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Understood. But think somebody mentioned above that Google will crawl the line of copy but then when it hits a punct. mark it stops the scan and wont finish the crawl of the line. So wondered about Cassini also.
On decimal measurements do buyers even understand them? 9.625 x 3.750 without use of ” for inches I wonder how many emails we will get asking, “what size is this?”
then when it comes to a number like #250 and number #283 would now be 250 283 so how will a buyer digest it. or typing scott Stamp Catelog numbers like 2634, 3214, 6396, will now read 2634 3214 6396
Some of this just seems so, I don’t even know how to describe it. Does just bothersome come to mind! 🙂
mike at MDCG
Howdy SL Super Stars. Doing some new Helper training here and a coupple of good questions has popped up. Svereal of ya’ll have commented on eleminating the use of Punctuation in Title areas.
So here are the questions that have cropped up….
In the Title area no use of . , / – #
so Vtg [no period]
two adjectives side by side [no comma use to separate]
typing a measurement do we use 6-3/8″ or 6 3 8ths in or 6.375 in [do we need to go to decimal measurements and what about the period? or should we just not put measurements in the title?
Use of Quote marks
Do we als eliminate the use of all of these in the description area
Do we also eliminate use of punctuation especially the / [slash] in fractions of a measurement 3/8 or quote marks for the inches 3/8″
If we can use the slash [/] and ” for inches in the Title should it be the very last entry into the title field so when Google hits it and starts to skip over it, they will be the last entries.Thought it would be best to run it past all you guys for feedback while both of the helpers are still here training.
Thanks for any input…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Wink, Smile, Thumbs up, Amen!
There is an old saying, “Penny Wise Pound Foolish”.
Yes, writing all this took me back decades ago.
Si glad to hear that you know and understood the drill. Like preaching to the choir.
The thing we can all agree on I believe though when we are all asked by the newer members, “Can I make a lving or a full time income on Ebay”, the short answers is sure, absolutely. But many of us also follow that up with “If you run it and treat it like a Business”. But alsa so many don’t have the business acumen or thorough enough knowledge to run it a fine tuned business level. is it absolutely ncecessary.. no, but boy it sure helps and short cuts what is a large learning curve. How many times i hear people talking and they don’t understand the difference between GROSS and NET. To the average quick new seller, they live in the World of GROSS the MBA / Business people live in the world of NET.
As troy and I talked a time back..Many company’s would give their left arm to NET in the double digits [10% or More].
That span bewteen the two “worlds” is what seprartes the men from the boys. A through understanding of your expenses, Jay talks about this hundreds of times is vital. But not only your personal expenses, but your OE / Operational Expenses. And those need to be fined tuned down to how many running inches of tape you put on a box. $.06 worth or $1.11 worth? I am serious. That is what us OPerational guys do. We “measure everything” Time. Space, Materials, Payroll.One plant I monitored had a payroll of $140,000 a week for productionlabor [no officer-executive salaries incl.] that’s $560,000 per month. After I completed a 90 out on the floor study, even hiding in the balconies and spying, i discovered a big leak, comprised of small drips. [My job to find].
The bottom line was a lost production rate of $1,680,000 [yep a million and half dollars] The total time added up to three months. When i presented the owners with the amount I put it this way, You are paying wages for 12 months of work and only getting 9 months of work from the staff. You are paying them for 3 months to do nothing. In other words you might as well ahev all the employees show up for work but stay in the parking lot, then have them start walking around the building for 8 days then get in there cars and go home. Then have them come back the next day and do again and have them do this over and over for the whole month of June, July and august. Then on sept. the first you can let them go back in and start producing for you. those owners were flabergasted.The first question was what is that kind of non-productivity coming from. i then proceed with some of my final reports and it was comprised of hundreds of pages of small things, extended breaks, extended lunches, walking too far for tools, walking to ask a question of a supervisior, the supervisors office to far away, packing tables not on wheels, nothing modular, nothing mobile, taking 3 or more people to lift a heavy tabel instead of one to unlock the wheels and rool it. Buying small rolls or conatiners of needed things so having to go get more too often. etc., etc. ad nauseum. Yep One and half million dollars or wating time, walking and o course doing their jobs ineffeciently which I had to retrain everyone. They would cluster together so they could talk during the day.
