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Well this is a timely post and replies. I had asked a couple months ago about 4 zip lock nags of old software I had laying around. All of it was mine, has been used and I have most of the manuals for it.
I got several replies here on SL that covered several concerns. So not really knowing I have just let them lay.
Each bag has about 6 to 10 programs in it. Each bag is a separate category of programs, i.e. one is all photo editing apps, one is all utilities, one is drawing, cad or art-publishing and the last one is all old version of MS Windows and office. We photographed each bag-lot separately and were going to make 4 separate listings by category type.
Many of the discs and manuals have the old used master-key written in magic marker on them. They were photographed with a bunch of keys showing.
My questions were, should we even list these, if recommended that we do what would be the correct verbiage or description to call them other than used, as is so we don’t get into trouble with the buyer thinking these may all be working, seeing the keys were used already. Many go back to before the year 2000.
So any thoughts on listing these, just skipping because of potential pitfalls and bounce back issues? We specialize mostly in home decor and art prints and objects so this is out of our wheel house. If there were potential issues, I would rather just dump them rather than get a neg. ding. I wouldn’t donate because the key is written all over the place. One of my old habits so I didn’t forget them or misplace them.
What the thoughts here?
thanks,
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art12/20/2018 at 8:02 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 390: Building a Business to Build a Life #53808Amen to your 2nd paragraph. Selling quicker – earlier then put the money in the bank. Even a lowly savings account is now starting to pay some interest. Death piles dont draw any interest at all.
Tom Cruise as Jerry McGuire… “Show me the Money!”
mike at mdc galleries and fine art
12/20/2018 at 5:25 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53803Hay Jay:
In response to: “Usually people start spending more time selling on other platforms and their eBay sales go down. Same money just coming from different places. But maybe these crossposting shortcuts you guys are exploring will change that.”These shortcuts we have been using is just because WonderLister didn’t build the Etsy interface as of yet, but SixBit has. That is why we are dropping WL and migrating over to SixBit.
Now here is what WonderLister was working on but has yet to have completed it and Sixbit has done a lot of this, but still a work in progress. Since we have not migrated to SixBit yet, then this is the way I am understanding most parts of it as well as the experience we have had using WL to cross post on Ebay and Shopify. And for the most part Troy mentions the SixBit team is listening, learning to some degree themselves and making changes as they update. Troy says they may be interested in what tid bits I may be able to share with them to help SixBit improve. We have 3 times as many items as Troy and Veronica have already in our Etsy store, so SixBit will have a broader base to gather information for improvement on. Troy mentioned that if I am willing to share information with SixBit just like I did with WL that they may have an open ear, if it will help with making improvements.
Within the SB software we will build listing templates just like we have within WL and Troy has done in SB. The all you do is fill in the SB listing form. One form, in one place. Then you will click a tab that says submit to Ebay and click a second tab that says submit to Etsy [we do this now for Ebay and Shopify].
From there, all synching of prices, discounts, sales, sold items, the deletion[removal] from both platforms will be done by the software.
With regards to tags, we use tags now, even in WL on our generic template. That is just good SEO for any store, any where. tags are food for Mother Google. Tags are nothing more than one or two words that describe your item, objcet. Our one template we use for both stores is in the WL template we fill out. If they have no use on one platform but do on the other, then the software will place it where it goes and just ignore the platform that does not have a “mapped” line for it.
Let me say it another way. You use InkFrog now. You fill out one form I suppose and then click to submit to Ebay. Well the only difference would be what if InkFrog had two morw click buttons, one that said submit to Shopify and one that said submit to Etsy. Click those 2 buttons in less than 2 seconds and InkFrog sends that “One” template-form you use to list your item to all 3 platforms simultaniously. From then on InkFrog handles all synching, adds and deletes items as sold, if you edit a description it makes the changes on all 3 platforms.
So, we will use SixBit going forward as a one place to add, edit, create promotons, discounts, anything you may want to do and send it to all platforms, or just to one. Want to add a 15% discount to our whole Ebay store, we can do that now, but not have it on the Shopify store, Yep. Attach photos in one place and those will be sent to all 3 stores with the one uploading.
The manual part is if there a few lines here and there that are not on the generic listing orm then a quick review and fill does the trick.
