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I hear you. You are right most of our Home Decor items are larger and heavier. if anything fits a smaller box and very light, it usually hits the First Class and for such a small amount we are not going to drive to the FedEx facility for a small savings of cents vs. dollars, even though several years ago a FedEx full service center opened just a few miles up the road.
Thanks
Mike at MDCGFAHey Temudgin:
Off topic here but you mentioning SmartPost and also JandR did in the podcast, every time I look at SmartPost it is always higher than FedEx Home delivery. Don’t know if it’s out TRS-plus discount but I haven’t used SmartPost in several years. Home delivery started being less expensive during last last rate hike we all went through several years ago.
FedEx Home delivery is usually a buck or two less expensive both for close zones or zones 7 and 8.
Do others see SmartPost as less costly than FX-HD and if so I wonder why?
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Yep.. recessed tub-shower-bathroom wash cloth hanger and soap area. Not for giant bars of ivory soap, but moe dainty, smaller decorative soap. Probably designed more for the vanity, powder room 1/2 baths.
See a lot of these at our plumbing supply houses when we used to remodel houses.mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Hey…
I am Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta, GA IF ANYBODY HERE ON SL FOR THE PAST 4 YEARS OR SO DID NOT ALREADY KNOW THAT!!! LOL 🙂 🙂Kindest Regards,
the management team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
Michael, Susan, Lisa and Christie
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment Parts divs.And because of an original signup error I made by using a obtuse Handle name when I first signed up that Ryanne said she couldn’t change and I was stuck with it, I show at the bottom as “Huncrelan” …. Ryanne even made fun of my handle name a few times years ago. “Who is “Huncrelan”, what kind of name or whatever that is… Funny.
Laughing Out Loud, smiling and loving it. No shyness on my part here.
Our Motto: “Live to Create and Celebrate”Nope. WL does not have those break outs in the sold tab. You would think it would because Ebay has it broken out like that and WL should be able to just map to those fields somehow.
Just sold, [ a custom field at my request=sold off Ebay=my stab at trying to get WL to let me track Etsy Sales manually], Unsolds and a few other abandoned fields where they were beta testing the Etsy and Shopify but those have gone dormant since they said they were not sharing any data with “outside” non-internal sources????I am still wanting to make the SixBit transfer but due to 2 of the 4 house lots selling and me getting those 2 under construction I haven’t had a moment to do anything but list, direct our 2 assistants and some accounting stuff. You may have noticed very little here on SL also. Just no time to read through 100+ SL posts and jump in to post replies. But things will get better early summer time wise.
List on everybody…
Mike at MDCGFA in Atl.Only 1 or 2 a month if that. Most of our buyers all pay. We may have about a dozen packed items in our staorage area from years of unpaids. We are very lucky in that respect.
And we have unpacked an item or two and put back in place and then re-used the box on the next item.
Without diving into the details of last year yet, our Sales were about $25k on 450 items sold so Our avg. sales price is in the $40 to $50 range. Out of that amount of items of approx. 8 items per week no real volume pressure and most pay. Now when that doubles and it will, we will move to the pull, pack and process only the solds that are paid. And if paid after our store cut off hours it will be the next day.
mike at MDCGFA in Atl.
I have a user made folder and when we accept an offer we type in the word sold in the “Notes” section of WL. Then because of the rule we created on the Sold Folder, it sees the word “sold” and places a copy of it in that folder. But yet the “Status” column in WL still shows the item as “Active”. This way we always have a short list of the “solds” but no payment rec’d.
I did this some time back, thinking if we had a bunch of offers we take and were waiting on payment we could be working on them while waiting. But that was back when I was hoping for a ton of daily sales and offers. After experience set in, we never sell more than a few things per day and we can keep track of that mentally ourselves. It was just wishful thinking we would have so many sales per day that we couldn’t keep track of it. And most buyers also pay rather quickly to boot. I guess I could actually just delete that folder.
Mike at MDCGFA in Atl.
We have same day, next day shipping as we are TRS-Plus. I took an offer a little while ago and we are packing it right now, but no payment yet. But if payment is rec’d before 11:30 it will go out today.
We ship some items within hours of payment and that has been mentioned along with our cocoon packing technique in a lot of our feedback.
mike at MDCGFA
Absolutely Mark:
These factors can throw a kink into any system. Any pulled item for any reason, if not shipped, needs to be replaced as soon as possible back to it’s original storage space.At times when we accept an offer we pull that item and begin the packing process in anticipation that payment will come through shortly. But in the case on unpaid items or cancellations the item does not get shipped and it may end up sitting for a while before we replace it into the system.