So I bought a lot more tools and secured then at every place they were needed. Moved supervisors out on the floor into cubicles, bought larger containers or longer rolls of eveything, Took the cigareete machine out, created a no smoking policy on company grounds, etc., etc.My bonus that year was some odd number over $300,000. The company got cut down from about 250 employees to about 185 if I remember, we produced more product, faster, and made MORE NET PROFIT which I created a Bonus Sharing Plan for every employee and every person got a bonus after we finished the end of year audit.
Now just do this on a very tiny scale and apply to your store. Also be applying KAIZEN, always be improving, if you can’t list something, then tweak your listings, if you don’t do that then move your shipping supplies closer, reach less for knives, tape, magic markers, paper towels. Get a Costco card, buy bulk, create over head storag in your garage, considering buying a storage shed, buy the house next door and move your offices over there, shop on line… IN OTHER WORDS LIVE UP TO THE TRUE MANIFESTO OF J AND R SCAVENGERLIFE.. AND always be Continually improving.
Ok I have to go and make another contribution the J and R Tip Jar. I have ceratinly used way over my fair share of their bandwidth and have created as Jay calls it “wall of Text”, but hopefully some of this is of use in some of the members thought processes of Can I Make a Living on Ebay or online anywhere … YES but you “have to know your expenses” and Discover your TRU COSTS [not just what u paid for an item] get your NET NUMBERS THEN AND ONLY THEN SEE IF YOU CAN LIVE ON WHAT YOU SEE.
An example.. you may GROSS $20,000 but if you could root all all TRUE COSTS you may find you only NET OUT $10,000 or even LESS. Now listen to Jay.. Can you live on that???
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Bingo and you get my Drift. Kaizen or the methodology of Apllying “Continual Improvement”.. is the process by which anything and everything that can be a vaidated improvement can be applied then discussed in Quality Circles and a process of implementation worked out.
The approach of not needing 3rd party APP is not discussable until all of the ‘range of motion”, employee involvement, is discovered and documented. Then once identified, qualified by motion studies and time studies of everything from coughing-sneezing to running across the room for a roll of tape in a cabinet or trying to find a screw driver in a maintenance shop. Once quantified and documented in those time and motion studies, comes the application of the unit cost factor. everything from wiritng or generating a Purchase Order, phone conversations, ordering,, accepting, unpacking, walking to throw out the empty box and trash, recording the incoming data, assigning sku tags, carrying the object to it’s work cell / group if a JIT part, staging in the assembly line, or longer term storage if required. The pulling, packing, pushing, mobilization, etc., etc., etc. Then once a units “TRUE COST” [all total and complete, does the next step take place and that is the Cprative / alternate results. this area is a little bit more elusive because of usually not having a model or test equipment set up for comparison. It is usually taking the Mfg. specs and working out a comparative analysis to reach a go no go decision to buy, hire, fire, replace, upgrade. The whole executive decision making process is a process methodoligy. Once it is shown to be proven that to any one of those things will lead to an impovemnt in process, lower the cost and improve the quality or least not degrade it.. then the decision is made and action taken to implement.
The use of 3rd party APPs for use it Total Inventory Management process, even within a small two man shop or Ebay business can sqeeze out prfits many times over. A break even chart is created [the two converging lines representing the intial cost up fron [i.e. buying the software, buying a PC, training time is all charted out and then as soon as those two lines intersect then it is just like Troy says, nothing but ROI [Return of that Investment} for the life time of the process as long as it is in place and doesn’t wear out or obsolute out, which does happen. But that’s also another story of of MBA approach and also of Operations Management.
