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06/09/2019 at 1:08 pm in reply to: Dimensional Shipping Update 2019 – Repercussions of no Measurements #63200
We take the object-item, grab a tape measure and extend it about 2″ out from the hight, width and depth and thats what we put in the dimensions. so a 8″ x 5″ x 6″ metal box will get a 12″ x 9″ x 10″ dimension put into the size.
We don’t care what size box we have in stock, at 2″ all around that gives us room for our 6-7 layer “cocoon” packing technique and plenty of room around inside of a box for either dunnage or in case we have to do a box in a box. Easy peezy.
I can tell how large a package is going to be even before we buy something. Pull out my pocket tape and hold it up beside the item then type into my phone 9″x12″4″ [the object plus 4 inches added to the actual object size- 4″ because that will allow 2″ on each side of the box. Anything over 1,728 cubic inches will be oversized.
Now about over size and the cost per pound and the distance. Our take is, .. “wait for it”!! “We don’t care!”.
Shipping is what it is. A cost of doing business, the supplies are an expense and the cost to ship is “calculated shipping” and the customer pays it.
If the USPS decided to go up to $20 per pound on all packages regardless we wouldn’t care. It is what it is and everybody will be paying the same. Think of shipping pounds like gasoline. Gas was $.17 per gallon in my youth, then it has hit over $5.00 per gallon. And it fluctuates whenever anyone sneezes. We still buy it and it is what it is.
We put box sizes and shipping weights into every listing we create. We use SixBit now so we have a field for “Scale Weight” and a field for “Ship Weight”.
We have worked out a method whereby we know the shipping weight based on the scale weight and the cubic inch box size we will use. We pre-figured all of that years ago and have it as part of our taped down table charts.
By the way every one of the standard box sizes on our charts also has a column for the cubic inches per box right beside it. A USPS Shoe Box is 480 cubic inches. The secret was years ago taking every box size we had, both USPS, FedEx, and custom bought and taping them up and filling them up with crumpled dunnage. Then we average all of those boxes out and arrived at a “CUBIC INCH” of weight. So we know that if we take the object scale weight and add it to the box’s cubic inch of dunnage weight and subtract the actual size for the objects, “Space displacement”, that we have the correct “TOTAL WEIGHT” for shipping.
We have not been under on our shiiping wieghts on any package for years since we did this nor have we been much more than a dollar over estimated either. But it did take some time to work out the weight for each “cubic Inch” of negative space, but finally tweaked it down.
It is really part of the “Kaizen – LEAN Mfg. Approach”. Getting “True Costs” on everything in your business. I mean everything, down to the cost of every running inch of tape you use. But easily doable and it is a one time investment of time up front.
Our “Income from over priced shipping last year was around $600 of estimating high, our loss from underestimating was about $200 +/-. So at years end we in the black / plus side of about $400 +/-.
I just did a mini time study of an object sitting on one of our scales. It took 17 seconds to arrive at the box size, get the shipping wieght and type those numbers into a SixBit listing.
Just sharing a side bar with everyone.
mike at MDCGFA
06/09/2019 at 11:32 am in reply to: Dimensional Shipping Update 2019 – Repercussions of no Measurements #63199We hit on this topic a few years back. Anything under 1,728 cubic inches is not going to hit the DIM-WEIGHT pricing, anything over will.
a 12x12x12 box equals = 1,728 cubic in. So, a 96″ long x4x4 inch box is only 1,536 cubic inches and will not hit DIM-WEIGHT prices either. I have shipped long surveying tri-pods, long fly fishing poles, golf clubs, rolled up paintings, etc. and as long as the length x width x depth is under 1,728 I have never had any calculated shipping charges come out any higher than a 12 x 12 x 12 box.
I splice / tape together the USPS Shoe boxes all the time, 2, 3 or 4 and use them to create a longer 5 x 7 x ?? whatever I need as long as all 3 measurements multiplied together comes out less than 1,728 cubic inches.
