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Really Doesn’t matter. The customer has a perception of value and that’s what counts. And since it is something Ebay wants and says we get juice from it and we changed everything in minutes, why not. To us it is just the same as list it and forget it. Everything is set to do it this way now and we can not worry about it any more. WonderLister will be ending 950 items automatically at the end of it’s 30 days and then automatically relisting it for us with a brand new ID. It works just the same for us as GTC, only Ebay doesn’t see it as “Stale” or getting old. It sees it as a brand new listing. Yaah!
You said one time, why not – can’t hurt so we did it and are done with it. Now WonderLister handles it all automatically and so does T-Satts SixBit.
Bet you dollars to donuts, they will change something next year and we will just change it again. More important things to focus on, which is trying to get our Shopify Store live and Etsy built up. If and when that works out and we are matching Ebay Sales, the plan is to then leave Ebay and manage our own store. Then we will be setting all of the rules anyway we want without any fees. Also I think Social Media Marketing may have a much greater impact than throwing fish at the internal Ebay algorythym. And one of the nice things is that WonderLister automatically sends a TWEET, A PHOTO and the TITLE of each of our listings without us having to do it. BUT now WonderLister will be sending all 950 items out every single month.
Currently the WonderLister team is writing code now to include “Pinterest” and “InstaGram” in that automatic send out.
The Free Shipping is on things that are under a lb. so, for us at most, about $4, BUT dont you think I have twice that built into the price? You bet I do. I even have a 20% SALE Price built in and also another 20% for Make an Offer.
I can take something I paid $8 for and Worthpoint says they mostly sell for $45. I list at $95 with Free Shipping, can put it on Sale at 20% off, take an Offer 20% below that and then come out at just about where I wanted to be in the first place. $95 less 20% Sale=$76, then accept an Offer 20% below that = $60.80 now shipp it for Free for [a guess at $11] = $49.80, now I am right where I wanted to be any way. But the customer “THINKS” he got 40% Off and FREE Shipping!!! NOT!!! :-). Been working for us.
We only ship to PayPal Confirmed address. This is an old school / old Ebay suggestion. If any requests come in via E-mail messages, we use our cut and paste auto reply to answer, which basically says to go and change your account at PayPal or Ebay. Otherwise contact your Post Office and request for a forwarding to take place or a hold until they can pick-up.
We just don’t play those games. Customer service or not, there is certain responsibilities that we feel the buyer should take care of. We are a Seller-Reseller not a babysitter / enabler. Too many “young” “I deserve it people” we come across. While we try to bend over backwards to help our customers, we don’t bend our internal policies [SOP’s – Standard Operating Procedures].
So we request that they kindly get their buyer credentials in order and we will be glad to ship to any please that is listed. May seem harsh to some, but seems to keep us out of hot water so far. Nobody refused to do it yet.
mike at MDCG in Atl.
Us too. We just build it into the price.
Instead of $26.75 for an item, it is $27.75. Who knows the difference.
That is also how we handle the “No Separate Itemized Shipping Cost to the Buyer” Program .. Since Jay doesn’t like the semantic use of “Free Shipping” LOL 🙂 Or for Jay’s sake the NSISCTHB program. But for us, Call it what you want, it is built in. We add Zone 8 shipping cost for each weight class to every item we list as “NSISCTHB / FREE SHIPPING” aspect of our business.
Ryanne already says she rounds up. We do to. We round up in Lbs. not ounces. USPS Priority only goes by Lbs. also. So, if an item is 2.5 lbs on the scale, goes into an 10x10x10 box which is 1.38 with stuffing that equals 3 lbs on the item plus 2 lbs on the box = 5 lbs. total then that to zone 8 is about $18 we add to the price on the “NSISCTHB” [Jay’s semantic Free Shipping nemisis] :-).
We used to ship tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise in my old job. Shipping is just as much a “Profit Center” as our art dept., ink dept., film dept., press dept., bindery dept. and shipping dept. We made mark ups and money on everything we touched. If I could put a stop watch on it, time it and a person had to do it, I calculated our unit cost on it and then we marked all of that up. If you spit in the parking lot, I clocked it, accounted for it and built the cost in. We got huge discounts from all our shipping companies. Those were mine to keep. I negoatiated the discounts, they were ours.
So in what is called “True Unit Costing” in the manufacturing world, everything is a cost and everything is marked up and built in. Ebayer’s sometimes worry too much about the small details in the weeds, that are under water. We sold a sign to Walmart or Home Depot and it was $6.70 each x 15,000 = $100,500 invoice to them. They didn’t care about how many paper clips we used, but believe me, it was built into their price grid.
So very long way of saying, build it in. Nobody will balk. They will buy it if they want it.
But that is just our opinion. That and $.50 will get you a half of a cup of coffee and Oh, by the way, Sugar and the FREE USE of our Spoon INCLUDED. LOL 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
I think I see what is going on. Create a test again and then change the store level to basic and the fee appears. But then change the store level to Premium and the disappears and it seems it is not working. But in reality it is working. What it is doing is tying in to your account somehow, sees that you are not over your limit yet, so there is no fee because the fee is included in your monthly payment.