Once these process are understood, a proficiency in Excel spread sheeting acquired, then these types of tests and comparisons can be done in very short order. Then the benefits of being a “small business” is you can implement on a quick time frame as well if things don’t work out, back out quickly.
But like Jay has said before, turning a large ship takes a lot of room and is a slow process. That is what we are seeing within Ebay and other companies. Some with tons of manpower though like Ebay and Amazon, can and do apply these processes fairly quickly considering there over all size.So do any of the members here really need a 3rd party, Enterprise System, I would guess it would be hard for most to figure out a true answer to that question. Which now brings us all back to your statement of you don’t know what you don’t know, and if you know that you don’t know, etc., etc, your total quote.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
Sorry if this duplicates..did an edit and it disappeared. My first time ever.
One word I used to say all the time to the Middle supervisor staff. And if they took it to heart and either they or I could validate then raises and bonuses would be based on it.
I am going back now.. Original stemming from QC [Quality Circles] and that was KAIZEN! I even had signs and banners placed around facilities. Going to see if you know it.. [if not Wiki it-wink]. This became the foundation of Six-Sigma! Am I taking you back buddy?
When employees at review time were fishing for a raise and they always 9.75 times out of ten, stated their case with, I work hard, I am here on time, I don’t miss any days, I voluntere for over-time.. My reply was that’s no grounds for a raise, that was expected the day I hired you at $24 per hour. Failure to do thos things are grounds for firing not giving raises. Then I would teach, show, explain Kaizen agagin, because they were not paying attention at the plant meeting when I went over it with the whole plant.
The Best at Kaizen and could show it and provide me a report on those efforts were the ones who got the promotions, raises and middle management status and perks. The rest, sorry to say, were and probably still are the worker bees.Here’s another name for you.. Back in 1950s a dr. William edward DEMING !! Yep went to Detroit and pictched his theory of what KAIZEN is based on. They laughed at him and ran him out of every major car factory office. so he said to heck with you, packed his briefcase and fly to Japan. You ceratinly know the story of what happened next and we have never recovered, even today. We lost everybit of mfg. to Japan and the auto industry was detsroyed, which i belive, from my classes, was because of those first rejections.
Sure decades later we all came to embrace the principles of Kaizen, Six-Sigma was born and then the qualification for ISO Standards and ISO2000 and up. Took me over two years to get our Memphis plant up to the ISO 2000 first tier.Man would love to get into an old factory today, that is floundering and losing money and apply those principles. You could join me, what a team, what a Country. Turn that plant around and then Sell It.
Unfortunately that’s what many of the owners did, after I applied “LEAN Mfg” to everything down to the sheets of toilet paper [Ha-ha but true], got the staff on a KAIZEN mind set, and proved the bottom line documentation, and got them back in the black with less staff, lower payroll, less overtime, less outlay, the owner’s then usually sold the company and there went my job! :-). My job was to work myself out of a job. But as Jay says.. “the Good ‘Ole Days”.Did you enjoy your trip down memory lane? My Battle cry.. Toyoto has a 2.250% Reject Rate we have got to beat that and do it faster and cheaper.
Alas the Chinese beat us to the punch and said we will just do it crappy and so cheap that you could never make it at this low and maintain quality. Well all the young American bought into it.thus we now are flooded with all the “Junk” Jay mentions we find flooding the thrift stores and most homes in America, we don’t have much mfg. left, but we have developed one skill though..
You will love another of my sayings, Want it built rugged, give it to the Germans, then if you want it shrunk down to the size that it will fit into your pocket give it to the japanese, then want it built as cheaply and shoddy as possible give it to the Chinese, then if you want 3 of them sold to a person who doesn’t even need one of them give it to the Americans! 🙂 LOL Love that one too.
We have turned into a seller, pusher, sit down, make nothing, buy cheap and dispose of when finished society.
