Dear Diary, Earlier I mentioned that one of the the things I was planning to do in my new business model is to utilize Ki-Markdown (an application found on eBay) Well I finally had time to get this going and I thought I would share with you some screenshots. This particular sale I am going to do is a random sale in my Vintage categories.
After you have subscribes to Ki Markdown, notice the Markdown Tab. Click on the Create Markdown. You will want to use that because it has a Wizard. Once you are used to the program, you can just fill in the big form by clicking that Markdown Tab (no Wizard)
On this screen there is a drop down box. You can choose to create a sale or edit another sale. Of course I am creating a sale, so now I click the Start button.
Do you want this sale to keep creating another one or do you want this to be a one time sale? I chose recurring.
Name your sale: Mine is called Vintage sale. Now you can choose your sale preference, I did a 10% sale. My sale will be a random sale as you will see later and my random sale will start out with the 10%. More on that later.. So I have chosen my starting and ending date. In this case I have a one day sale, I may change that later. You have a choice to discount the price only or you can also do a discount and throw on free shipping too. The last question on this page "Terminate This Markdown" If I want this sale to keep renewing but perhaps only for one month. I can choose yes and then it will ask me for a specific date for termination.
Now I need to figure out how often this sale will go on. I chose 7 days, so at this point I'll have this category on sale one day a week. The next question is asking me about the next discount. I chose random and also the amount can be anything between 5 and 25%! How fun is that?
Now the big question, what do I want to put on sale? I could use keywords, like for skirts... or I could choose a category. In this example I chose my vintage category. I also chose to filter items. If I have an item that has a quantity, if it has sold an item in the last day, then I don't want the item to go on sale.
And the next screen is your review screen. Make sure you like it, then you can edit by clicking the previous button or you can finalize it by clicking the next button. Woo hoo! That is all there is too it. There were other questions but they didn't apply to what I was doing. If you would like to know how to do a Flash Sale, then I suggest this awesome video!
Now what is nice, is that if you pair this will your Ki Terminator that will list your items "As Similar As" automatically, you can have indefinite sales scheduled and the sky is the limit!
Update on my mail situation. This week the mailperson came to me and personally apologized, also the supervisor called me today and apologized as well. One good thing is now I have a contact name and a direct line to call if I should have important issues in the future. You better believe I saved that baby on the cell. I've only got one package right now to worry about, the one to Australia.
I finally sold this vase. I seriously have had this in the store for two years! This is a small 5 1/4 inch Pilgram vase, blown glass with an applied rigaree. I found it in a small flea market for $2 and sold it for $30 This is one of the listings that I ended, added more item specifics, changed the listing fonts to 14/black and changed to a 30 day listing. It sold in 3 days.
I found this 5.11 Tactical shirt in my neighborhood Goodwill for $2.50 and sold it for $35 This is the type of shirts that law enforcement order. It has a hidden document pocket on the inside. Uber cool I tell ya! Since this is a military town there are all kinds of cool stuff like that here.
So today I decided to go through my bins of clothing. I have the bins labeled by the alphabet and some were jam packed! I needed to split up the bins and make new labels. I decided to check each and every article of clothing and ugh! There were so many articles of clothing that were not listed. I'm thinking that when I opened that little shop that some of these were ended and not relisted since I was trying to sell them in the store. Looks like I won't be doing any thrifting anytime soon! Love, Tina
Dear Diary, Yes I admit it, I've become a clothes hog! I've been busy thrifting here in Virginia Beach now, and have been concentrating on clothing because it is easy to store and easy to ship. It has been a great success. I've noticed that Hip Hop clothes are big here in my city, as I am seeing baggy pants with colorful pockets, wild shirts, super short jeans skirts and the like. So yes I have been buying them! Here is a good example of the wild clothing that I have been finding:
I found this awesome shirt for half price ($2.50) and sold it for $49.99 I mean seriously who WOULDN'T want a "Oriental Tiger Hunter Sexy Samarai Hawaiian Hip Hop" shirt like this? It is Phat Farm brand. Got to love that return on investment. Speaking of investment, how much time do you invest in resetting your stats by listing similar as. If you have been a reader for awhile, you know I do this. I've been changing my listings to 30 days, a 14 font, all black font, adding item specifics and making sure I have the listing title as my first line. Well now that I have been doing this awhile, all my listings are 30 days. Yesterday I had 69 listings that expired! OH MY.... GOSH! But never fear, remember the Ki Terminator I've been talking about? Well as I list as similar as, I insert that item number into that eBay app, schedule it to end next month and schedule it to List As Similar As. Once it comes up to LASA, I'll automate it to list every 31 days. (not a relist mind you, although I could choose that if I wanted to, but a List As Similar As) Once I am through my listings, I'll be on easy street. One more thing that I forgot to tell you about that app that is exciting is that when it does a LASA, the quantity totals will be correct. Say you had a listing with 4 mugs and you sold 2. Through eBay you would have to be very careful because that system tries to reset you at 4 mugs again! Ki Terminator will pick up your correct quantity remaining. That in itself is worth it's weight in gold for me.
