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HI
I think some change is a good thing, even small things....
This year I tried paypal for the second time and am sticking with it now. It's a personal account but it's working. Out of 8 pkgs I shipped saturday, 7 were paypal. I may have to move up to a regular account sooner than I want to http://community.here.com/infopop/em...icon_smile.gif
I downloaded the shipping assistant program thru usps, and that delivery confirmation of 13 cents on each pkg going out, is a big peace of mind.
I am doing the store for the 4th time, not sure if it will work this time, but I am putting a lot of time and thought into it.
Not too much steady progress on my website, but I may get the motivation soon.
And I am not buying big awkward items for resale anymore, and any that I have are either going or have gone, to a consignment shop or to the flea market in the spring.
Okay, it's your turn http://community.here.com/infopop/em...icon_smile.gif
Patti
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higher starting prices, more reserves, hence giving ebay more money but not giving away my good stuff at 9.99. any more
opened a store for the third time and it is working
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Hoping that I will have some decent sales for the holidays.
Loving the fact that more bidders are using Paypal. In the past so many bidders were apprehensive, but now that it's intergrated into ebay I think that's helped a lot.
Going to post a lot of things from around the house that I need to get rid of. Figure this is as good of a time as any.
Kallie
My number is 3876!
Baby Soup Ribbons and More
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last Thanksgiving, it'll be a year old in a couple more weeks.
Have been doing Google Adwords and working on getting in search engines, slow progress there (most of my website sales are from eBay or Yahoo customers coming to make more purchases later).
I'm preparing for my first major website revisions as soon as I catch up on orders.
Have added more designs, and added trading card supplies to my store - doing well there.
Doing lots of behind the scenes things to improve things - getting more organized, finding better suppliers, getting a new accounting system set up, etc.
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I list at many different sites : My Ebay Storefront and My Ioffer Storefront
Or perhaps you'd prefer to visit SYI Listings and finally My Website
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trying a store for the second time, it always paid for itself but that's about it. Now that you can personalize the look, I need to find the time to work on that. Have done what I can to get it higher in google searches for my keywords, the extended header or whatever they are calling it should really help with that I think.
trying oscars cross sell tool, I like the new ebay cross merchandising but with it way at the bottom I am so far getting no clicks. Oscars works for me.
Completely redid my template to more represent what I sell but also trying to make it load faster for dialup users. I'd like to see ebays stats but nationwide its still 70% on dialup.
trying BINs on relists
trying 3 day auctions except on really unusual items.
hoping to become more efficient since I like everyone else am having to work longer for the same dollars a few years ago so bought a card reader, can now download my pics to computer in 5 seconds instead of over an hour.
bought a stamps.com electronic scale that integrates with endicia.
bought endicia! absolutely love that, I'm a rural customer and any paypal payments that can be packaged quick get taken to the mailbox all the way up until she runs so I keep my email program running all morning in case I get one. love the feedback I get from that also.
bought sold! would like to find a program that runs faster but other than that I'm very happy with it.
setting up money to use for bookkeeping instead of quickbooks. my quickbooks is old (94) and with money I can just import my credit card and bank statements and I can run sales reports on sold and have created a p & l on money so it is saving me MUCHO time to no longer enter the sales twice along with all their information not to mention checks and credit card purchases. it took me awhile to get past that old fashioned bookkeeping type of thinking but sold has all that information for me so now I just post a total in money. As a backup I also can export my sales in cvs format to a spreadsheet which I am doing and plan on at the end of the year playing around with it to get some more details about sales.
Speaking of which, will definitely be buying that tracker thingey, viewtracker whatever it's name is http://community.here.com/infopop/em.../icon_wink.gif been using it a couple of weeks and love the info I am getting. What an eye opener.
plan on buying that dymo I think it is called label printer again just to save time. Also plan on buying a bigger desk, specifically a computer style instead of the old fashioned (multi) desks I am using now, again to get better organized and be able to do things faster (like printing, weighing, no more moving stuff off of the scale etc). Sounds like a little thing but some things are more mental when you live in a cramped space http://community.here.com/infopop/em.../icon_wink.gif
and speaking of cramped spaces, am building a garage/addition hoping to get that started this winter. It will be the size of my present house plus I decided on a gambrel style roof to get a full upstairs so will be adding double what I have now. downstairs a one car garage and the other bay just for ebay and the upstairs for expansion http://community.here.com/infopop/em.../icon_wink.gif and then NOTHING but an office in my house! yea!
trying to make a decision between isdn or satellite, one or the other. I think getting broadband is the biggest thing I can do to become more proficient. I just hate the idea that with isdn I have to sign a two year deal, what if all of you are wrong and I can't list any darned faster than I do now http://community.here.com/infopop/em.../icon_wink.gif
have set up a permanent photo area instead of taking pics outside. having to wait for good sun, good weather. Its working out great but the 42 inch table I am using is really cutting into my inventory room. man I need that garage. My pictures are so much better I think I can put off buying a new camera for a little longer and do something else on my list first.
am also getting rid of heavy bulking things and swearing I will never buy any again! the problem is though, glass and china have always sold well for me, I just hate the room they take up between their bulk and the necessary packing materials.
I have had a website about 4 months now, took it 3 months probably to get googled. I tried google adwords for a couple of months but got no sales, I'm sure I need to work on the keywords and hope to find the time to do that soon and restart using the adwords. I need to do some more research on seo and try to increase that. my website only costs me 9.99 a month and I would have to pay for the webstorage anyway since my isp has none so it basically is just costing me the time I put into it. Would really like to make it work as an additional revenue source along with ebay though so just have to find the time.
Mel-
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I'm putting a floor in the garage rafters to store a lot of the seasonal household junk (Portable fans, portable heaters, old files, Holiday decorations) to make room in the garage for merchandise in old coolers (to keep the moist air from wrecking stuff). I'm going to hook up a pulley system to haul stuff up there.
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Listing the good stuff at $5, no reserve.
And putting hundreds of the average things in the eBay Store.
Getting ranked well in Google. And getting your stuff listed in Froogle.
Advertising, promoting. Marketing.
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I am reading these replies with interest. I just cannot seem to get going on anything. A lot of the things I was doing just weren't right and I am pulling back and hoping start over again in 2004.
However, the one thing that I am already getting from this thread is we are all looking at alternatives for promotion. Back in "the day" eBay was enough. Just put your stuff on eBay and it sold. We are now looking at adwords, etc. to get our items looked at. I think that is interesting.
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Ebay has fallen into place where it should be, a selling tool for certain items ....
we all have to diversify, ebay was a hot fad, and a really good thing, but it will not be again.
It is a selling tool that adds confidence to your business plan, in that....that even if it doesn't sell in the other venue, you can always flog it for near or at cost on ebay and not have it sitting in storage forever.....Ebay now equals cash flow.
Not Ebay=instant income like it used to be.
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