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I have had promoted listings for a few months now. I only selected items that were high value or that had been sitting in my store for some time. I started with around 20 items and now have about 14. A few days ago, I sold the first item through promoted listings. Everything else sold outside of it.
I don’t know exactly which items were on before and sold outside of the promotion, but I know I started with more.
I did get my lazy ass to call Ebay yesterday. The rep said that it was a form email and to ignore it. I didn’t get a real answer, so I don’t know why the wording is the way it is.
Sometimes I get lucky with my lighting, and no editing is required. Sometimes my photos come out dark, and I have to spend extra time to get it right. I don’t always see the issue on the camera until I upload onto the computer.
Funny this subject came up today. Earlier today, I was looking to see if I could find a photography class on taking stills. I found classes, but nothing I felt was interesting. I was wondering if there were YouTube videos from a professional, whether a general photographer or someone specific to selling online.
A paid online class is another thought. I’m listing right now, but I thought I’d look into it at a later time.
However, I never used the word Gewgaws. Could be I just don’t remember, or maybe it’s something very local.
Jay – that video is hilarious!
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I grew up a suburb south of Pittsburgh. We certainly called thinly sliced meat “chip-chopped”, went “duntown”, and the town Washington south of us was pronounced “Warshington”.
Several years ago, when I still worked a regular job, I was sent to a class on writing proposals. The teacher was trying to make a point about vernacular language particular to local areas. He asked us to raise our hands if the word “gum band” made complete sense. Myself as well as a few other Pittsburgh natives in the room raised our hands. I had no idea that this synonym for the word rubber band was not used elsewhere!
OK, I got my crap together.
I listed 32 items, 24 were from death piles
I finally spent some money on new inventory; $12.10 in an online auction. I have a number of photographs that I took late last week, so I won’t be working on these right away. I’m currently taking stock of what I bought and listing it in my inventory spreadsheet.
Week of Jan 28 – Feb 3
* Total Items in Store: 1128
* Items Sold: 19
* Cost of Items Sold: $29.25 + $25.80 Commission
* Total Sales: $448.95
* Highest Price Sold: $95 Vintage Framed Joan of Arc Print
* Average Price Sold: $23.63
* Returns: 1
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $12.10
* Number of items listed this week: 32While I listed 32 items, I also removed close to 90 low priced books. In the Spring last year, I had bought 15 boxes of overstock books because one box had about 10 new Tarot card sets. It was a great purchase. The tarot sets sold very well. There were some notebooks and other books that sold well and at a reasonable price. Most were very easy to list because I used the stock photos.
However, the rest of the books were pretty cheap, and I had to include shipping to be competitive. I would sell some books for $6-$8 and be left with a few bucks after shipping and fees. I tried selling some in lots of 12-15 books, and those had more profit (and shipping was extra).
A friend of mine is collecting books to be donated to an inter-city book drive. This morning, I brought the remaining books up from the basement, ended their listings, and drove them over to her house. I am so glad they are gone. They were a waste of time to pack. I kept maybe five titles that are still worth selling.
I would totally do this again if I found more tarot card sets and other good titles. I would list the good stuff separately, I would immediately donate books not worth the paper they were printed on, and I would sell the rest in lots of 10-15.
I think this is the way it is supposed to go (but, for me, it went this way maybe once or twice with a buyer who knew what they were doing):
You can’t have immediate payment required, otherwise your listings won’t have an “Add to Cart” button
Buyer uses the “Add to Cart” button rather than “Buy It Now”
When they put the last item they want in their cart, they click on the link “Request total from seller”
You would get a request for an invoice, and you can change the shipping to what it needs to be. Then you can send the invoice to the buyer for payment.Note: You cannot change the price of the items themselves, so you can’t give the buyer a discount for buying multiple items. I tried this, and it didn’t work.
Hope this helps!
Lacy – oops! My mistake on the name.
I’m running late today and haven’t calculated my numbers yet. I hope to get to it later today, but could be tomorrow.
I’m behind today and not ready with my numbers, but I wanted to respond to a few things in the podcast before I forget about them.
First, china. I do have a collection of china cups and saucers. My grandparents used to travel internationally when I was a child, and they would bring me a set from different countries that they visited. I also bought some for myself.
My son became interested in using our china a year or two ago, so I’ve been taking it out when we invite family over for dinner. I rarely actually use the cups and saucers because, by the time dessert rolls around, I don’t feel like getting those out. I guess I should be putting them out ahead of time.
Anyway, you were asking for someone who actually uses or collects the stuff. I guess that I am sort of both, but I wouldn’t be buying china on Ebay. My cup and saucer collection is a mish-mash of different brands and styles, so I don’t need to match anything up. Our dishes were handed down to me, and the set has enough extras where I don’t need to buy more.
Lastly, about the Ebay tape. The new stuff comes in three different colors, blue, yellow, and purple. You can buy only one color, or you can buy a variety pack with all three colors. Finally, you can still buy the old design. I ordered the variety pack for this quarter.
Yeh, I get that. They do the best that they can.
My experience in software is similar, although, there was a definite animosity between the developers and the test team. It didn’t help that the government decided to hire different companies to do each function.
Ebay is a great company, and I am glad that I am able to make money using their platform.
For me, I get very large photos and the text scrolls off the page, so I have to scroll back and forth to read everything. I use gmail. Sounds like Linda’s program zooms out so that it all gets on one page, but then the text gets smaller.
Perhaps it works better on a mobile device?
I guess that the best answer right now is to zoom in.
As someone who has worked for Ebay, do you know how they test software prior to installing it live on their site? We’ve had to deal with some significant Ebay bugs in the last week or so, and the update didn’t seem to be fully tested.
I was actually a lead for a software team at one time. It was a government customer. The software developers didn’t care for test team, probably because we found so many bugs. Maybe there is a similar mind set at Ebay?