So bottom line, we hope to start creating every listing in SixBit and almost everything required by the 3 platforms gets sent simultaneously to all 3 and they go live.
Now just hoping this all pans out after we get finished customizing the main form in SixBit.
mike at MDCGFA
12/20/2018 at 3:49 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53797That will probably be hard to get a grip on early in the year because of the movement of so many new items due to the use of SixBit. Going from 346 Etsy Items to over 1,000 in a matter of months will most likely skew those numbers. Sure our Sales will grow, hopefully, but will it be to just the sheer increase in the volume of items listed. Then we are still looking to add another 1,000 of newly purchased inventory. It may take a year or more for the inventory to sort of plateau out, get on more of a maintenance level and then see what happens. But we will try to watch it. With building 4 houses all at the same time the first 4 to 6 months of Ebay or Etsy will be at the mercy of my time availability. we are just now at the permitting stage of the first two. Which one is under contract already and we have another strong interest but no offer yet on the second one. That is a good sign to get two spec homes sold before a shovel has touched the ground.
12/20/2018 at 2:24 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53785Funny you ention the $1 per item. That was a rough metric I used 3 or 4 years ago, when I spread sheeted every SL member who posted weekly numbers. I roughed guessed that if I could have a store with a given number of items and averaged $1 per unit in total sales per month regardless of total units sold I would be fine with a 2,000 item store.
Funny thing is that metric also worked out on most of the regular SL posters who listed their numbers.
12/20/2018 at 2:21 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53783I got you. That will require elbows, “T” connectors or multi corner connectors. Yep that will run the cost up and if 2″ dia. PVS then all those verticals will start to add up. 12 – 2″ dia. spacers will take up 24″ in lost space.
10-4 copy that the custom configuration can be utilized.
mdc at mdcgfa
12/20/2018 at 2:15 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53781Tell you who was doing well on Etsy and sort of was the inspriration to opening our eyes there is a member whom we haven’t heard from for a good while here on SL and that is “Omfug”. If she still haunts the SL forum, maybe she would chime in.
I am unsure if she would want her store named so I will leave that to her if she chimes in, but currently she shows 620 current items lsited,, 419 5 star feedbacks, 639 Favorites for her store, she used to say she does better on Etsy than on Ebay, both total sales and the costs are lower on Etsy so she was making more than on Ebay.
She has been on Etsy since May of 2014 = approx. 54 months. She lists about the same items as we do, vintage, older home decor, jewelery, photographs and ephemera,vintage collectables and some vintage clothing. Total sales since 2014 is 1,390 items = approx. 25 per month and that would also include the slower start up period and lower number of items to start in the beginning.
She has about the same bread and butter mid price ranges as J&R and us with the $20 to $40 and with some on up the scale.
So making a very broad assumption-guesstimate take $30 as an average x 1,390 in solds = $41,700 divided by 54 months gives an average of approx. $772 per month.. BUT THIS IS A SWAG! [scientific wild ass guess]. But after ghosting for a while and hearing her SL posts we decided to give Etsy the plunge.We have identified 8 other SL members who have Etsy stores and they all seem to vary but they are still present, listing and selling on Etsy.
Hopes this helps.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
12/20/2018 at 12:56 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53774Don’t know if this makes you feel better or worse but up and through the 18th of this month we did $568 dollars in Sales on Etsy. That is with 394 listings so far for Dec.. BUT the number of listing a month ago was far less but due to deciding to quit waiting on WL to get it’s act together, we have accllerated the manual cross listing on Etsy in the last 4 weeks.
So when we get over a thousand of our Ebay store cross listed, we are thinking maybe over a thousand to $1,200 per month as of current thinking, but no hard numbers to back that up yet.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
12/20/2018 at 12:31 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53771Mark, We haven’t made the move into SixBit yet. We are still setting it up. But Troy said SixBit is now including more details in it’s automatic handling of the listing and their is only a couple of lines to have to fill in manually and Boom she is done.