This is one reason the USPS stopped making thier large “C” boxes that Ryann and I had stock piled a few years back. The 15 x 12 x 12 was over 1,728 cubic inches. But there is also a length plus girth dimension to think about. length plus girth has to be under 108″ and Parcel is 130″.
So my 96″ x 4″ x 4″ example above is looked at like this 96″ + 4+4+4+4 = 112 Length+Girth inches so it won’t ship Priority but it will ship Parcel without the DIM-WEIGHT pricing. But shorten it to 90″ long x 4 wide x 4″ deep and it comes out to 106 ” L+G and it will even ship Priority, thus my 5 to 6 USPS Shoe boxes slide together and taped will go anyway I want to ship it.
Where one has to watch the comparison of costs is when it also comes to weight. A Large box that starts to get “very heavy” for it’s size may be better off going FedEx for cost reasons, but that is due to the fact FedEx is more competitive after a certain weight limit.
A good place and I think the BEST PLACE [I use this site all the time, but have most memorized by now] to figure all of this out is with one of the SL members web sites and that is FlipperTools.com”. It has a section called FitShipper and will tell you which box to use or you can make your own custom box, which we do all the time for both Priority and Parcel.
I Can’t recall the SL members name, but Jay, you have mentioned him before and think you may even have interviewed him but can’t be sure on that. But he has a site that will nail down the box sizes needed, tell you what it will cost to ship to any zip code from your office and will also compare USPS, FedEx, UPS and others I think. He also has an option to buy postage and labels through his site now.
Using his site will just make this whole thing easier and I would even say, a one stop shop to decide on what size to ship to where at what cost. Here at MDCGFA we will have wall and table charts available to us, taped to our work stations but as long as I can make a box under 1,728 cubic inches in any shape, form or fashion by using regular boxes as they are mfg. or me separating them apart, cutting them down, re-sizing or up sizing it doesn’t matter and watch the 108″ and 130″ Length / girth dim.
I even buy flat sheets or corrugated card board and keep it around to make my own boxes at times. I can do it fairly quickly using the box resizer to score the crease folds. I use a hot glue gun for the edge seam and tape reinforce. Takes me just a few minutes.
Just some information from the past conversations here on SL. And as I always recommend, just do a search on the SL Blog and Forum both with key words and with over 400 hours on dialogue and possibly over 20,000 to 25,000 posts through the years you are bound to find threads on topics of interest. There is a lot of information about shipping in general to be found.
I wonder how many “words” has been written and or spoken within the ScavengerLife environment. I wonder if there are over a million words or even more?? HHhhmmm.
TTFN ..
The team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Susan, Lisa, Christie, Kim and MichaelHey troy: Welcome back. Thought you had been pretty quite. See now it was because of being out with the parents.
Sharyn: Pretty much the way we do it. We have used the term “cocoon” for our whole process for years and we have a ton of feed backs that mention our packing process. We add a layer of stretch wrap and 60# brown craft paper along with the corrugated cardboard and 2 layers of bubble wrap. We use 6 to 7 layers in total.
We also slide thin pieces of blank newsprint in between the handles, negative spaces of complex ceramic configurations.
On plates we use thin bubble and styrofoam picnic plates as spacers between them. Each bundle gets cardboard wrapped and cocooned. These cocoons go into a larger box. The key in placing in a larger box is to have at least an 1inch space all around. If you pack the exterior box slam full out to the bottom, edges and top, then you don’t leave any room for the outer box to “deflect” inward when heavier boxes are placed on top. As the outer box bends inwards from the weight [the deflection] that pressure isn’t absorded by any negative space or loose filling and that pressure gets transferred downward onto the cocoons and the objects inside them “burst” from pressure of the weight of the weight stacked on top.
Since 2002 we have had only 5 or six items broken and those looked like it got stuck in a machine or something ran over them and in those cases no amount of packing would save them.
Just wanted to throw in a few other comments on the subject.
