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11/22/2019 at 10:24 am in reply to: Article re Ebay Item Specific Fixes & Free Optiseller Tool to ID Problems #70928
Okay one thing that is really annoying as I’m going through this – the dresses category. Over time ebay has changed the spelling of various item specifics within their drop downs. For example; A Line, Multi-color & Knee-Length used to be in various item specific drop downs. Over time ebay has changed those to A-Line and Multicolor and Knee Length. So now any older listings that had Knee-Length chosen for example, are showing up in Optiseller as needing to be changed to Knee Length. I wonder if listings with Knee-Length as an item specific will show up when a buyer selects Knee Length during their searches. To be safe, I guess I’ll change all of them.
11/22/2019 at 10:10 am in reply to: Article re Ebay Item Specific Fixes & Free Optiseller Tool to ID Problems #70927I’m working on this now. My thoughts so far:
* Optiseller said it was downloading listings. After waiting for 10 mins I thought something might be wrong and clicked the reload button to try to start over. When I did, the page said that the listings were ready. Had I not clicked reload I guess I could have sat here all day waiting.
* In the US there are only 4 main categories that Optiseller works on. They are listed on Optiseller as Toys, Home & Garden, Fashion and Collectibles, Media & Gift Cards. That seems like it’s leaving out a lot of categories.
* Once downloaded, the site takes you through a quick tutorial.
* Based on the initial results I thought I only had one listing that needed to be fixed, which surprised me. But then I noticed that you have to go to a drop down menu at the top and select each subcategory one by one. For example, my one listing was in the women’s activewear hoodies & sweatshirts subcategories. I now have to select the drop down for the sub category, fix those and so and so forth.
* For a missing item specific, Optiseller recommends what you could use for that item. For example, a hoodie I had was missing the color and it took the color from the title and entered it for me into the item specific & asked if that’s what I wanted to choose. It will then fix the listing on ebay for me so I don’t need to go back into ebay to fix it.
* While there is room for improvement, the Optiseller tool seems easier to me than going through my individual listings myself on eBay to find what is missing.Half way down this page is a chart that describes how much someone with 1,000 items would save with a store: https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/run-your-store/why-get-an-ebay-store.html
Half way down this page is a chart that shows how many “free” fixed price listings each level of store gets per month: https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/run-your-store/subscriptions-and-fees.html Also shows how much each additional listing costs once you go over the free allocated amount and how much in free shipping supplies you get each quarter.
Calculate how much you spend on listings each month and compare that to how much you’d spend on a store based on the chart in the 2nd link above. Also consider that your final value fees will be less and other benefits offered by a store (vacation mode instead of ending all listings when you take time off, etc.)
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This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by
Julie B.
I was most surprised that there was a credit card offer in Mark Zuckenberg’s trash. I’d have taken him for the kind of guy that would have everything shredded.
11/03/2019 at 11:13 am in reply to: USPS Doing a Study on the Cost Effectiveness of Continuing to Provide Free Boxes #69962The flat rate boxes are rarely cost effective for me but all of the other free USPS priority boxes which ship items by weight instead of a flat postage rate are great. I use them daily.
11/03/2019 at 11:06 am in reply to: USPS Doing a Study on the Cost Effectiveness of Continuing to Provide Free Boxes #69961Lazybeatnik – Are you talking about just the free flat rate boxes or all free priority boxes? I use them every single day. The flat rate boxes aren’t cost effective in most cases for me but the other types which are only available via order from USPS are great. I use the 14x12x3 all the time as well as the 7x7x7 and the shoebox size.
As far as flat rate boxes, sometimes the Regional A which I consider to be a quasi-flat rate has saved me quite a bit of money on shipping when items are heavy for their size. The padded priority envelopes are great for clothing items that are over a pound.
I guess I better stock up on these boxes now before they’re taken away.