This is something I sold this week. This is a Power Soak. In the 1980's my husband bought this for around $90 I believe. He is a musician and used this with his huge Ampeg Concert amps. Those of you that are musicians understand that with hard rock you want your distortion (that sweet spot) but need to not have your amps up at full blast to obtain that sound. Anywho, I sold this item this week for $199. Vintage music equipment is hot! So we got back our full investment and made that much to boot. SWEET!
I found this FlashPad at the Salvation Army for $5. There were multiples there, why or why didn't I pick up more!! I sold it for $42.99. Live and learn, I didn't take my phone that day and I was just a big chicken.
Let's talk about skirts. I am very surprised at the great sales I'm getting on skirts. Surprising enough it is the shorter skirts that are selling. Some are so short that I swear it should be illegal! lol But seriously, I'm getting these around $2.50. I always look for the 1/2 items when I shop.
Let us get serious for a moment. I just got a message from the customer on the Power Soak you just read about. I put it out for the mail person on 4/17... the tracking shows that it was delivered 4/17 to Virginia Beach! Now I found out that I have 5 packages over the last two days that were not scanned accepted but scanned delivered.... wonderful... now I have to go to the post office, stand in long lines and see if I can get them to clear all this tracking! If I have anyone say they didn't receive the item, then I would be SOL! Insurance wouldn't cover it because it says delivered... Oh boy...
Someone asked me the other day how I was settling into Virginia Beach. I'll let this picture do the talking. There is a nice playground right here on the beach for the grandkids, and I was sitting on a towel in the sand. Aaaaahhhh, who cared if it was a chilly day right?
Dear Diary, I'm here !! I've been in Virginia Beach for coming onto 2 weeks. Oh my what a trip, we drove straight through. Can't believe we did either cuz Mike and I are pretty lightweight. lol So the Inventory system works great. I put all my boxes into the side attic. When I have a sale, I go to Google Docs, put the name of the item into the find box and it takes me right to the box number. That part is good. The bad part is that through packing I found loads of stuff I THOUGHT WAS LISTED!! ... and they were not. So shopping is on the back burner until I can get all this clothing listed. Hopefully that will be done in the next week. I have NOT implemented the Ki Markdown yet. I'm trying out a few other apps to report to you right now. The one I am working on today is the Ki Terminator.
As you probably know, eBay is pushing for us to do 30 day listings instead of GTC listings. Most of the free listing offers are for 30 day only and the upcoming free listings every week in the new store structuring (Spring Update 2013) are based off the 30 day listings. I don't know about you, but when you have a big store, it is a chore when the listings expire. I don't like to do the "relist" option, I like to do the "sell similar" option. So I have a solution. All my new listings (and new "as similar as" listings) will be utilizing this app: ki Terminator. I'll report to you if I like it and if I don't. Here is how it works. First when I list something, I will copy the new item number.
You see here where I copied that number. So easy to do if you make this a routine. In another tab or windo I have my ki Terminator open.
I choose the "Ending Queue" and this is the screen that I see. In the first box, I copied the item number. The next box automatically populates with the current time (see the red 1.) I change that date to the next month, instead of 3/30/2013 I changed it to 4/30/2013 and I also changed the minutes to a little earlier than the starting time. This will automatically let ki cancel that listing early.... You have to choose a Sale Type (reason for canceling) you can see my chosen answer in that box. Red number 2: Now that dropdown box gives you choices, I choice "Sell Similar" because that is the way I roll! Lastly I then choose the date to relist. The great thing about this is that I can schedule the best time to relist if I want to. I choice the next day and I'll probably have my list times to be around 8 oclock. (ki times are always eBay times: Pacific Time) Before long I'll have that quick routine and never have to "Sell Similar As" again (unless I have something I want to update.) Here is a video to learn more about ki Terminator. (As always I do not get this free nor am I compensated for this blog post)
There is another video about ki Terminator on YouTube that is a great tutorial as well.
