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Ah ha. Got ‘cha. That is exactly what I got WonderLister to do. All of the Item Specifics AND the whole CONDITION section will now populate right under my decsription in our shopify and soon to be Etsy listings. Everything in Ebay now goes into the open Description area. The description first, the condition area second and then item spcifics in a list under that. A buyer just scrolls down and see it all.
This is accomplished by just right clicking my line item in WL and clciking send to Shopify and in a short while, send to etsy.
Right there with you also Troy. I have 25 Item Specific fields already built into my standard, unique vintage item template. When I select the Ebay category it also will populate any “additonal IS” above my list. I use those to input anything unique that Ebay wants that I don’t already have listed or prefilled. It will shpow me more than 25 BUT you can’t list more than that or I get an error from WL then I have to delete a few. I always predelete as I go any lines that are redundant.
There is also another value to IS. Goggle bots and spiders crawl those IS and for inclusion in other areas the SEO factor comes into play. Those fields get extra Google exposure and that will help drive organic traffic to our other platforms like Shopify.
But to me the more key words I can include the better. I have fields such as “Unique Features”, A place for our own MDC Galleries SKU, Suggested Uses”, We have 3 Size Dimension fields. Many times if we have a tea set I will include not only the physical dimensions of the cups, the saucers and the tea pot but also the liquid capacity of each. Of course color(s), material, Mfg., etc. are there but some times not from just the Ebay category drop down, so I have it built into my template. We usualy hit 20 our more item specifics.
If I had to drop any thing I would skip even having a description other than a title and just go with IS. But of course I do put a couple of lines in the description area.
IWe built our IS fields around all the questions we used to get emailed about our listings. Slowly we built a tuned IS area, that now we very seldom ever get question sent to us anymore, unless the buyer just doesn’t read to click the blue “SEE MORE” area of their phones. Our answer is “See the IS Area”.
More the better for us.
mike at mdc galleriesHaven’t seen this yet on incoming, but things have been slow so I will watch for it on any new in coming offers. We get a good many offers.
But to add one comment. I sure wish that when we “Accept” an offer Ebay then would immediately withdraw the funds from their PayPal Account. In a large percent of our “Accepts”, the Buyers then take their sweet time paying. So much so, we created an email reply SOP that includes 3 messages to the Buyer that targets spurring them to get their purchase paid for so we can pull, pack and ship.
Maybe with Ayden [the new payment company and process], that when we Accept Offers that the deal is done and we can get payment immediately. But if they are only going to use their Credit Card, then they will need to see our Accept and to consumate the deal log In and enter their credit card to finish the deal, I wonder if the buyer will be allowed an even longer period of time to pay.
Guess we all are going to have a whole lot of things to adjust too over the coming 6 to 12 months.
Mike at MDC Galleries
I just started to listen and right up front you mentioned my 3 favorite words.
“Write It Off!!” 🙂 🙂 🙂
Made my day already.. now my coffee comes next and I am a happy guy.
Mike at MDC Galleries
T-Satt I am with you on not jumping into this because losing WonderLister is not an option going into 4th quarter as you said and also that SB and WL both cross list for us on other Platforms. WL is doing Shopify right now and Etsy is very close to being beta released shortly [weeks]. If I can cross list a thousand items on 3 stores [platforms] from one control panel, I will just have to do without some of the Ebay benefits. I would only use Ebay listing if I could also click on the form when i finished filling in and hit the “send to Shopify” and send to “Etsy” options. Without that Ebay is just another selling platform for an income stream just like J&R 2 and soon to be 3rd rental income stream.
Well it ceratinly is found in many places as the Wiki article says But also I see the reference to Providence Canyon. That is about 30 miles from my home town Columbus, GA. It is out past Fort Benning a little distance. I have been there several times in my late teens and even been down and explored the Canyon bottom for miles with friends. It is like a small version of the Grand Canyon. We went down by rope further up and walked for the whole day. But they also have a walk down trail.
It ceratinly has layers and now that I read this I remember all of the alternating layers of clay. We walk in a stream bed that had walls on each side, that we very slick clay. You can see very nice pictures of Providence Canyon on various web sites, some in color. Gorgeous place.
Well so much for scarce sources of Kaolin, but it is used in fine china and porcelain and as I said, some fine porcelain is slightly see through also.
mike at MDCG
Well I’ll be horn swoggled. Ding dang it! Right here! What do ‘ya know. Well I have been quoting the source as only in Japan for a long time and so has some other antique boothers. Maybe because of some of the research we have done on the Limoge France and Made in England items.
Maybe historically for the older pieces that are turn of the century and earlier the Georgia Kaolin was not a source during those times. Will have to research on the history of the Georgia Kaolin and also see who are their buyer / mfg. that use it and what products they make and under what names. I would be interested to know some of that data.
I will certainly bring that up when I see a couple older antique guys at the next auction in a few weeks.
Okay..then onward and upwards, but I think we at least helped Ashana somewhat.
thanks again guys for what all you do and provide. Wish we just had our youth and energy back we used to have.