Mike at MDC Galleries and fine Art
Most people do not need QuickBooks for online selling. It is primarily for business that need to do a lot of invoicing to your own customers. Contractors that create estimates for customers, then are hired to do the work, then invoice the customer for their work. It is more for an accrual approach to using a General Ledger and then journals.Best if you have outstanding invoices at the end of the year that are for jobs in progress but are as of the last day of the year unfinished and unbilled.
Quickbooks is better suited if you have buying accounts with vendors where you create Purchase Orders [PO’s], send to your vendor as an order, then track your materials recieved, reconcile to your PO, then close out and pay your invoices from your vendors from within QuickBooks.
Way more and much more costly than what most online sellers need.
For the simple straight forward approach Quicken for Home and Business is better suited and also has a Landlord section included in the business section, which Jay and Ryanne would be a candidate for.
In any case, we used to use QuickBooks when we had a remodeling company and also a spray foam insulation business. After we closed and or sold those businesses, we went with Quicken which stream lines the process and is a simpler form of business accounting.
It does a lot more so I suggest going to their web site for info. on wht all it does. Even call them and ask a rep to explain the difference between QuickBooks and Quicken.
We set up our COA “Chart of Accounts [categories] just like we did in QuickBooks and based on how you log your income and expenses Quicken will keep an accurate profit and loss statment and a company balnce sheet. it will also track your business assets and larger equipment purchases. Also acts as your bank register, connects with all of your credit card companies and bank accounts and pulls all of thos in automatically. We balance our personal and business accounts all within Quicken.
As far as apps for the phone goes their is a version but I prefer to do all the accounting on the office rig.
Hope this sheds some light.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Quicken will be about $99 for the software and QuickBooks closer to $400.
Bonanza just could not stay in synch at all. Ebay sold items would get picked up and relisted. Duplicates created at times. Sales were very slow such as 4,5 or 6 over 2 to 3 years.
JandR closed there Bonanza account several years ago and we followed suit a few months later. If I recal when were all discussing this topic before [you can research the blog and forum with your question], you will see numerous people gave up on it and then also Truegether shortly there after.
We prefer to stick with the platforms with the largest audience / market base.
P.S. There is a whole lot to SixBit. BUT, using Jay’s phrase, it is “MORE ROBUST” and with all those features comes a level of “sophisticated” use that is expected from an advanced user. Yes, SB can be learned, but one needs to be ready to go to school on using it, it’s features and how to trouble shoot on your own.
Then it will do some things only by using custom features to create your own work around. Very nice it allows that, but still the user needs to know what you want to accomplish and create the “work around” process.
Try [ aka T-Satt] on this forum, cross lists on several other platforms in addition to the Ebay and Etsy platforms. He has created a work around by using a custom SKU coding just as we do, and using “Custom fields”.
The nice thing about SixBit is that the “Custom Fields” you create are searchable and can be sorted on. The down side is those customized platforms will not be handled automatically by SB and he has to do it manually within SB. And, I am fairly certain that the finacial reports are skewed because of lacking those other platforms data downloads.
BUt maybe Troy will chime in an comment if he is capturing his Poshmark and Mercari Sales numbers within SixBit or relying on Quicken or Quickbooks for those numbers.
For newbies to online selling, I would not recommend WonderLister or sixbit to them but steer them to EAT [Easy Auction Tracker], which we discussed yesterday for a few posts.Just thought I would throw that in.
mike at MDCGFA
Howdy and welcome. Several members here on SL use WonderLister and Sixbit. I have used both for several years and as of late have gone 100% to SixBit Enterpise edition.
Dustin, One of the tech at SB set mine up for me along with several other things we had to get done. My situation was that I had years of data and over 1,500 existing listings along with all the financials all on WonderLister which had to be mapped to the fields in SixBit and imported over. A big, tedious job and still working on it.
