Blogging your products

Well I'm so behind on everything that I almost put adding to this blog off. BUT,...Steve Lindhorst sent me a new issue of his The MultiChannel Seller Newsletter and in it, Steve said "BLOG" is a verb. BLOG about your products. Or words to that effect.

So, here I am. This week, I'm trying to finish listing a grouping of Nancy Drew books we bought last year. Problem was, there were a lot of double and triple copies of the same volume. So 3 of The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion. All hardback 1940's issues with dust jackets and in reasonably good shape. So rather than dilute the market by putting all three up at the same time, I listed one. And in some cases I actually remembered to list the second copy. Not often enough though so now I still have 2 copies. And there fore, this time I'm just listing them all and letting the bids fly where they may.

Are you a Nancy Drew collector? Girls' Series books are hotly collected still. Even in this economy. But you need Farrah's Guide which is a very specialized and rather hard to find book. My husband bought several years ago when we found several other series of girls books so all of the ones that I've listed this week or will list next wee are marked as to which of the 10 million variatons they are. (hey he has to do something to earn his spending money! ) To see them, click here:

And, because like the rest of you, my family expects Christmas presents to be real gifts and not socks or underwear, I am also listing a whole lot of Roseville, Weller and Royal Copenhagen as well B&G Christmas Plates . So you will see those there also.

Come on in and browse at least. And if you'd like a copy of my new newsletter, please sign up here:

Depression Glass Warehouse Collectibles Newsletter

Ok, gotta go list. List more, Sell more!

C-ya tomorrow!

Beth

Blogging is like work - DUH!

My sister runs a company (her own small startup) that provides services to senior citizens and their caretakers. She's paying $175 a month for 4 posts a month to be written. She provides the blogger with material and that person writes her blog. AND??? And she's happy paying out money. Me? As hard as it is to blog, I'd rather do it myself, thank you.

So I sat down the other day and wrote this whole draft about how Santa Claus, who used to shop on eBay according to Marsha Collier, is now shopping on Bonanzle (according to me). And I say that because? Because I've sold 4 things since opening there, without really doing a darn thing.

I pushed my eBay listings over. Was taking my sweet time editing them and people started buying. WOW! So I signed up for Googlecheckout. Guess what? I love it!

But back to that original post about Santa shopping at Bonanzle. I was just about done and...(no the computer didn't crash. ! ) I hit the wrong stinking key and deleted the whole darn thing!

TADA! the wonders of modern technology! At least in a typewriter, I'd have had typos but I'd still have a paper copy.

And the creative spark that was burning during that "episode" of my blogging life is dead now. Santa may still be over at Bonanzle shopping his fool boots off, but my brain has moved on and not to more interesting topics. Today, my brain is consumed with "WHY can't I list as many items per day as I used to??"

I'll have an answer for that on Friday. See me then. (After all, it's my consuming project for the day...to figure it out! and reverse the trend!)

Are you ready for the Holiday Mailing Season?

Are you ready?

You and I both know that even with the economy in a shambles, WE are giving Christmas presents (holiday presents to celebrate Hannuaka or Kwanza or New Years or Boxing Day or WHATEVER you feel like celebrating.)

So are our customers online! They may not be spending as much as last year but they going to give each other something. So are YOU ready?

Do you have priority mail boxes on hand?
Do you have packing materials - clean, non-smelly, category appropriate packing materials?
Do you have plenty of packing tape? labels? printer paper? ink?

Did you eat your Wheaties this morning? Cause Black Friday, Green Monday, Cyber Tuesday - they are all on the way. And for heaven't sake, you don't want to have to refund a sale because you didn't have the right size box or other supply.

Now do you know the Post Office's and UPS and FEDEX's shipping deadlines? You need to know them and let your customers know them. So, here's a link to the appropriate websites:


The USPS: http://www.usps.com/holiday/welcome.htm?from=home_lgpromo_RedOrnaments&page=Calendar

BROWN! UPS:
http://www.compass.ups.com/article/article.aspx?id=2289

and last but by no means least - Fedex:
http://www.fedex.com/us/holiday/shipping/lastdaystoship.html


So, go print out the schedules if you haven't already. Be sure to order the supplies from whomever you use for that (I've got recommendations for that on another day) and get packing!


By the way - remember to smile every day - it makes the world wonder what you've been up to! and? And HAVE FUN!

WHAT do you like to sell?

I like selling small light things. I normally sell pottery and glass - not exactly small and light. But i love pottery and glass and selling it is an excuse to buy it and have it for a while. I think of my inventory as "my rotating collection".

My favorite thing to ship is....well it's a toss-up between postcards (2 pcs of cardboard or a rigid plastic slip case and an envelope) or authographed baseballs (box, peanuts, baseball, more peanuts. Tape the box shut! WALA!! you're done.