Mike at MDCG in ATL
Yep that is what we were doing. End the complete listing totally. Then relist the same listing automatically using a RULE on WL and relist it as a brand new listing and get a brand new ID number and use the same listing as in the previous month without any changes at all. We did not have to do anything or even watch it. It worked just as automatically as GTC only it was totally killed and brand new relisted with a new number on Auto-Pilot within WL.But when we heard about the new change were newly listed items would not be allowed to be included in a Sale, then last week we went and changed everything back to all GTC.
But we do have a higher margin built in for those “perma-sales. We ran a Sale that started every Tues. morning and ended the same up coming Sunday night. 5 days on Sale and 2 days off. But with the new change whereby every new listing would have to wait 2 weeks before it could go on Sale, we ended the whole process and bulk edited everything back to GTC, and not with any problems. It took about a week of working out glitches within WonderLister to get everything back to GTC and in synch with all of the account numbers and financial reports.
So now that we are NOT trying to stay FRESH by ending and relisting and that process is out the window. Then what can we do, as sellers of single items to stay FRESH in Ebay eyes and not get dropped from any boosts and includes Ebay has to offer.
So, like you said, if T-Satt can get Ebay to give us the answer. Will doing just one small change to a lising, even just one character, keep us FRESH and included in Ebay benefits and search results or anything else you can benefit from by having a new listing that sells in 30-60-90 days????
i sure hope he comes back and says that Ebay will see a minor, one character change as something they will see as a change worthy of their good gracies and reward us. If not then GTC is the bad child and will be punished if not a multi quantity item and a sale of one of the multiples is not made within a short time.
T-Satt had the Ebay tech team look over his listings. well I knew he would be good as gold because he is automatically ending his listings and relisting every 30 days and is also willing to not worry about any one the ones that are new being able to be included in the first weeks into a Sales events.
I also wonder about single quantity items that are over 90 days, about using “Promoted Listing Promotions”. What is the use of selecting Promoted Listings and paying an extra 4,5,6% to Ebay for extra exposure if they see you as a stale seller with all of your listings over 90 days as 100% stale and ignore you in special offerings, promotions, search results, etc. What is my extra 6% buying me. Or are they saying, if you will give us an extra 6% [other words bribe us], we will over look your 3 year old GTC listing and give you an extra boost. Seems more like extortion [pardon the reference to the you know what forums] to me than extra Promotion juice???
So many things to ponder with these guys, these days.
Since we all really love what we do, I need to ask a favor, will somebody plaese email me and let me know when we are having fun???? I don’t want to miss it!! LOL-Ha 🙂 🙂
mike at MDC Galleries
Got an Email on Etsy today that said they are adding a third state to their sales tax collection and we would not have to do anything. They will handle it just like they do for the first two states they added. So hopefully Ebay will just do the same.
Maybe that is one of the things the new payment vendor and payment system may be gearing up for that PayPal can’t or won’t handle.
mike at MDCG
Jay wrote: Two important questions:
–What’s the point of GTC listings if they push you down in search if you dont sell an item in 60 days?
>>>> MDC Reply.. Well as u have said many times before if you are the only one or one of only a few items of like kind then who cares about search placement. You will be one of the only 3 on a results page. And when the others sell, if no more come on line, then at some point you will be the only one. And at this point you can be stale and be 8 years old, if someone types in the keywords that u have in your title they will find you regardless of what Ebay thinks about your numbers, sell through rates, hot-cold items, etc., You are king by the fact you are the only one in the game regardless of what Cassini or Ebay thinks of you or how you run your business. They surely arent going to not show you if the buyer searches and your key words pop your item up. Think you have stated this in different words before.–Did they confirm that simply re-listing an item every 30 days tricks eBay into thinking its a fresh listing?
>>> MDC Replies.. See my question to T-satt I just osted. If he can differentiate for us what criteria Ebay will use to define stale vs non-stale then we may have the answer. If only doing a small alteration to a title, description, price, etc. will suffice to have Ebay give us the status as “non-stale”. Then something as simple as [in our 3rd party apps] set a rule to bulk increase all listings by 1 or 2%. Then the next month lower the prices back down by 1 or 2%. The big question is what is the answer. Will Ebay see this as being active on your listing even though no slae of the item. Especially when we only have a quntitiy of “ONE”,? This means Ebay can’t use Sales quantity as a benchmark of deciding if you have a stale listing or not. The only one you sell is the only one you got then there won’t be another sale. So in order for your listing of that item to stay “NON-STALE / STAGNANT” then is all ebay asking is you visit all your listings once a month and do some small thing to change it, even by just addoing one character to the end of a title or desciption and is that enough to make our listings stay “FRESH”?This are the essence of what we have all been talking about for several years, ever since that enginner who worked on Cassini mentioned this at that Australian Open a few years back.
So let’s see what T-Satt comes up with as far as a definition or requirement other than a Sale or a complete end and relist to stay “FRESH”!