But in answer to your question. Click on the Allocation Plan tab, from drop down arrow, select the “Keep 1 item Listed as Fixed Price. Then below this place a check in the box that says “Relist/Revise Fixed Price Listings, then in the next field space you should see …keeping a constant quantity listed., then in the box to the right enter the number 1. Next a check mark in the box for “End Listings when Out of Stock .. then skip to the bottom and put or there should be a “zero” in the “Quantity Held in Reserve:”
NOW, click on the “Etsy” Tab and do the same thing as above in the Allocation Tab in the Etsy Tab area. In other words do the same thing you did in the Ebay Tab area in the Etsy tab area.
This is how Dustin set it up for us and has been working so far. If you have just gone to the enterprise Edition, then you have a Gold Level of support for the trial period which includes a remote in sessions.
Create a list of questions you have and things you would like for them to do for you, then go to the Support area, create a ticket, add a generic subject line like I nee help setting up and getting running and would like a remote in session. you will get a reply to your ticket number and a calendar with the times-appointments available for the rep that will be getting back to you. Most likely Dustin, JC Ryan or Steve Leah. All very nice guys and Troy and I have both worked with all of them.
Then they will confirm the appt. date and time, usually the next day. Then be at your computer, they will send you a download link they they will connect. First thing i do is to enter in the chat box.lease call me and give them my phone number. They call immediately and that way we can talk as he fixes or sets things up. But have your questions ready because you will only have about an hour of their time. They will control your cursor and do the things for you. I also have set my phone up on a tripod over my shoulder and photographed everything they are doing and I can here our conversation on the playback.
just a tip.
Good Luck..
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment05/23/2019 at 10:25 am in reply to: Easiest/Cheapest Way I've Found to do My Numbers and Get Net Profit. #62351P.S. .. The reason EAT or Easy Auction Tracker may not have come up in a SL search is because it was probably back when SL was a “Blog” and not a “Forum” format, but Jay could confirm this.
But if you go to the “Search the Blog” box which is separate from the “Search the Forum” box, which will be located on the SL home – landing page, you will find numerous posts pop up about EAT. Troy [aka T-Satt also used EAT as did several others. You will find more details there.
As far as NET PROFIT goes that will be hard to track in EAT IF you do include all of your expenses, autombile, extra electricity for having lights turned on, your sqaure footage of your rent or mortgage dedicated to your business, procurement costs, shipping and office supplies like scotch tape, staple, computer paper, toner, ink, sticky notes, erasers, magic markers. Thos of us who track in detail can get a TRUE Net profit picture at any time we want as long as we use our business credit cards and download all of those expenses within Quicken, Quickbooks or Go Daddy.
To give a very simple and over generalized picture of how some miss the real net profit picture is this.
Net Profit is after all expenses that one could ever think of that has ever had anything to do with your business. You will find all total, [and this has been discussed before many times] that if you Sell $50,000 a year then expect 60-7-% of that to be eat up by “hidden and soft costs”.
Now the very simple example. You sell $50,000 a year, you subtract all of the typical talked about about fees, Ebay, PayPal, then subtract the price you paid for an item and that’s all. Now envision this, what if gasoline was $1,000 per gallon and that was not included in your “expenses” subtracted out of that $50k in sales.
You travel 20 miles per week for “procurement” of your items and or post office trips. That is $20,000 in gas expenses for one week alone. In 3 weeks you are in the red, have spent all $50,000 in sales and have NO NET PROFIT.
The Sales amounts minus just a partial list of expenses is nothing more than and “Adjusted Gross” figure.
Now you may ask, how can anybody track buying a pack on 3 Gel Ball point pens as an business expense and include such minute details in your reports. Ah ha.. Use accounting software, use only your business card for all business relted expenses, even use two cards at the grovery store if you are buying silver polish, windex, paper towels FOR YOUR BUSINESS. The you classify those “vendors” [stores, sources] as business places or ietms. You only have to do this once as you begin proper business bookkeeping protocols [SOPs=Standard Operating procedures], then the software will do it automatically for you every time you download your business checking account.