10/31/2019 at 9:18 am in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Truck mirrors, LL Bean Boots, Polaris Gun boot, Lineman gaffes, 2 stereo systems #69829Today I used ebay’s new 4x4x4 box for the first time. I HATE the new box size! It comes flattened and took me forever to figure out how to fold – it’s not as intuitive as other boxes that require assembly. Also the shipping labels don’t fit even when cut down so I affixed it to one side and bent it over to the adjoining side which looks crappy. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a few scans get missed.
This was the week of the retail arbitrage sales. 60% of the items sold were retail arbitraged. My best sale this week was a NWT Polo Ralph Lauren canvas bag featuring the ever popular Polo Bear. Paid $79 at a retail store and sold for $189.99. Also sold the last pair of Polo Ralph Lauren cashmere socks that I had. Paid $2.50, sold for $49.99. I can’t fathom paying $50 for a single pair of socks! But I’m glad there are people out there that will.
Despite shrinking GMV, their revenue is growing. Partially attributed to pitting sellers against each other with promoted listings so I guess that won’t be going away, ever.
A terrible weekend of sales (or I should say, a lack thereof) – only 3! That’s almost unheard of for me. I have 860 items in my store.
My house is trashed from a renovation project. We just started week 2 of it today. I’m holed up in my ebay room which is already tight plus now it feels like 1/2 the contents of my house are being stored in here as well. And because there are carpenters everywhere, my dog and 1 cat are holed up in here with me. At least at the end of all of this I’ll have a new, larger ebay room.
Because the house is torn up I haven’t been able to find space to photograph but I’ve been drafting a ton of listings. I can’t wait to photograph and get new items up so I can pay for this renovation which is kinda of spiraling out of control.
I’m mostly a clothing seller and am taking a wait and see approach for a day or two before attempting to “fix” 800+ listings. Please Ebay, don’t make me regret not cross-posting to Poshmark.
Anyone on Facebook can follow the thread where Theresa Cox is going to update her FB community upon speaking to Harry Temkin at noon pacific time. The FB group is “BOSS – Business for Online Selling Success“. Many of the threads in the group on this topic are along the lines of THE SKY IS FALLING! but if you ignore those, you can follow just the thread from Theresa specifically about this issue.
The Facebook thread discussing this had the following from one of the poster’s who called Ebay concierge this morning,
“Here is the rest of what he told me. Ebay is still working to fix the remaining parts of the glitch. He agreed with me that is absurd to do this in Q4. (I asked him to pass along my utter frustration with the timing) Now moving forward if a listing has item specific ‘violations’ (my word not his) then a buyer will get a warning. You then will have a week to fix the issue. If it’s not fixed in that week, ebay hides that listing until it’s fixed. This is what they said at ebay open, so he was just repeating the new policy.”So I guess that means if ebay can’t transfer over the required item specifics that they deleted when they created new item specific fields, we will have to fix each one or potentially have the listings hidden.
This isn’t the first time they’ve revised the skirt/dress length field. Each time they revise it, it screws up my listings that already had that field completed. They keep changing the names of the lengths and removing some of the options. So, naturally in the past when I try to change the handling times on those listings, they get kicked out and I have to go in and change each one. I’m not optimistic that Ebay will get all of these new item specific errors resolved.
1 more issue with the item specifics I noticed is as of yesterday there was no longer the option to add my own item specific. I like to add one for Style number but I couldn’t do that yesterday so I’d instead place it in the MPN field.
I also noticed that now there is a Department field where we can select Womens Mens Childrens. Makes me wonder if they are going to be changing the categories because otherwise this seems like an unnecessary field.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by
Julie B.
I’m on a listing marathon this week and the new item specifics for clothing, at least as of today are a bit of a mess. I don’t even want to think about the flustercuck it will be if I were to change my handling time anytime soon. Why do they do this?!
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by
Julie B.
Thanks Mike! I’m getting excited but it’s probably going to be months before the contractors are done with all of the work going on in our house so I’ll have plenty of time to plan the layout. My husband suggests I set up an assembly line for myself in there. But I think it will be more like a room with zones. It will be nice to have a permanent photography setup that I don’t have to put away. And as a bonus, a bigger room with more square footage means I can write off a little bit more of the home’s expenses on my taxes.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by
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