>> Call this 800 number and get this [unsaid cheap, crappy, hunk of junk plastic —you fill in the blank product] for only $19.95. And if you call in the Next 15 minutes you will receive a 2nd one for FREE [Jay says ain’t no such thing} only pay Shipping and handling [which is about the cost of another product}.. But remember You Are In Good Hands, Beacuse we Know a Thing or two Because we have Seen a Thing or two.. AFLAC !!Guess you can see I had some down time today due to some computer maintenance running.
Almost Miller time.. How about that Makers Mark, have one waiting here for you. 🙂
Nothing popping up in our database we use to research but will try a few others.
mike at MDCG
Well that certainly takes the whole PC vs Mac totally out of the equation.
Now the final step is to enlighten someone who doesn’t know what they don’t know that there are many ways to improve effeciency other than only the ways they know and to show a business owner where all of the monetary dollar loss is taking place. Are people walking too slowly, walking too far, need tools closer by, just need new tools to do the same things being done only faster.
Example, replace a secretary who types 40 words a minute and with one who types 80 words per minute, BUT, wait how about voice recognition software. Replace both of them with a program that types automatically for you will you speak even faster than 70 words per minute. BUT wait, how about a portable unit around your neck that you can use while you walk around your business and doing even other things, even when in the restroom. (-). Get the point.
In many of my consulting cases it is very hard to explain to a business owner that they are the “bottle neck” not the production line or their employees. But some times it is. But another point for another time.
So even if now the Mac vs. PC is not an issue or “Bottle neck” as it’s called in Operations Management, then comes the need. And the only way I ever succeeded in selling an owner on the need was after I did my 3 month ManPower and Systems Analysis of their operation, was to show them the bottom line. How much I could save them, if they allowed me to make the changes, implement and do the training for them. My numbers were NET Bottom line numbers so if I could save a company $200k a year that meant they had to sela lot more than that to net out. So they could then in turn actually work less hard, with less people with less expenditure and smile all the way to the bank.
I worked for a base salary, plus expenses if I had to travel and stay in a far location and took 15% of every dollar I saved a company. 🙂 🙂 nice checks when I have saved co. millions of dollars.Now the big BUT… BUT the business owner has to have an intrerest in saving that money and also not really worry about what it is going to take AND BE INTERESTED in doing it. If there is no interest or they can’t or won’t implement what my report says or keep me on to do the implementation then it is a lost cause.
Until Ebay can provide me with the type of tools I would like to have, and they will probably never be able to do so in my remaining lifetime, I am opting for 3rd party app if nothing else, to make my life easier.
One easy example try to increase or decrease every item in a large store of 6,500 items by 6.75% and be able to do it clicking highlight all, type the decrease arrow, type 6.5% hit enter and walk away. Ebay will only provide several hundred items to do this, page by page by page. About 35 pages in all. So if doing it all in 10 seconds is of no interest then Ebay does provide a way, just not an efficient way.
I want to send an email to all of my customers that have ever bought from me announcing the opening of our new shopify store and wish to offer a 15% discount for their first purchase. Well, I have all emails of every buyer for the last 5 years in my WL database and the mail merge blast will do that in seconds. Ebay will never do or allow this, to take buyers away from the Ebay platform, heck no. Me I am going to pull every buyer I can away from the Ebay buyer list and drive them to my store.
Oh, want to send a snail mail, glossy-slick postcard to all my buyers, well my database has all their real home address, zips and even phone numbers. Thousands of them. BUT-BUT… Don’t ever see a need or a want to do this, and do it automatically.. well there is no need for a 3rd party APP.
OH, BUT-BUT what about sending everylisting you create on Ebay to Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, etc., etc. the moment you hit the submit button to send your listing to Ebay. Well SB and WL does that. I wake up every morning to many replies back from those who are starting to follow us and like the item we just posted. well some then even say they went to our store and loved what they saw. Buy!!! Who knows, but within months those potentials will be being pushed to our Shopify store.