So now if we pull an item prior to payment when we pull the original inventory tag off the item and pre-pack, we then tape the inventory tag back onto the box, where the label will go and wait for payment. Also by using WonderLister, the item is still in the database as sold, but not paid. When we replace we just adjust the database.
If payment goes unpaid, we just place the box back into it’s original space. Yes, it is usually a larger item being in a box with packing inside, but we usually make room for it.
But little things like this, especially pulling the item out of it’s space for any reason can lead to errors in placement and finding in the future.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Yep IM239… This is our exact same procedure. Use the Parcel as the first choice and then always ship Priority. With our TRS+ discount it always comes out less costly for us to upgrade.
A tip on getting yourself an extra day and something we dislike about Ebay’s handling this.
We do not accept any offers after after a certain time that would not allow us to pull, pack and get the USPS.
We have Same Day / Next Day selected as ship time. Well when you accept an offer early usually Ebay will say ship today, but here is the BIG BUT, if you accept an offer any time after the post office closes for the day and EVEN UP UNTIL 11:59 PM at night, Ebay still sees that as the Same Day so we have to ship the next morning.
But when offers come in after say 3 pm in the afternoon, we don’t accept until the next morning when we open. That then gives us all day [that day] and the next day also.
We do have our store hours set in our Preferences, but Ebay still ignores those. So if we accept an offer at 10 o’clock at night, Ebay thinks that the remaining 2 hours is the first day and you now only have the next day to ship. But if you wait on that 9 PM offer and accept it only after mid-night, then you have the whole day when you get up and also the day after that for same day-next day.
So in order not to have to respond late at night, we just do the accepting or counter offering, etc. when we open each morning around 7:30 am to 8:00 am.
Makes me wonder about those that have Same Day handling and you accept an offer at 9 PM, does Ebay acctually think you are going to ship in the next 3 hours at night?
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Off topic here but just had to share an experience we had at Goodwill yesterday.
We only visit Goodwill stores about once a year. Not a real source for our type of inventory. But over a years time we do accumulate bins of items that we decide not to list for various reasons. After reading the more recent posts on places to donate, we should have listened to the adivce of the SL Members and gone to a place to donate our bounced inventory where it would have done some good.
Here is a short note I replied to Goodwill online when they asked for my comments. Reading my reply tells the whole story. And what a heart dropping moment when we heard that sound and could see the collector “Clifton” do what he did.
Dear Goodwill Upper Management team:
We are an online seller and donated about a hundred items we did not wish to list. Approx. 50 items were misc. clothing, many new with tags and approx. 50 items of glass, ceramic or pottery.All were very good items that were suitable to be placed on your shelves for sale. In fact some of these were items we originally bought at Goodwill.
We brought all of these in using our plastic tote bins which we asked to be returned. Well due to what we think was the need for speed, all of the items were quickly dumped into a larger rolling bin and we could hear that probably almost every item was destroyed and we could hear all the hard good items breaking in a loud crashing sound.
Guys, there was Stueben pieces, Waterford, Tiffany glass, Staffordshire, Royal Doulton, Andrea by Sadek, Murano, misc. jewelry, good water glasses, and crystal of all sorts in there.
We calculate well over a thousand dollars worth of items at your resale margins in there you could have resold if your collector would have taken them out by hand and placed on a cart.
They only had minor issues with them that made them undesirable for us to re-sell in our Ebay and Etsy stores.
Instead, it sounded like everything was broken as it was dumped in from that height into a rolling dump bin and hit the bottom with a loud and sustained crash as the collector continued to tip and empty our full plastic totes into that large collection bin.
We will never donate to you guys again. Everything in the future will go to a local church which holds periodic sales to raise money for the poor.
the management team at
MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine ArtThis experience just sucked rocks for me. Susan and I both discussed that we are going to seek out a local church charity that holds annual or semi-annual rummage sales and make sure our off casts are used to generate income for a charity that will put the money to good use.
What was a final joke, was when I filled out the online receipt, listed what items we donated, I got a small screen that informed us that the value of our donations would provide 13.2 hours of traning for some person in need of a job. What a joke. All of the hard goods were destroyed. They have nothing to resell and is going to provide squat for anyone.
BTW this Goodwill has posted new prices for the clothing racks at $6.99 to $9.99 per item. And as we left I checked out the men’s shoe rack and it was mostly single super large size shoes left. Very few pairs. I picked up one “left” shoe, a Johnson and Murphy all leather upper and half leather sole with some heel wear, made in Italy and that one, single shoe, size 9-B [not even a super large shoe] was priced at $24.95!!!! At our margins we would be listing that at $250 for the single shoe.
