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We use google Drive also and also have a OneDrive account [that is the MicroSoft product] but Google gives a user one terra byte of FREE DATA storage and that is a lot.
If you start using up a terra byte of storage, it may be time to clean house a little bit and delete the oldest of your photos that were associated with your Sold list. Once a year we look at our solds and open up Google drive, search by our 4 number code, those photos pop up and we bulk delete. Cleans up the drive and frees up a lot of space.
Another tip is to also just have an external drive plugged into a USB port. You will see the named drive in your directory tree. Just plug in a phone, high light all photos, cut then either paste or move those photos to your external hard drive. You access them the same way, by just attaching them to any listing app you are using.
Unsure if this makes sense, but an alternative.
Thanks guys. Will reply to the feedback shortly. What can you do; c’est la vie.” From French, meaning “that’s life.”
Michael, Susan and Lisa .. the team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment PartsThat’s what I thought. Do I get a badge or something for “joining the club”?
I do get a chance to reply which will be posted under his comment. Will post something positive like ..
“We apologized and refunded 100%. Thank you for your patronage and for Supporting American Small Business”. Please visit us again!”
What do you think?
Mike at MDCG
Hey Mark.. no problem man. You can sell an item if you are sure it is not a fake, but you can’t show there logo, name or such. You also can’t say, like your Ebay article says, “like Lululemon”. Nope can’t mention there name. And again many don’t care, they like the “free advertising” but others, nope.
So in our case we know which ones are touchy and just avoid them. This is an issue almost as old as Ebay itself. The VERO program as far as Ebay is concerned is to keep them out of hot water and lawsuits. They get sued for “allowing it”. So as your article says, throws it back on the original company and says, if it bothers you, find those listings yourself and report it to us. Then we will do our part and inform the Seller to take it down or usually they take it down. In order to comply with the law that is doing their part and keeps them free and harmless. But personally, I don’t think Ebay really cares. If they did there would be a whole lot more listings killed. Ebay just targets the ones that the company targets themselves, I think is how it works.
There have been other threads on VERO here at SL and maybe a search will bring those up for your review also, or maybe some legal eagles can chime in.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
You beat me to it. Was typing the same thing but u got it first. The design, colors, logo, and name are trademarked, registered [by big companies] and you can’t say it, or show it. But most companies don’t care. The VERO group seem to have an issue. It is Tissue not Kleenex. A facsimile not a Xerox.
As an artist and former printer publisher, we could not include any names or logos in any of our companies promotional material without permission from the original company.
Also as an artist, you may buy one of my artworks, you may also resell my artwork, you bought the object and can resell the object. But I still own the copyright to my name and signature from creation to grave, unless you buy those from me also.
Yeah, funny how all that works. Some artists both musical and visual have even gotten copyrights on their “style” or lyrics. recent court cases of law suits against contemporary singers using just a few short notes from an older song. Wonder how Andy Warhol got away with the, should I dare say it outloud!!! “the Cambell’s Soup” can ??? LOL.
Mark there is a list of companies that participate in Ebay’s VERO program. Search on the term Participating VERO Companies. You will be amazed at the number of companies on the list. If I remember several pages [hundreds] all alphabetical. Now how many of them “actively” scour the platforms for unauthorized selling is the question of the day. John Deer, Velcro etc., are just the more popular and active ones.
If you want to know which companies brands you are really supposed to be wary of, then take a look at this list. It will bring new meaning to your phrase “we will have little left to sell”.
As you know we are a long time user of WonderLister and also used SixBit for about a year.
Yep, we can create as many drafts, with and without photos and store them in any type of folders we wish to create and organize them anyway we want. I have had one or two partial drafts in our “Needs More Research” folder for maybe a year. Just never got around to it. It is still there just as we left it.
Also since this is a stand alone database that has captured every bit of data about your listings and sales on any platform you use, you own that data. jay has said it before. Why doesn’t Ebay provide access to our data since we own it. Well they do. They give it to you for a period of 90 days. Using WonderLister then captures that data every ten minutes and in turn we now have it forever. Even if you stop using WL, the database still works and the data is yours.
Every person that has bought from us since 2002 is in our database along with there home address, even their phone numbers along with their email address. That will now become our email mailing list for our new Shopify Store, which we are just a few weeks awy from going live.
W have the Silver Plan at $25 per month, not just because it allows 5,000 active listings, but because of the extra functions that you get as you move up in the plan levels. Our plan provides us with 6 extra functions that we use frequently and find of value, especially the ability to create “custom fields”.
There is just so much more that WL and SB offers it just can’t be covered in a forum type post.
