And the agrevation. Today is a good example. I arrive at nine, our sub punch guy arrives at 10:30. I texted several times no reply. He works for an hour, then has to go to Home Depot while I do the walk through. He never comes back. I finally reach him at 1:30, he’s eating will be here in a short while. 30 minutes later calles me and says he has an emergency call at another house. Boom, I was there doing what I could with my limited tools and equipment, for 2.5 hours and he tells me he will be back tomorrow. Well the buyer is going to the lawyers office at 10:30 then the closing is after lunch. Wonder if I will have it finihed.That’s why I said I am getting too old for this non-sense. Happens all the time, every trade.
So if I didn’t need some extra cash for Susan’s after surgery bills, no I wouldn’t say it is worth it doing one or two at a time. But we have 4 lots and built two. The remaining two are right across the street.
It is just as easy [almost] to do 4 at a time as to do 1 at a time and we would save a lot more by paying for 4 lots of building materials at one time.
The last two lots may be the last ones I do. Depends on how much the final medical bills are.
Well that makes sense now that you clarified that. I knew I had seen some low cost items with make an offer and then you said above somewhere most things get make an offer so I was confused against the “Old” let’s try not waste our time doing offers on low priced items.
You guys have #3.99 buttons, I see, now that I did a double check and would wonder why you would take an offer on that.
Have ever put any type of auto accept or auto decline on the ones you do have make an offer on.
So on any of the $29.99 items you certainly wouldn’t take a $1 offer and you certainly would take a $28.95 so where would you draw the line? I seem to spend a lot of time reading offers at 30% to 60% range and then counter offering on the lower ones. I think Troy [T-Satt] said he sets an auto decline at 61%. Don’t know if he still does but thinking about that myself. Maybe at 58%, just leave me alone and let me work on listings and reworking a ton of our older listings now that we have SixBit going fairly well and cross posting a lot. Our Etsy sales seem to be moving on along very well now that we started the cross listing and more frequent uploads.
Just a wondering.
mike at MDCGFA
@ Jay.. [side bar]. Haven’t looked at your store in a while but for verification. I thought you had siad last year sometime +/- that you guys adopted a posture of not wanting to place “make an Offer” on things under a certain amount. I thought it was $19.95, then you raised it to $29.99. Do you still cling to that or as you say above, now have make an offer on everything or most things regardless of price and or what you paid for especially?
mike at MDCGFA in Atl
@ Jay.. Isn’t this what I have been saying for years here. Pull your P&L statement from your accounting software once a month. Make sure you have the settings set to also show you the percentages each line item of your P&L has.That is the comparison we use. What percentage of each line item in our chat of accounts is as compared to our total sales. standard accounting practices.
With the percentages you can see what percent of your Sales your office supplies are, what percentage are your utilities that are allocated to the business, what perctage is shipping supplies.
In Quicken for Business then at a click chart those and show how this “Month” compares to last month or another click shows you Year to date by month.A year between P&L’s is too long, Quarterly is OK, but Monthly allows to see “cause and effect” with experiments and little changes. But weekly, creates to much uncertainty, over reacting, and over correction [knee jerk reaction].
That is why I have never posted weekly numbers. Don’t mean much to me now or when I ran an 15 million dollar company. Show me those percentages monthly as compared to revenue. That’s all you need, in my opinion.
Been working on the houses, so not much time to post these days. But the two story closes tomorrow at 4:30 pm. So we are doing punch out work since the walk through on Sat. The single story ranch closes on the 27th.
Then on to planning the next two, both will be two story with walk out basements.
How’s this for a cash flow scenario. Spend $140,000 over 16 weeks out of pocket and have to wait 4.5 months to close at $198,000. No profit at all until closing time. Talk about willing to kiss ass on these walk through’s and punch out lists. Do anything you have to to get the buyer to the closing table.
Talk about a balancing act. List two items this morning, pack and ship 2 items then run 40 miles and go tighten a loose sink drain, stick a magnetic fireplace cover back on and put a wall socket back in the painters left out.
I really am getting too old for this “stuff”. 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries.
Hey Julie: Does this seem to be a match up? I used the keywords portable lap desk and this popped up along with others that were not as close of a match.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/writing-slope-antique-victorian-lap-1922405232
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
OK Jay, I just busted out laughing at your first sentence above. What the hell is “Old Barnwood Porn” and what’s the URL addy to Chip and Joanna’s web page that focuses on “Old Barnwood Porn”, if they are a part of that “trend”. That is a riot.LMAO 🙂
mike
I apologize. i wasn’t trying to be insulting. Just pointing out the quality of that stuff.
A rule is that to even be called vintage it is supposed to be over 20 years old and antiques over 100 years old.