Now even though I don't like shipping big pottery I seem to be doing it pretty regularly. Imagine my emotions when my shipping deparment, aka my husband, confessed that they shipped a 16 inch tall pottery vase, which sold for a mere $150 and...


And he used peanuts, wedged the vase into the box but forgot..the bubblewrap. Thank God he pused a box! It did arrive safely and my buyer did leave good feedback. But JEEZ!! Good help is hard to find.!!!

Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Series Champs!

Well the Phillies finally did it again! They won the World Series and today is their victory parade. And I have to guess, from what I've seen on TV (cause I ain't going nowhere near a crowd that size0 that there are at least 1,000,000 people WALKING the 6 miles from City Hall to the stadium!

I wonder if this is Mayor Nutter's secret exercise project!

Meanwhile, Phillies gear is selling like hot cakes at the sporting goods shops. We (the whole family) all stood in line to get INTO the store and then in the check out line for about 20 min to get a turn at the register.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=Phillies&_sacat=See-All-Categories

I found 15,605 ACTIVE items (how's that for Best Match?)

Today's favorite item - AKA I love blue

I have always loved the color blue. If there's a choice in clothing between this shirt in red or blue, I normally buy the blue. I have my kitchen painted blue, I bought blue cars. I once painted our entire house in what was supposed to be "slate blue". Turned out to be bright sapphire blue. I'm sure the neighbors spent several years nauseated to the extreme - that' s how bright blue it was. I used the color to give directions to folks coming to see us. " Turn left at the doctor's office on the corner and I'm the bright blue house". Tellingly, nobody got lost.



So you'll see easily why this piece appealed to me:



Boleslawiec Polish Pottery Figural Lady Cheese dish Nov-27 250192670775



Boleslawiec is an operating Polish pottery company. Their wares seem to be right up my alley. Everything I have seen of theirs on line and even at flea markets and garage sales is offered in a blue and white color combination!



I think this is a butterdish but it is large enough to also be a muffin warmer or a pancake plate. (Or I could hide the Halloween candy under her and my husband and son would NEVER find it.)



In my head, (all the best soap operas happen in our imaginations, ya know?) I imagine this is a Polish Princess turned into a pottery piece by a wicked stepmother who happened to be a witch in her spare time. It's so the wicked stepmother could continue to spend and waste the Princess's fortune on frivolous $3000 pairs of Jimmy Chou shoes.



Of course I could be wrong, she might just be a not so plain pancake plate cover. (say those 3 p words, 3 x fast! I dare ya!)

eBay stuff and a weird dream

So I haven't been listing as much stuff because a couple of family members have medical issues and it's absorbing a lot of my time and energy to assist/cook for/ and generally deal with that.

But my stores sales keep creeping along.
Now I've run out of "new" auction boxes to list so I'm "relisting" stuff out of my ebay store into auction again. Or in some few cases into fixed price listings. And I was working out the numbers on the fixed price listings to compare them to stores. Guess what? Stores are still the better bargain if you can run a few auctions or a few fixed price items to lead people into your store!

Here's my math (with the definite possiblity of flaws since I'm TERRIBLE at math!

Fixed price - random item (not media!) costs $.35 for 30 days. Ebay just announced NO relisting credits. So $.35 EVERY 30 days.

Store item. (assuming you have 1595 items which is MY goal)

$.01 for the store fee ($15.94 divided by 1595 items)
$.03 listing fee - assuming you list every item for $19.95 or under
$.04 per month (also assuming you have only 1 (one) picture per item or that you host the extra
pictures off ebay

So why the flood to Fixed Price? Because those show up in search obviously but does that negate the use of stores? Not for me. I can keep 8.5 items in the ebay store for a month for the cost of one fixed price item. So I'll take out 8 items from my store - put one in Fixed price, auction the other 7 (or donate 'em to the Sr. Citizens thriftshop in my township) and see what happens.

That's my plan for the next 3 months anyway.

Now about the weird dream. I had this last night. I don't even remember what the dream was except that is came in staticy. Remember TV sets with "snow" in the picture? That was my dream. (so what, Beth? Who cares??) well the reason I mention it at all is, it triggered the thought that there is a whole generation of deprived children and even young adults. My son thinks "snow" comes from bad tracking on a VHS tape and he only remembers VHS cause he was an early fan of Japanese Anime and Godzilla movies.

There are now 2 generations of people (most of those under 40) who have NO clue what a horizontal hold button is, or a vertical hold button is or how to get the "snow" out of a TV picture (aluminim foil wings on the TV antenna-rabbit ears)! They think, if the picture is bad it's a bad feed from the Cable company or the Satellite company. In my childhood, Satellites were something we used to spy on the Russians and vice versa. Now we just co-opt them with our TV shows. I didn't get to see Elvis swivel his pelvis on Ed Sullivan cause our TV couldn't be tuned at that point. It needed a "picture tube".
Ah the good old days...