Mike at MDC Galleries
AdventureE hit right on it Mark. We did a short thread on this topic about a year ago. I have gotten several such letters and we discussed it here on SL. Search John Deere and Velcro and it may pop up. But if you are not an “authorized” reseller they don’t want you selling their products, period. And an authorized reseller means you have applied to the company, been vetted for several criteria, agree to their terms, etc., etc.
Ebay, Bonanza doesn’t care until they get notified by the company, then they have to stand behind it. Ebay has a VERO program which is an agreement with companies to work as partners with them and don’t know about Bonanza. Several of our letters came from Bonanza and one letter from a legal firm representing the company and it was basically a “cease and desist” letter saying stop selling products from this company because we are not officially authorized to do so.
We took ours down immediately and threw them into our summer yard sale. We never buy any John Deere items at all and we see them all the time at not only yard sales, but auction houses. I would guess that auction houses are not authorized either but maybe some law about liquidation of estate items may cover them.
Yeah.. one thing we figured out in the home decor / hard goods sector when pricing. If one uses the highest price solds to go by and everyone is always lowering their price be even a small amount, then on Ebay the highest price sold is always going down.
example: Take that $40 item above, if it now sells for $39, then $38, then $37, eventually after 36 more sales, hypothetically that item will be selling at a dollar. Since Ebay only shows 90 days of sold prices, then Ebay is only showing the declining prices. When you then cross reference with a site like Worth point you will see the $40 higher price still showing.
So our thought is why not take the highest price of Ebay and price even higher still and then try not to sell below the highest price. If everybody would do this then the Sold prices would start to climb not decline. And as Jay & Ryanne have said many times, sooner or later your item will be the only one showing on any particular day. In other words we try to create a situation whereby the highest price sold is ours and we try to target bringing the rpices up on the unique, eclectic items, not drag the prices lower and lower.
But this is not the way to go on mass prodcued, commodity items. Millions of cell phone cases brought in from China at pennies each will only probably sell on the lowest price, but a 65 year old, Plueguer Fishing lure, made in the USA and in good condition, will sell pricing it our way.
But again, just an opinion on our methodology.
Mike at MDCG in Atl.
That is what we do, only higher. This gets back to my old question of How High is High?
On items more than $39.99, We find the highest price an item has sold for both on Ebay Solds and on WorthPoint. Then we multiply that times 1.40. Then we run Sales every week starting on either Wed. or Thursday morning and ending on Sunday midnight EST. Our Sales are either 15%-20% Off and we also take Offers. By using the 1.4 markup over the highest prices we could find allows for us to do as low as 40% Off between both the Sale and the Offer and still end up at the highest point we found of all the “solds”.
This way it gives the customer the perception of the Dbl Deal. It is on Sale and they get to “haggle that down” on top of it. When we offer Free Shipping on some of these we also take the weight and throw the zone eight shipping on top of that.
Some times we get buyers purchase when we are between sales for those couple of days and we smaile all the way to the bank. Other times, we sell at the sale price and we still smile all the way to the bank. When we sell at a Sales Price and take an offer on top of that we still end up at the point of being at what our research showed as the highest prices being sold at.
Example: An item shows the highes amounts +/- of Solds was $40 for an item. We multiply that $40 x 1.40 and arrive at $56 that we list at. Then we have a 15%% Off Sale and it Shows at $47.60. Then we get an Offer of 15% less than that at $40. well that brings us back to what we wanted to sell it for anyway that matches our highest price sold research.
We sell about $1,700 to $2,000 a month this way with about 900 + items in the store. This method was derived from a slew of statements by J&R and other SL members over the past few years in various episodes and posts.
As Jay says, it’s all in the “perception” of the bargain first, then getting a deal on top of that. And insome cases, of “winning” the item at your lower offering price. two perceptions rolles into one.
If we have Free Shipping on a say, 3 lb. item we then throw $15 to zone 8 on top of the $56 for a total of $71 and if it ships closer, we again, smile all the way to the bank.
Just our method, not for everybody or everything of course. We ship and sell less but make more per item. Grossed $17,000 last year on 470 items sold = $36 per item sold and shipping of approx. 9 items per week.
So the target is to continue this method and double the store items to approx. 2,000 items and see what happens in another year.
We don’t look at numbers weekly as you have guessed. I prefer pulling a P&L statment once a month and looking at the percenatge of expenses and doing our analysis that way.
Focusing on the numbers weekly, in my opinion, is like buying into the stock market and then sitting there and watching the DJIA and the market tape every day. That would drive me bonkers.
But just an opinion on a methodology.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Marjean: I would like for you to do a double check on something. What I am outlining may have changed since I last checked out the multi-user platforms of both WonderLister and sixbit, but check out the following before you get in very deep on these platforms.
First, there is a learning curve and the more one knows about a “relational database” the easier it is, but still needs understanding. Next is that these programs allow for some flexibility, but that flexibility comes from knowing how to write rules and set up folders within it’s heirarhical structure. It can get tricky, sort of like writing code. It will not be just a “open up the form and start listing away” scenarion. But with that said, their is something I would like to stress as the real reason for a double check and that is the multi user facite.