Etsy is not suppose to allow anything less than 20 years old [2000] or older to be listed. But belive you me, that a ton of people think all that stuff is cool. That what trends and fads are comprised of, and my point is marketing and madison Ave. drives a lot of that.
I didn’t mean to insenuate that someone who likes it is not cool. It is just not vintage, are reproductions and use almost slave labor to produce it along with crazy deals we have cut to allow the Chinese to get away with it.
Thinking it is “cool”, or liking it, buying it or using it is perfectly fine. But trying to buy it cheap and re-selling it would be hard to compete since that is what everybody buys.
Here is a link to where a large percentage of retailers shop. This is how America gets to buy that stuff. I think there are about six of them in America. We have one here in Atlanta, then there’s Chicago, New york, Los Angeles, and only a few more.
AmericasMart Atlanta is a wholesale trade center located in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The exhibition center is one of the largest permanent wholesale trade centers in the world. AmericasMart Atlanta consists of three buildings totaling seven million square feet
the link: https://www.americasmart.com/
Most retailers mean they are going here 2 or 3 times a year when they say, “They are going to Market”. These Marts are not open to the public that does not have a Tax ID number. We can buy there because we are a corporation and have a Federal ID number. These marts are only open on the select weeks they advertise.
Everything you see in Pier One, Bombay [now closed], Kirkland’s, all the stores mentioned, all small boutique shops, etc. But very large companies do their own direct imports. But many, if you see a style in the “display booths” in the Marts, is the stuff that is the “newest trend. See if you can find someone to let you go with them to one if you are close enough and there is where you will find the trends, unless you are your own mfg.
You are not uncool, just an American Consumer like everyone else. You are “cool” because you have an Ebay Store, you are trying to be your own boss, you are trying to figure out how to use the capitalism system of doing business and learning to identify what to “invest” in and buy and what sells and for how much. YOU ARE COOL. Much more so than the whiners who hate their jobs and are trapped. You are “cool” because you are trying to do something about it.
So again my aplogises if I made you feel uncomfortable. Not intended or meant.
And I also do buy some stuff from Hobby Lobby and I usually get a 40% discount [coupon, my business account, tax exempt ID number]. But I usually only buy art supplies if I run short on doing something in the studio and need it quick. Otherwise I buy from DickBlick.com or JerrysArtorama.com on my business account.
As we said in the 60’s .. “Peace, Love, and Be Cool” , Groovy, Far Out,
Mike an ex hippe on the streets of Atlanta selling the “Great Speckled Bird” underground newspaper in 1969. LOL look that one up.
mc at mdcgfa
Yep I forgot about HomeGoods, Kirkland’s, and also SteinMart, T.J. Max, man almost any retail store. So much stuff is thrown together in China it is unbelievable.
Of course Chinese tariffs will drive prices up, so much so, I would hope that someone thinks it might just be better to have somethings made back here in the USA. and start reinvesting on our own soil.I like to watch the last 2 minutes of the nightly ABC where they end each newcast with things about America and some times they highlight smaller newer companies making things here again.
Personally I don’t mind paying more for items if they were made here at home, created jobs, helped Vets and others to find new jobs and get new training.
Yep.. Hobby Lobby is the perfect example of .. WHAT FOR IT 🙂 “Cheap Crap made in China.”
small tack welds on metal, thinnest gauge metal they can hammer out, 1 staple in the corner of anything instead of a mortised corner with glue and nails that are recessed and covered.They carry all the cheap stuff from China that a lot of the vendors at the few Merchandise Marts in America carry that most retailers buy at.
Pressed paper items that look like wood and here goes my statement that gets me into hot water. Why not, most young people today can’t identify any of quality if it fell on them! OK now yell at me about your kids and how well they know quality.
As for why would people buy from us on Ebay, that comes from knowing how to identify a quality made item, and know what is a unique item that is hard to find any more and selling to those who do know and will buy that rarity or quality.
The ‘young ‘uns’ of the 80’s / 90’s they just want the look and that is it. They will buy cheap furniture for an apartment, live with it for a year or two, move out and just leave the furniture, tables, sofas, chairs behind for the landlord. Low quality, cheap living decor stuff that has become disposable.
But now take most of us as “buyers”, first we all know the better brands in our various niches, Coco Chanel, Top designers I don’t know the names but our SL members do], Hull, Roseville, Lenox, Tiffany, Murano, Limoges, on and on. We spot those, put in our stores and bingo, those who know, see and buy. Many are collectors or have previously “INVESTED” in sets and things get broken so look to replace. On top of this are older buyers looking for nostalgia pieces. things they grew up with, played with, parents had. Depression glass made cheap but a recognized collectible.