Maybe Troy will chime in and tell us exactly what lines [data fields] Veronica has to fill in manually after SixBit has transferred the Ebay listing over to Sixbit.
mike at MDCGFA
12/20/2018 at 11:01 am in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53756Careful with the PVC. If too wide of a span left-right and there is much weight on that shelf it will deflect downwards. You might try making a test situation. Buy enough PVC to make the frame of one shelf. then set it on two concrete bricks or blocks, then start placing wieght on the rectangular frame and watch to what degree it starts to deflect [bend]. Even steel will deflect. Example, ever seem an empty-unloaded flat bed tractor trailor and it is bowed “upwards” in the center? That is called pre-deflection that the engineers pre-bow the bed so that when the calculated weight is placed on the trailor then it will begin it’s deflection downwards until it is either level, when loaded or downards, when over loaded. Steel will bend and or give way at a certain point.
The same will hold true of any shelf made out of steel, wood or plastic. Steel taking the most weight without deflection, wood being next and plastic bending the most. So all I am saying is build a test shelf to make sure.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
12/20/2018 at 8:56 am in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53746Hey Mark: All the data was to say, big bins get heavy [30 to 40 lbs.] and are hard to handle, hard to get off the shelf when high up and dangerous on me.
My solution, I am slowly swapping out to bins that are half the size of my current 66 qt. [using 30 qt. or less] and then putting two of these smaller bins on the shelf in the same spot where I had 1 large heavy bins previously.
And just stating that a large inventory is very heavy on the shelves and can add up to tons of weight, so get heavy duty shelves. Jay had plastic shelves collapse on him a few years back.Now, WL over to Etsy using export to .csv and then importing. We don’t do that. Way too time consuming and will spare you the details as to why. The way we are doing it manually right now is one of our helpers opens our ebay store on one monitor and the Etsy listing form on the other. Then all she does is copy and paste directly from the Ebay live listing from our Ebay store and paste the data into the Etsy listing form and then saves it as an Etsy draft. I then open those up each morning, attach the photos since they are here at my office, add the box size and postal weight then publish.
We have about 400 out of our 1,100 Ebay listing already on Etsy. And are seeing some sales activity on Etsy as a result.
Heck, by the time I get SixBit downloaded, customized and set up on two computers with a shared in office network we my have almost everything in Etsy done manually. Our helper seems to be getting about 2 dozen Etsy listing done in an evening from her home. She says it takes her a couple of hours, so I am guessing about 10 to 12 per hour just copying nad pasting from Ebay live listing into each new Etsy draft.
But once I have made the transition over to SixBit and then cut the cord with WL and from there atleast SixBit will take over and finish up the job for us real quick. Once we have everything we want from Ebay uploaded to Etsy, then SixBit will handle everything going forward automatically. Upload to both platforms if we so choose, then also track all the sales done on each platform and manage the deletion from the platform that it did not sell on. Auto synchrinization which is what WonderLister is hung up on. Also WonderLister did not even get it’s Shopify interface working correctly as of yet, so we just had to give up on thinking WL was going to get anything together fast enough for our plans. We missed this whole fourth quarter because WL did not get anything done on an Etsy interface that we know of and they cut us out of the information loop on where they stand on getting themselves working smoothly.
The export and import process is very clumsy because once you export to an Excel spread sheet then you have to go and format that spread sheet. Time consuming. Then you have to get each data field “mapped” to the correct “Etsy” field. Well, that may require [unsure] knowing which fields would need the spread sheet data, how Etsy has those fields named, and unsure if it could be done without making a mess of the process. Troy, may be able to add to this, but we just figured rather than trying to deal with the export-import into Etsy, just get SixBit set up here at the office as quickly as we can, then let SB handle it for us automatically.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
12/19/2018 at 2:35 pm in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #53706Mark, I guess you are aware that the 18 gal. bins, which translate into 66 Qt. for the Sterilite Company, is a lot of internal space. We have had industrial shelving designed for stacking pallets for decades.
The specs are 6 ft. wide x 7 ft. high with 5 shelves. The top shelf is at the very top so items sit “Up Top” or “UT” in our sku code, and the bottom shelf is 1″ off the ground. They are spaced so our 66 qt. bins with latch handles and lids fit 4 across and just slide into the top and bottom. The middle shelves are spaced so we can get one large tub-bin in a space and 2 smaller shoe box size bins on top. That gives us 32 plastic bins of 2 different sizes per 5 shelf unit.
We have 8 of those units arranged back to back like library shelves for a total of 256 bins.