It didn’t work for me either when I first tried it, we are a Premium level store and not over the 1,000 item limit. But as soon as I chnaged the store level field down to a basic level a “fee” amount appeared.
Give that a try and see if it works this way for you.
Mike at MDCG in Atl.
Oh.. Sorry. I just blew right past that. Oh well, you now have some good shipping calculators for the future. Don’t have the Fee Calculator saved.
mike at MDCG in Atl.
Just ran a test and still works for me.
But Give this link a try ..
http://payments.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EmitSellerShippingCalculatorAlso my favorite is
http://www.flippertools.com/ the owner designer has participated here on SL at various times. several great tools here and of course the Shipping calculator tool
Look in the “SHIPPING SECTION” and he has two tools I have used many times. Tells what size box to use, provides various methods to ship and comparative costs, etc.,etc.Good luck …
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Yes we have had Free Return Shipping turned on now for a couple of months. I think I did it almost as soon as the Spring Update came out and remember you replying.. “so you are all in now.” So, we now have 30 day returns, Free Returns, and free shipping on many smaller-lighter items [and build in that shipping].
As AdE says..now we will wait and see how Ebay backs sellers up.
WoW! Thanks AdE. Never thought of that. After condensing down all of this stuff I am down to just 3 small shoe box sizes boxes. Think I will just slide them up and under our incoming inventory tables. That at least frees up that surface for us to start working on the new estate buys. I can double back on the stuff later when we are caught up with the higher end stuff. In no rush.
But very interesting about a phone that just makes calls and not tracked and hacked like the SmartPhones.
Thanks for the heads up … mike
Good point. Maybe the chargers are somewhere in the pile of adapters and chargers I just sorted out. Have to see if they will even fire up first. They have got to be from early 2000’s +/-.
Yeah as Jay said I will have to just check them out. Some repair guy may want a bunch of assorted ones just to have around. Or if I find they have some value, will then just bite the bullit and list them.
I did just find about 8 old cell phones in the bottom. Old Motorola flip phones from way back when we first got our first cell phones [after using pagers for years] and 2 BlackBerry phones. Have to look those up also. Maybe some value. Maybe the “scrappers” will have some interest if there is any gold parts in these models.
Regular, plain phone cords RJ11 [male to male] are so cheap. New ones in 4 ft. to 10-12 feet cost next to nothing, new at Walmart 50 ft. for $8.00. Sellers from China are selling them for $1.00 each and Free Shipping. I don’t think there is nothing special about a plain phone extension cord. You can buy a whole spool in 50 ft. or 100 ft. lnegths, buy a bag of connectors that snap on and u cut to length. These I will dump.
But now the power supplys, adapter and converters another story I guess. AC/DC to converters from 110 house volt current to various step down voltages. Those I am up to about a dozen or so and am seeing some in the $12 to mid- $20 range. We may just lot those together. These days we don’t like to list items for much under $25 and don’t take offers on items much under $29.99 and in some cases about $35.
We got 28 items yesterday at an Estate Sale for $175 [$6.25 each. So far the two bigger scores which we knew as soon as we saw them was a Satsuma 2 pc. set and a Moser decanter, look these up and then be on the look out for them. The rest we will all list at 10 times ++. So about $1,600 on those plus the two treasurers total listed at about $2,500. BUT these 3 dumb boxes of adapters are in the way on top of our incoming inventory tables since we pulled them from the garage and figure, we need to be cleaning up and working on the stuff from the Estate Sale not worrying about 4 ft. plug in phone cords, but we know a $10 dollar bill is still a $10 dollar bill. But since we specialize more in Asian Decor and original limited edition art prints, more eclectic home decor and such, hard to get my heart into a box of tangled adapter cords. 🙂
But I will have them all sorted out by this evening, get them processed and out of our way, then move onto our estate sales stuff.
But inventory is Inventory. Another last consideration is we are at about 940 items on our Premium Store. When we hit 1,000 we will then start going over. But that’s no big deal.
Anyway onward to finish up the adapter / cord sorting.
Too bad you are not closer. I would have given you all of the stuff from the old Antique booths and still have a death box [not a pile] of just plain old, press molded glass. I would almost drive up just to give it to you..but what would you do with it yourself.
We have certainly learned from our “Ooopsies” through the years.
Went to a large Estate Sale yesterday and came home with 28 pices. But pieces we knew about, were in good shape, no chips, flea bites, cracks, NO REPAIRS, everything fine and we know what we can sell them for and what we had to pay for them and got the estate manager to hit our price. Years ago we would have loaded the car up with all that junk and walked out with 100’s of item. Not any more. trying to use our heads and not our backs :-).
Well back to sorting. Our daughter came to visit a few days back and she was in let’s go and be a tourist mode. Nope. had to list. She asked, don’t you ever stop.