Goodwill’s have become a complete joke for us. No wonder we don’t go there any more.
Mike, Susan, Lisa, Christie the management team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Equipment Parts divs.That’s cool Christine. We have suggested others check with the high end auction houses in the past but never heard any replies or if the SL poster did inquire. That is cool news. And the valuation comes from a respectable source.
A little more homework. see if the artist was ever represented by a gallery somewhere and see if they may have an interest in it. Or another path would be any relatives that may have an interest, then latly maybe a library or small museum in the artist home town. Just other channels on a possible sale that may lead to more money than placing on Ebay or Etsy and without the fees.
Good luck and do keep us posted.. 🙂
mike at MDC Galleries
Sonia we do very much the same thing when we can but as TRS+ we do offer 30 day free returns.
But so tired of self centered buyers who like in other areas of life are just so focused on themselves and what they think they deserve and are entitled to in this world. But let’s not get into that can of worms.
But just think about a normal return for any reason, if you were making a return at any box store USA…
* You go shopping one day, buy a shirt for either yourself or as a gift for $10.
* It is 10 miles to the mall or store
* You get the item home and it either doesn’t fit, or color is wrong or even if you discover it is ripped in the middle and you decide to return it
* You drive 10 miles back to the store the next day with the shirt and your receipt
* You go to customer service and say, “I wish to return this shirt”
* They say ok, take the shirt and ask for your reciept and tell you they will credit your purchase of $10 back to you
* BUT NOW you say, “oh no, that won’t do. I want $15 back
* The clerk asks, “Why” and you answer, “Because I drive 10 miles here to shop last week, discovered a rip in the shirt and because of that I had to drive 5 miles back doen here, and 5 miles back home [a round trip], that was caused by your oversight of not seeing the internal rip
* So, you would like the big box store to REIMBURSE you for the wear and tear on your car at $.50 per mile.GUESS WHAT THE ANSWER IS GOING TO BE…. Sorry we can only refund the amount of the exact purchase, the rest is on you. And don’t talk to us about the cost of your time either, because that also won’t fly.
The trip to and from both to shop and for the return is the cost a buyer has to bear in order to get goods and services that otherwise they can’t get for their selves. That’s your “Buyer Sweat Equity” into your receipt of goods and services. And a chance you are willing to take based on research and reviews that the seller you are buying from can and will deliver quality goods and great service most of the time. You knowing full well that at times, the services or product may come up defective.
So, then why do online buyers expect us as sellers to re-emburse them for absolutely everything, lot, stock and barrel for everything.
We recently got a heavy arctic coat returned. The reason was “the arms are too long”. The return was accepted of course due to 30 day auto returns but that did not stop me from sending him a quick reply.
I said, the description and item specific areas state the sleeve length of 22″ from arm pit to end of cuff. Did you pre-measure your arms? We are of the opinion that your arms are just too short”. Everybody here at the office had a good laugh on that. But I digress.
Have a great weekend..
Mike at MDCGFA in ATL
Which is what we did years ago. Then in order to not clutter up our hard drive and also run the risk of ever again not having access, we back everything up to Ccarbonite [a paid back-up] and our Google Drive, our MS One drive AND also a 4 Tierra Byte external hard drive connected to our desk top. So we have everydocument, file, financial dta, business files, and photos for our online businesses all backed up in 5 places. Never trust just your hard drive, never trust just your lap top, or just an external or one cloud source.
We learned our lesson long ago about, lightining hits, hard drive faliures, operating system blue screens of death, Dos, to Vista, to Millinum [uggh], MS 7, 8, 9 and 10, failed renewal online payments, missed payments, etc., etc.
Back everything up numerous times. It is called dedundancy of safety. And yes WonderLister and Sixbit can save all your photos on your hard drive but then it’s up to you to make sure you have folders [we use monthly folders] for our photos, and those folders get auto backed up weekly.
On many platforms when you upload photos they place them on their own servers and they also then change to names of the photos to their own naming system. If your account goes down by cancellation, failed or late payment or whatever so goes your photos.
By the way, by copyright law your photos are yours and you maintain the copyright and use of your photos, art work, live performances, records, etc., etc., but isn’t it interesting that they change the titles of your photos, then harvest them to their servers, then place them into product catalogs without your permission or paying you. Then they in turn get Google, Bing, to crawl them and then they show up on Pinterest, Google image search, Facebook places and all over and we never get a check for the use of any of our photos. HHhhmmm.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