Yes, we are a long time user of WonderLister and also used SixBit for a good while also. T-Satt and others also use SixBit and other 3rd party listing software. BUT and it is a big BUT when thinking about using it via having an assistant list. Unless you have sprung for the “Enterprise” version of both of these softwares, the use of an assistant on a second or “remote” computer can only be done within the limitations of a “wireless” network. Our assistant can use the office laptop any where in our office or home [say approx. 50 feet] from our main desktop. further than that and it doesn’t work UNLESS!! you have the “Enterprise” version which tie into the cloud.
The less expensive version [plans] rely on the fact that the main database resides on our main office rig and utilizes MS-SQL as the connector to the database. Then WonderLister is also loaded onto the laptop but only as a “slave unit”. It is in reality, tying into the main computers database which is residing on the main hard drive. We can both create separate listings, both work within WL at the same time BUT she can’t go home and do it from her house, which is only less than a mile away, at least on our monthly plan.
Now some SL members [I think T-Satt] use SixBit and they went ahead and sprung for the “Enterprise” version of Sixbit and for that extra cost that he pays, he can have assistants use the database remotely. I believe the cost of the Enterprise version can run $70 per month and up and roughly a $150 set-up charge at least for WL.
So please double check if you are planning on having an assistant from far away access your version of WL and make sure you can do this with the plan you have. Also SB can limit what an assistant has access too, like the financials but WL didn’t have those limitations in place when I last checked, so an assistant will have access to the full compliment of data. Your customers, what items sold for, your customers addresses and phone numbers, your profit picture, etc., etc.
So don’t want to be an alarmist or throw ice water but please make sure you just double check me on this.
Respectfully submitted…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
Before u go and recreate the wheel on a bunch of spread sheets you may wish to take a look at “easy Auction Tracker”. we used it years ago before we moved onto more robust programs. But EAT let’s you put in your purchases, line item by line item and then it does everything else for you automatically [it is a very robust and well built spreadsheet program that utilizes Macros]. You give it your Ebay credentials and it will down load all of the Ebay data that Ebay provides and create P&L sheets for you, has an expenses tab, inventory list, tracks COGS based on the Sale of each item, again automatically from the one Tab you maintain and that’s your new, existing unsold item tab.
Very good starting point for someone not ready for WonderLister, SixBit or even QuickBooks [which is a different animal anyway].
here is the link to the Easy Auction Tracker.. and I suggest you watch some of the free video tutorials.
http://www.easyauctionstracker.com/
One thing to note, since Ebay only keeps 90 days of these figures, then EAT will only go back and pull all that data from 90 days ago. Not the first of the year. But every year they do an update and you will have almost a full year and come Jan. 2019, you will then get a whole years worth of data. The price is very reasonable for what all it does and especially the work it will save you in building all of these spread sheets by yourself.
Good Luck…
Michael, Susan and Lisa, the team at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
I know. It is crazy. we get those at times and they are so far off.
I love it when they give me comparisons for how to price our items better or do a better description and it is our own listing which we ended and then relisted again a week later. They tell me my price either needs to be higher or lower and it is compared to our own old listing.
So of these things just get ridiculous.
But then again, wife Susan just reminded me, we do get emails from people informing us about details we have incorrect on a listing we may have details included in. some lady was telling us in a long email where she was the president of an orgnization of a certain glass company and even used to work for the company and that we had our decsription all wrong and that it was not even produced by the company in question. She tore into our listing line by line, word by word. We just thanked her for the details, edited the listing down to a short description and went dark of course.
But point is, and many of us have seen it, is some buyers or better said Ebay Lurkers read every little thing and then let the seller know about it.
From a lot of the almost weekly if not daily questions we get a whole lot of buyers don’t look at much more than the title and price and a1 photo. Many don’t even know what blue links are, the words “more info.” or the blue arrows on their phones.
we get what color is this, what size, what is the material, where is it made, what is the size, everything that is in the item specifics, conditions are and the description. They just don’t see it or take the time to maneuver to any other data field.
So I doubt if a large majority of buyers click on a separate tab, and then look through multiple options.
One of the stated support reasons behind some sellers pushing free shipping, [like Danni Ackerman in her videos] is that buyers don’t want to do the math to even figure out what the items total cost is [object plus shipping]. They just want one, big total number, in one place and they are happy.
We have a quick cut and paste reply to any question that is asked about information we already have in the listing, as to how for them to use their cell phone app or computer to see their answer. Many times we get a second reply, oh, didn’t see that, or Oh, see it now, or cool didn’t know that, thanks that helps. DduuhhOHhh!