Answer: .. NOPE.
Catch ‘ya on the flip side…
MikeYeah, I am biting the bullit and working on untangling them. I have about a dozen chargers.
Also a ton of old phone jack cords and am dumping those. Also about 6 audio [white red, yellow, blue] cords. So maybe dump the junk and just keep the adapters and audio-video cords.
I did find an old Palm Pilot along with an attachable keybord, stand and charger. So maybe worth finishing it of.
Thanks… mike
I would strongly suggest that you talk to a CPA before you do anything else. The things you are talking about do have tax implications that will affect how you pay taxes, how you keep records and what you do have to or not have to pay.
You mentioned “I am unsure what I am doing business wise”. Many of us here who do this full time as a business, even if some do there own taxes, have talked with or use a CPA for help and support. They are your business consultant and partner with you to help to make these types of decisions, when to do it, what type you need and address your questions and concerns to what form of company you should be.
Unless you have the time to teach yourself accounting law I would suggest finding an accountant-CPA that is local to you. Making an appointment and going to see him-her and sitting down and discussing your plans. And, that will be a “good business decision” to make as your first step in transitioning to a full time business.
I know you probably want to hear it all from the members here at SL but Jay will be the first to tell you to talk to an accountant. We are not experts and I talk with our accountant / CPA several times a year about questions involving our business. Our business is ever changing and if you make that relationship now, you will have a friend and tax person to talk, confide and talk to.
I decided to reply to your post item by item if you don’t mind…
I am currently trying to figure out if I should register my business as an LLC. >>> As of yet you don’t have anything to register. You don’t even have a business bank account. Co-mingling personal and business funds is an issue with the IRS. You need to establish yourself as an identity first. A CPA will give you a “To Do” list of the stepes you need to take to do this. And if local, probably names and contact info. to the various Gov. web sites to go to.
I am finally taking steps to make ebay my full time job .. >>> Do you know what all the right steps are? A CPA will guide and help you.
and unsure what I am doing business wise. Reading the IRS website isn’t making it easier for me. … >> A CPA has to know the tax codes, laws and be very familiar with the IRS Publications and bullentins. That is what they went to college and graduate scxhool for. That is what they have to have continuing education on and that expertise is what you will be paying them for.
I am currently a sole proprietorship, with no official business name, business bank account, and I have yet to file anything with the IRS. .. >>> Then I don’t think you are a business. You probably fall into the category as a “Hobbyist” or “Hobby Seller”. Some of the things I have said above and what your CPA will advise you to do, will be the steps you will take to become a “business”.
I want to have a legitimate business but feel I need to be an LLC. … That feeling is great to have. But you need to know exactly how to turn your desire into reality. Why an LLC? Why not a Sub-S Corporation [this is what we are], Why not a C-Corp, why not stay as a Sole Proprietor until you reach a ceratin plateau? These again are the things a CPA will guide you through.
Is it wise for me to register this or should I wait until next tax season? .. Again, the CPA is your business partner and business consultant. Mark Tews who was just interviewed by Jay here on SL can help you, but he won’t be local. You can get advice from many of the SL members here, but most are not professionals in tax code, tax laws, and corporate structures for various incomes and business models.
I guess a part of me doesn’t feel like it’s a real thing until it is official… This will come with time believe me, when you start paying quarterly taxes, have to tract helpers and assistants, set up your Chart of Accounts so you can track every dollar you make and spend, every mile you drive, every item you buy and sell. You will feel right at home with the rest of us..LOL 🙂
Maybe I am not understanding, but for my state, IL, it seems that the only thing an LLC can do for me, that a sole-proprietorship can not, is give an EIN. .. No, it does more than that. Again your CPA will explain the differences between the different business models and the advantages and disadvatages of each. Do you guys have two incomes, whatkids, what will your standard deductions be [especially with the new laws this year, how much do you expect to make???? You will have a lot to discuss with the CPA that we can’t help you with.
I have no current plans to employ anyone, especially in this first year. .. Boy, this is a can of worms. Even years down the road many of us approach the helper and assistant topic carefully. You have to issue a 1099 or a W-2. Withhold their taxes and match them if a W-2., etc., etc. Ask J&R and others. Tread carefully, especially as a newbie.
I would love to hear what made all of you go from sole-proprietorship to LLC! … What made us was, Sales Growth, Volume, a desire to expand, get an assistant helper, insurance, business deductions and write offs like cars, mileage, cell phones, home office space, partial utility deductions, all of which at a certain size made sense AND WE FOLLOWED THE ADVICE OF OUR CPA. He watched us grow and kept us informed as to what he recommended we do every step of the way.
He also told us what was illegal, wrong, what would get us probably audited, if we were audited what would smooth it over, what records we needed, how long to keep them. And he evaluates new ideas we come up with and tells us if we are not thinking correctly or if he thinks it is great idea and why.
So, Good luck…
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment Parts divs.