Mike at MDC Galleries
T-Satt.. This is great reorting. Feel like we have our own roving reporter.
Question On the Stale-Stagnant topic.. for clarification. Are you saying that a listing that just gets a tweak in title, description price etc. will NOT BE seen as stagnant. Just those without anything OR does a listing have to go through the whole process of being ended and then totally relisted? That has been sort of the big back and forth on here. Yes being seen as stgnanet or not is part of the question but the prevention of that is the hard battled question between J&R and the GTC members vs. the totally end and relist to get a new ID no. each month.
If a simple matter of altering the rpices once a month, then using SixBit or WonderLister can use an auto rule to lower all prices 2% on the 26th of every even numbered months and then on every odd numbered months raise the prices back up 2%. That would indeed meet the criteria of just “CHANGING” a listing every 30 days but not having to completely end the listing and then totally relist.
On the same note would not appending the title with “one character” do the same or have a blank field Item specific whereby every 30 days, a new letter A, B, C, D, etc., etc. also do the same thing? And agagin a auto rule created in any of the 3rd party apps can do this and do it in bulk or as each item naturaly ends and then rolls over in the GTC duration status.
If just a tweak to alter the listing will suffice that will be great for the 3rd party app guys.
But ending and re-listing… PLEASE SHOOT ME, I just got through taking all of our listings OFF OF the 30 day auto end and relist, deleted the rule in WL and bulk changed everything back to GTC.
Mike at MDC Galleries
Most likely not porcelain.
Porcelain is made out of special white clay called Kaolin almost all found only in Japan. Even Limoge and Lennox china and any French and English Fine Porcelain china uses the kaolin clay and they have to import it.
Now in most cases but not all, most real porcelain is thin and though it is white, most thin porcelain is also slightly transparent. One of the field tests or at home tests is to hold the item with fingers on both sides, hold the item up to a bright light or open window and you should be able to see a slight shadow of your fingers on the other side. But there are exceptions.
First, I would like to suggest you go to Wikipedia and do a search on porcelain. That will repeat some of what I have just said and also give you a better understanding of the process.
porcelain because of the Kaolin clay can be fired to higher / hotter temperatures and by doing that, it also makes the porcelain harder and less prone to chipping.
There are other interesting facts online, even a specialized site just on porcelain.
Your items are probably just plain white clay ceramic and glazed one side. And dollars to donuts have no transparency for several reason.
As to dating, depends if they are original or reproductions and who made them. You did not say or show the bottom of them in a clsoe up so are there any names or marks of any kinds, symbols, numbers etc.. Many like these were made out of Melamine or Phenolic [plastic resin] but those are light weight, finish is usually dulled down and is fairly easy to tell by tapping with your finger nail and you will hear that typical plastic dull sound.
Hope this helps somewhat. As to type, brand or value u would have to research some more on WorthPoint of Pinterest but there are over 4500 on Worthpoint alone.
Mike at MDC Galleries
Yepp we do aucions also or the Estate Sales usually last day. That is why I was asking about startegies for going earlier to the ES but yet trying to get that last day discount in advance. we usualy buy in pretty large qunaitiy when we hit the right sale, so thought if we hit a day earlier and pulled out 50-75 or 100 items could we swing the 75% early.
We hit an auction this weekend. Sort of a favotite haunting ground and found tons of smalls. Bought single items, then later they went to tray lots, then finally to selling the whole table. We made 37 separate buys that filled 8 of our carryall bags and contained 337 individuals pieces [some of course are sets of things] for $583 [that included 13% buyers premium]. We estimate on a quick ball park that we will list most of this for a Total of about $4k to $6k after we do some research. That is why I have not been doing any SL posting or replies this week so far. Way too much to haul in, unpack, spread out and start the tagging-SKUing process. Just now beggining the weigh, measure, tag and Photograph process.
But Auctions and Estate Sales seem to be our better and more main stays for sourcing.
We know several pro estate sellers who know us as well and let us just bag up everything we find as we find it. They know I keep a running list of everything in our bags and the marked price, then I just show them my list and say, I’ll offer $X amount, which is usually 75% less ofF the list I have and most of the time they are good with it. They know we have spent thousands with them and they trust us. I was just curious if any of you guys were successful doing something similiar only doing it earlier in the sale days before they are willing to take “just dump it prices”.
We know a couple of the sellers we are frineds with, have several buyers who can only come the last two hours of the Sale and they negotiate to buy everything that is left at $.10 on the dollar [90 percent off]. But the caveat is that they have to take everything that is left, basically clean out the whole house, trash and all and they have 2 to 3 hours to get it done. We make sure with those Dealer-Sellers we get there about mid day, 4 or 5 hours before the clean out buyers swoop in.
One dealer seller even orders a 20 yard dumpster for the last day. And when they unload the whole remaining contents to those clean out buyers, it includes the use of the dumpster to throw away what those buyers don’t want. Sort of free labor for those buyers. Neat idea if the goal is to have a totally clean house after the sale ends.