Troy, Mark Tews, any accountant on here can help one figure out a “COA”, [chart of accounts]. Once you have your COA set up [ours has about 25 to 30 categories] then everything goes into those accounts when downloaded automatically. Ex. every business card charge at Staples goes into “Office Supplies”. It doesn’t matter if it was ink, papaer, pens, tape, etc.. But you can if you have the time break it down into office and shipping supplies. We do.
This is why I cringe when I see newer members decry- I am selling $30k a year so I am ready to go full time. Well only if you can live off of about half of that.
I would suggest no one quit their full time job until they get some expert advice from a CPA or Accountant and ask how do I determine our “REAL” Net Profit. Then your salary will be an expense that is subtracted from your GROSS which then in turn lowers the NET you will arrive at. I would suspect a high percentage of those who quit selling online fall prey to “NOT KNOWING THEIR REAL NUMBERS”
The mantra here on SL is “Know your Numbers”, but I say we change that to “Know Your Real Numbers”. As above $1,000 per gallon of gas not accounted for will put you into the red and out of business in 3 weeks and has nothing to do with Ebay, Etsy, PayPal fees, etc., etc.
So something like EAT is more better called an Inventory Tracking Tool and the tab for “expenses” will be a real manual task if you will want REAL NUMBERS.
P.S. you will have to keep every receipt you get and enter it manually and then EAT is not going to classify it into the “Expense Categories” that Quicken for Business does.
Just a Southern Boy who likes Peaches, Watermelon, Butter Pecan Ice Cream and Pecans opinion and carries no weight above what a good Accountant will help you with.
Mark Tews even has online courses and tutorials aimed at helping online sellers or there are books on the Fundamentals of Accounting for Online Sellers.
Good luck and keep on “Truckin”.
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
05/23/2019 at 8:41 am in reply to: Easiest/Cheapest Way I've Found to do My Numbers and Get Net Profit. #62341We used it too for years. it is an Excel spread sheet with a lot of Macro’s.
We have discussed it here on SL 3 or 4 times with several replies and posts about it. You can use the “search SL” function and discover all the old threads about it. i personally posted a good bit about it.
It is not created by a “large company”. It is created by a single guy who used Excel to write all the Macro’s. I have talked to him personally many years ago. It is a side jig for him. He has a fultime job, so when you email him for help or fixes he usually answers in the evening.
As T-Satt says it is a solid spread sheet BUT as with all spread sheets a user can mess it up. Make sure you do back ups of it everyday. If you accidently “unlock” the protection by trying to do some editing or adding to it’s function and screw up the Macro Formulas in some cells, you will have to have the author correct it, and in most cases it will take him a while to get back to you and then it will most likely be written instructions in the form of an email. But he can be reached by phone if you ask for his help.
EAT does basic money functions on the financial tab, yes it has an inventory tab but is very limited as compared to SixBit and WonderLister which are intergrated inventory control management systems combined with listing software, shipping modules, consignment modules, photo storage and financial analysis. EAT also is not a journal entry, double book keeping system and does not function on the level of Quicken for Business, Quikbooks or to some degree go Daddy. You can track some expenses in EAT but it will be all manual. Real bookkeeping systems are connected to your personal and business checking accounts, credit card accounts both personal and business at your bank and payPal. To do monthly reconciliations, do detailed financials, Profit and Loss statements that include all of your business expenses EAT is somewhat weak unless you do everything as a manual input on the Expenses tab.
But don’t get me wrong, several of us on SL used it for years way back when but finally had to move along to as Jay calls it “More robust Programs” both to capture everything automatically and to gain speed and effeciency.
Just a little input, but at $50 per year, it is a very good spread sheet format system, especially for those with fewer items.
Have a great day..
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art in AtlantaHoly Cow Troy.. and this from Mr. Numbers!!
Just ran a future Value of Multiple Deposits Calculator on this. $22.95 x 12 months x 19 years at a simple 3% interest earned would have equaled $7,099.30 by now.