Now for the members newer to all of this, there is a cost to all of this and a consideration to packing a whole lot into a small space.
First for you Mark, watch the size of those big bins. We took our large shipping scale out a couple of summers ago just for fun and giggles. we took use a strudy 3 step folding ladder, one with a thigh high rail at the top to lean against. Here’s the warning. Some of our bins are close to 45 to 50 lbs due to the fact we sell mostly hard goods. Sets of dishes, cast iron skillets, book ends wieigh a bunch. My wife can’t get bins down. Up on a 3 foot ladder pulling a 50 lb. box off a shelf, securely grabbing both the front and back handles, then backing down the 3 steps is precarious to say the least. So we are now downsizing to bins half that size and we will just have 2 bins in the space we currently have one large one.
Secondly, watch the total weigh at an average [just ball parking here], of 30 to 35 lbs per bin x 32 bins per unit is a lot of lbs. per unit and times 8 units equals “tons” of inventory. If you do this inside of a house, in a room on top of 2″ x 10″ floor joist spread the weight out or your floor will start to bow downwards. Garages are perfect because they are mostly 4″ slab, reinforced concrete.
For the newer guys thinking of this.. Our larger pallet shelves which we got 30 or more years ago were over $150 per unit, today, they are even more because of their size. But let’s use your $130 per unit x 8 units for us is $1,040 in shelving. Now to the cost of 256 bins. We got ours at a damaged goods outlet, so some are missing a handle or have a broken corner of the bin or lid but we paid $3 aeach for these distressed ones or $768 total over the years. So that plus the shelves is approx. $1,808. Now also consider that at a local Walmart and even on Sale, 66 qt. and larger bins are way more than $3 ea, try maybe double that. So think about a budget of $2,000 to $2,500 to fill a 20′ x 20′ garage or storage shed with large, heavy duty shelving and all spaces filled with bins.
Item capacity of 256 bins for us, using a softball size average [so larger, some smaller], we figure we can do 2,500 to 3,000 items if we lean toward the smaller baseball [ashtray] sized item, give or take of course.
We are going to the half size bins just for the fact I am tired of carefully sliding aheavy bin off a shelf whereby I am reaching up for it or having to use a 6′ taller ladder. I would rather pull off the front “A” box and set it down to reach the 2nd “B” box just to be more careful. I hit my 70th birthday Monday and FYI, I don’t bounce anymore like when I was 20, I now break. So I don’t need a busted hip, knee, angle, arm or leg. 🙂
Just some thoughts to ponder on building / setting up large storage area.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
12/17/2018 at 12:26 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 390: Building a Business to Build a Life #53523Ryanne, do you still review drafts the helpers create? We do, and I find a lot that I have to edit. Also we know certain keywords that are pertinent to certain things that the helpers jsut don’t know.
And pricing. I usually do that. So, helpers take our “quick entry drafts” from the “Warehouse Folder” and finish out the listing, Item Specifics, description area, weight, box size, and attach the photos from our external drive and then save in their personal WonderLister folder I created for each of them. From There I review edit and revise as needed then publish.
Much faster for sure, but they miss some things that are what I feel are great keywords. Certain material terms, mold made glass as opposed to pipe-mouth blown, thus us artisan handmade key word, or has a pontil mark on the bottom, use of moriage, leaded stained glass with beveled edge, things that collectors do search for.
I have noticed over the last few years you and Jay’s gravitation away from a SL mantra from years back, and that was “Photograph like there is no description and Describe like you don’t have any photographs”. That mantra was to keep the INADs at bay and help boost sales for those who only look at photos and buy or those who read descriptions and dont see where to go to item specifics, or use Item specifics and dont look at the description area a lot of cell phone users].
But now, I see only a couple of words in your descriptions, something, “A heavy coat” and that’s it. or “Women’s High Heel Shoes” and a size, which is OK but the title covers most of the basics, the condition area handles the flaws that are noted and the Item specifics covers most else including the size.
So now that I look through a lot of your listings, is there any real reason to put anything thing in the description area and just a few basics in the IS area and let it post.