Just way too many real good reasons that people seek to buy on Ebay and those wanting handmade items by artists and craftsman on Etsy.
But printed paper to look like wood, no glue in joints, a staple in the corner is just junk. Americans in many cases will buy crap because advertising makes us buy it and, in many cases, 2 or three of them in different colors, just to either have those cheap Chinese items rust, fall apart, come unglued, and disposable trash that we throw out.
How many members here on SL can tell just by looking if something is a veneer piece of a solid piece of real wood on a dining table? Hhumm.
Back to advertising, interior decorators, clothes designers are taught to create “trends” or fad items then Madison Ave. takes over and creates the desire thus the Market.
tell me that all these celebrity people who quote “Have their own Designer Lines” of anything work directly in the actual production and keep the work in America and make sure it is done with quality. Nope, They all sub-the work out to Indonesia, Thailand, China.
Sub it out to people who work for 10 cents an hour, import it back in and then create a false demand, then pump it out into the marketplace.
In my opinion, with the loss of so much of American Manufacturing that younger generations are clueless as to how things are made and will buy whatever fad or trend advertising pushes at them. Guess we all were maybe the same when we were in our teens.
But I think, again all of this is just my opinion, and I will admit, some younger people, will still buy better made things, harder to find things, nostalgic things on Ebay.
You ask is Hobby Lobby undercutting Ebay sellers, well only if you are an Ebay seller trying to sell the same cheaply made junk that you buy wholesale through Alibaba or the national Merchandise Marts. But if you think that the cheap fake look vintage stuff is the Real “McCoy” then Hobby Lobby is the place to go, along with Garden Ridge, Walmart’s, Dollar Generals and the such.
But they Can’t undercut real VINTAGE items because they don’t have real vintage items. Only cheap labor made, junk that happens to look similar in a few cases.Now to change your shopping strategy?? Well if you mean to buy something for yourself to hang on the wall and you don’t care what it is, have a go. If you want to buy to resell, I think you need to know as much about stuff as you can gather from over 400 episode of SL, What sold videos, read every posted what sold this week on SL and duplicate those items and efforts.
Now Sigilini I don’t mean anything negative toward you or personal about you, this is just an old guys rant more or less on how the generations have faded into a manipulated, non-knowing bunch.
So, in my opinion stick with what you know, learn what you don’t know, apply that to a business model that you see someone else being successful with and buy and sell in those categories. And make it something you are interested in.
Hobby Lobby has tons of other retailers to compete with, no need to jump into the Chinese Junk – Crap pond.
Now that I have officially done a Dennis Miller style rant, I guess I will get lambasted for venturing out with such opinions and may regret posting this later today. This shows I have had way too much time on my hands today LOL 🙂
Happy digging, hunting, picking everybody and keep your eye for quality bargains.
Mike at MDC Galleries and fine Art in Atlanta
@Amatino.. May I invite you to do a few searches here on both the SL old Blog and the newer Forum and use key words like, half tone dots, benday dots, reproductions, art repro’s offset litho prints, color blindness, limted edition prints and the such. You will find about half a dozen or so of longer, detailed posts that covers a lot of information about reproductions, how they are made and how to spot them in the wild. That information will arm you with two types of information. One, how to spot the cheap repros and what not to buy and also help with identify the characteristics of what should be included in real fine art printing processes and what to look for.
One of the best ways to tell good quality, art printing processes though, is too have gone to school for print making, actually done many of the processes yourself and studied the surface characteristics under extreme magnification. Knowing what the ink lay down and surface of an etching compared to a silk screen print is tough to do without advanced traing. I can even make a silk screen print edition of prints, “Look” like it was an etxhing process and it would take a very knowledgable person to tell how I got that look from the screen printing process.
And of course, we can’t leave out today high end digital Giclee printing processes. Damn near impossible to tell how some prints were done.
BUT a tip, real oil paintings are fairly easy to spot and distinquich from repro prints of a painting with fake brush strokes applied to the surface. Learn how to spot those and to describe them in your descriptions and real oil paintings in some of the more elaborate frames still do sell. Many interior decorators will buy them for their clients or buy and re-sell them in thier own shops.
See ‘ya..
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta@ Antique frog: Very nice link.. The frame Blog. Now those are some very nice frames and are museum worthy pieces and yes those have value.
To deal in this type of merchandise, one needs to know framing techniques and recognize between cast molded resin relief pieces and actually hand carved relief profiles and to be able to identify “real gold leaf gilding” when you see it. A whole other specialty niche.
But those frames are gorgeous. Who knows were a frame from the Louis the 14th era was hung, who’s house and what painting was in it.
Thanks for the link.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