$5,232.60 in actual monthly installments and $1,843.75 in simple interest.OK.. Listen to me now LOL π for a guy that can deliver the kind of monthly number beakouts you do, please check your monthly statement. I do because of one big factor, I have had a wife for 50 years and she has a credit card. Enough said. π
Check, check and re-check all monthly statements, especially medical ones. 50 aspirins at $25 ea. in a hospital can be over looked on a 10 page Explanation of Benefits Statement.
But to join you, I had a $30 a month subscription for a web site building app. that I let ride for 3 years, but I knew it was there. I intended on using it each month I saw it, but after 3 years of never getting around to it, it was a total waste.
But glad to know the Mr. Number Cruncher is human! LOL π π
mike at MDCGFA
Don’t hold your breath on that one. LOL π
05/21/2019 at 5:27 pm in reply to: Don't you love when thrift shops tell you what you can do with your own items? #62207Right there with you AF. I have a fanny pouch around my waist. It has tape measure, several loupes, a magnet, pen and paper to create my own receipts and of course a bigger accordian slot in the middle to hold all the smaller denomination bills we carry. Usualy $250 to $300 +/- most times. A super flash charge cell phone charger, but descretly all in a pouch around my waist, but you are right, when i need to check, out the tools come,
Makes you wonder beside all the looking and checking the pro dealers do and as you said fairly quickly, what they have to think when you make a pile of 10 to 20 items with a huge difference it what the objects are and you haggle a price what they think you are going to do with all that varied and misc. stuff other than “resell it”. Same for the thirft stores. A conter full of everything under the sun, that most people don’t want and they got from others throw aways and you buy a pile of odd things. Are they dumb enough to think you are going to go home and then just line this stuff up on a shelf and stand back and admire it.
They usually know when I whip out our tax exempt certificate on them. They know then we are a business. Duuhhh!!!!
And I agree, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do with my merchandise. i burn it if I want to, gift it away outside there door for free as people come up [that would burn them up and get the cops called on me] But yes, we have spent thousands of dollars at some of our favorite shops and I don’t think they care at all what we do with it, just keep buying from them, year after year.
That goes back to my getting to know the onwers, making friends and them knowing who you are, what you buy and you will get deals. They know the drill and already know I am going to do the dance with them.
Mike at MDCGFA
Hey Troy:
Just an idea. If you use SixBit to create a “pick list” on that many items, just print your pick list out on a sheet of small labels or a pressure sensitive adhesive sheet. Use the pick list to pull all your items, then as you finish an items packing just peel and stick the pick list label on that box.
The SixBit pick list data has a small thumbnail pix of the item, your sku, and I think buyers name. That should be enough to identify the box, who to ship to and name. Then when you bulk print your labels, just peel and stick your shipping label over the smaller 1 x 3 in. PL ID label you had on the box, then proceed to print your bulk scan sheet for USPS.
Just an idea.
Mike at MDCGFA
Ok here is a link for you.
There are a number of them listed all the way from about $13-$15 up to $124 and change. you can’t see the prices with out a subscription but the higher prices of the top 5 or 6 are as follows:
Tesla Electric Car Red Lunchbox Collector HTF Item Sold for: $124.95 Source: eBay Sold Date: Mar 04, 2018
Tesla Electric Car Red Metal Lunchbox Collector HTF Item Sold for: $75.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Jul 11, 2018
Tesla Stripe Tin Lunchbox – Tesla Motors Promo Sold for: $50.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: Dec 13, 2016
Tesla Lunch Box In New Condition – Rare Sold for: $50.00 Source: eBay Sold Date: May 05, 2017
TESLA Lunch Box Metal Rare Red Excellent Condition Sold for: $49.99 Source: eBay Sold Date: Apr 26, 2016
Tesla Stripe Tin Lunch Box(Damaged, Crushed, Dented) VERY RARE Sold for: $39.99Good luck…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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