Dont have a separate store, don’t see the need to ever have one, or to break away from Ebay, then an owner doesn’t need this either or a 3rd party app.So as Jay is also stating only in other words… Form Follows Function [an old Bauhaus design saying]. If there is no desire or need envision then the item does not need to be designed, used, bought or sold. Just stay where one is at, keep getting it done and in most access successfully according to the anaylsis at hand and keep making the money based on the secure methodology
Also the learning curve is an investment of time, and with big projects such as large scale renovations foucs and interest certainly can move to bigger and more important projects.
To Quote .. here it comes Troy [a repeat] .. “The only way to win is not play.. How about a nice game of Chess Dr. Faulkin?” I love this saying when business owners could just not see why they needed the improvements and there was no way to convince them other than look at the money you will make. But in these cases the owners just didn’t know or understand. Then it was a waste of my time and theirs.
Again.. grab that $.50 after reading and go get that 1/3 cup of coffee!
Yeah.. Forgot about TruGether. I am getting ready to do a whole bunch of manuevers within WonderLister for a Beta Test of the Eaby to Shopify to Etsy cross platform listing all in one fell swoop. Until some glitches are worked out as we go with the WL team I will most likely have to do some manual edit, delete stuff.
I am thinking it may be best to disengage the Bonaza, Trugether listings and empty those out. Once I start within WL to watch and manage 3 platforms I don’t think I need a sale or two here and there by keeping those platforms to create a distraction or glitch-issue within WL until everything on those 3 big platforms are rolling along smoothly. Even when they are, I will probably only stick with those 3.
MC @ MDCGFA
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Easy fix.. so buy a cheap PC. Why let the fact you have a Mac relegate you to something like InkFrog when the SixBit or WonderLister Platorm is just so far advanced, and I will spare you the details.
A suggestion is stop thinking of the 3rd party software as just another listing APP. It is a IMS .. complete Inventory Management System. It is a business platform tool.
And I will ask again, can any Mac user tell me what the Motorola chip sets and OX OS do that that a well built PC rig with WIN 10 OS and Intel chips can’t do.
In the printing business we used all Mac G4 back then. Had about a dozen stations in our art dept to handle customer files on Zip drives to color separate films and use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and the such. I had to write a check one time for over $80,000 dollars to upgrade all those “mothers” and all associated software.People used to say that Mac was less infected and attacked but these days no one is exempt. And PC run somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% ++ of businesses in the world.
Now decades later, many PC run Adobe, only pros can tell the difference, Ripping files for film sepraration is done by specialized software. So why pay so, so much more for a computer rig that has the Apple logo on it when nobody can provide bench marked test data that proves the Mac can process faster and is worth the extra investment and even if they can, is the difference so great it qualifies as a candidate to overpay so much for that difference. Still after all these decades, just curious.
But again, just like always, just an opinion from an old guy, which combined with $.50 may get you about a third of a cup of coffee.
MDC @ MDCGFA
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
How many people have discontinued the use of Bonanza? Ms. Ryanne, I didn’t I read you were going to empty out and delte your Bonanza store? Thought I saw that a month or so ago.
My Bonanza store just won’t stay in synch with Ebay even if I refresh it and have only had a few sales in years.
Would love to see that. Both nostrils, huh! But really, can’t you just hear Jay, in that calm, tranquil voice, soothingly saying.. “Ok, so, let’s talk about this!”. I heard it in my ears… Didn’t you 🙂
No matter where you go, there you are!
MC @ MDCG
Jay.. Would love to hear you talk with a Ghost…
“So, tell me, What are your numbers, where do you store all of your inventory, what is your best sourcing secret, how do you clean silver-plate, how do you ship a hat? AND BY THE WAY.. Tell me, How do you know you really exist??” LOL HaHa 🙂
Mike at MDCG
Yep, the character was Margo Channing, played by Bette Davis, in the movie All About Eve (1950).
I am going to have to go a long mile to trip you up, so stay prepared.
Mike at MDCGEvery time I see a new Ebay seller Update I think .. “Fasten your seat belts boys, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!” 🙂 [Troy who said and what movie LOL ?? and no not a John Wayne movie}
Mike at MDCG in Atl
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
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