I guess I could get a whole lot more listed with that approach. Just rely on the title, price and photos to do the majority of the selling and just deal with what returns and feedback is generated as or if you come to that bridge. In one listing, you only have your short sku number and that’s it and 3 item specifics that is comprised of 5 words total and only 5 photos, and the title.
If that is now the way to go and possibily the new SL mantra, I think we could double or more our daily listings.
Is it now the sheare volume of listings, the title and photos that will produce larger amounts of sales vs. always using all 12 photos [when feasible], describing verbally the types of flaws, phrases in the description that contain multiple key words, and measurements in the IS areas that cover a multitude of measurements, colors, materials.
Just wondering what you guys and everyone else thinks about a full, rounded out IS, Condition, Description area vs. just 6 or 8 words a title and a few photos and letting the chips fall where they may?
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Christine: I agree, really do we get any response after taking the time to answer questions. So as I have mentioned before, we use a series of SOP [standard operating procedures] and some of those include auto responses to questions we know are already answered.
This one pasted below covers a lot of questions about sizes, materials, colors, etc. especially since we take the time to fill in all the item specific fields as Ebay allows. 25 field usually. Those are Google searchable also.
One thing to remember answering all email messages that are inquires are a trackable action and from what I remember as TRS Plus maintaing that status is required to answer most inquires and that process gets tracked by Ebay. But Ebay doesn’t dictate what you have to say in a reply. So for that reason alone we have the following on out desktop and for almost all question we just cut and paste the following:
“Thank you for your inquiry.
For informational purposes, for several years, Ebay has required sellers to list a wide assortment of product details, in the “Item Specifics” area but doesn’t make that area obvious to cell phone users.
On desktop computers just scroll down below the “Condition Area” and on cell phones swipe or click the “blue arrows” or click “blue see more info.” [Blue is usually a link to another area of data] to see or navigate to that Ebay area.
We invite you to visit the “Item Specifics” and “Condition” areas where you will most likely find the answers to your question(s) along with other details and information which may help in making your buying decision.
Once an item is listed, it is placed in our inventory storage area and we do not have immediate access to the object. If you cannot find the answers to your question(s) or have other questions not covered, please let us know and we will retrieve the item and try to provide an answer.
We look forward to hopefully seeing an order forth coming. It is a very nice item.
Thank you for Supporting American Small Business”
Kindest Regards,
the management team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine ArtNow by doing this, we fulfill Ebays requirement [if it still is one] to answer all inquires, two, it forces the customer to help them selves, keeps us from having to go get the object and waste our time, keeps us from setting a tone that we are willing to engage.
We also try to talk in third person,and use our official corporate identity. If a potential customer gets the impression you are a small time, sell out of the closet, none corporate entity, then they will engage you on a personal level and that opens up a can of worms.As you can see we are a mangement team, this portrays we have employees and at times I will do a side step if a nasty email comes through and reply simply, I will run your inquiry past our owner or our legal dept.
In most cases, this is the end of it. Either do what we say and learn how to use your phone, learn how to navigate Ebat, help yourself-we have already invested the time to provide the information, we are professional sellers not enablers, so just go do it. Then all I am interested in is quoting Tom Cruise “Show me the money”. Simple.
If we get a second follow up with a serious question that is not covered in the listing, then of course we will pull the item, and reply accordingly with an answer. And yes at times, we too will use the make an offer box on a reply, but not often. It is what it is.
Using this method also eliminates the lonely hearts club of buyer types who just want to talk, chat, have an on going dialogue and tell you their life story, how this is for their grand ma, sons birthday, or go down the rabbit hole of telling you how much they know about a category, topic or type of item
Our reply says, it’s already there, go find it yourself and if you do place an order and if not, then don’t and if truely interested and what to know something not listed, then we are here for you.
Short, sweet, simple, SOP.
Ahh, good to get a daily blurb-rant, if you can call it that, out for today! 🙂
SOP furnished by the management team of MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment Parts divs.Yep.. A drowning man will grab onto a floating pine cone! So grab any help you can in order to build your store up to a level of good steady income. Then you can do what every company in America does, lay off the help and run on maximum – Kaizen and LEAN principles and do more with less because you have built up, streamlined, LEANed down, go to coast-maintain level, sell – buy – replace – rinse – repeat and then smile all the way to the bank! 🙂
Mike at MDCGFA
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