I finally sold this razor set. I had purchased this for $6 at an antique vendor mall, and sold it on sale fr $38.99 to an overseas buyer. I was working frantically this month putting my items on sale to get rid of stock so I would NOT have to pack it!
Someone in Malaysia is looking pretting snazzy in this embroidery Snap On hat!! I got this for free and sold it for...$49.99! Woo hoo!!
Dear Diary, I have been so busy lately! In one week we will be moving almost 1000 miles away to Virginia Beach! Can you imagine packing up a store that has around 600 items and most of that being vintage china? I've had to be very critical of my store stock, which item to keep and which item to let go of. I've got around 38 boxes now packed plus 4 large bins of clothing. As I pack, I think I will change my business model. I've been doing lots of thinking.... I know, that is dangerous!
I've made an online list of my store items by Box number so that when I reopen my store, I can go to that list, do a control F (find) and the computer will go instantly to the box the item is located. Now that everything is accounted for, it is the perfect time to start keeping an exact inventory. Even though I will be using the Cash method and expensing my stock purchases, I still want to keep accurate inventory records in case I ever get audited. (yikes!) That is a daunting task! But... I've decided on using a great free app on eBay called MTI Commerce Simple Inventory. This app automatically takes my active listings into the program. I can input my stock location (my box number), my purchase price and it will insert the selling price. It can also identify the slow movers, the hot sellers and print out inventory reports! (I am not compensated by MTI Commerce, this is an app that I use and is 100% free)
Why do I want to know my slow movers? I want to keep my store fresh, I don't want dead inventory and believe me I have some right now! It is time to use that Smart Phone more and more and find better ways to keep track of what works. This program tells me what are the hottest sellers too. Now I have a great idea what sells fast but it will be nice to have reports to print out. I can't report how well this app works yet because my store is invisible, I have it on vacation while I move. But I will report that as soon as I know.
Step One: Identify the items that have a quick turnover. These items will go on the top of my BOLO list! (Be On The Look Out) Step Two: If you haven't listed it, it isn't making you money.. So, if you buy it, get it listed. Don't keep buying things when you have boxes of unlisted items. That is throwing your money away. Be smart about your purchases. Don't become a hoarder :)
Step Three: Identify the items that have sat in your store forever. You have got to move that item, turn that item into money so you can reinvest in better items. This is my most exciting part of my new business model. I'm taking these slow sellers and turning them into a large marketing adventure. I am going to create a buzz, attract repeat buyers and keep my store interesting.
As soon as my store re-opens I will be subscribing toki Markdown. (This link takes you to info only. You can sign up there if you like what you see) This app was a sale wizard that will set up automatic sales and so many types of sales it is unbelievable! I plan on putting my items on a gradual markdown. I will probably set a limit on how long an item can be in the store. I'll rotate when items are placed on sale, and each time the item comes up for a sale it will have a higher percentage off until it is sold. At the end of my decided period, my goal is to get my investment back so I can reinvest in a different item that has a better turnover rate. My store will stay fresh this way!
ki Markdown also has the capability of doing Flash Sales! I'll certainly take advantage of that! A Flash Sale is a random item that is picked to be on sale for one day only. I fully intend on making a promotion box for this. Hopefully customers will want to check out my store to see what is on sale that day only. Again, the goal is to move dead inventory, get your investment back (and a profit ideally), be able to deduct that item cost in the year you listed it and bring excitement into your stores with engaged buyers. The result should be a growing business! (I am not compensated by ki Markdown or any other app that I write about )
It is a good idea to check in your eBay stats just how many sales you typically do in a 3 month period. At this point I'm selling around 250 units. Of course I want to increase that number and I believe with the automatic sales (which is increased visibility by the way) those numbers will rise even further. Until those numbers rise I will be very careful on how large my store is. Although a high number of items in your store gives more to choose from, the dead inventory is tying up your buying power.When we source items that are quick sellers, those numbers are guaranteed to rise. We'll make more money with a quick turnover!
I'll continue to use ki Tracking as that has proven to bring more people to my store homepage of any marketing idea I have ever tried. This app sends out an email to every buyer when they receive their item. The email is customized, I have mine explaining why I am sending the message. (to notify them that their package was delivered in case they aren't home and need to arrange for a friend to pick it up) . The letter also tells them that I would like tohave them as a customer throughout the year, I provide my store homepage web address and tell them that I add new items often! Most of the buyers have clicked that link and checked out my homepage according to the eBay traffic reports.
Churchill items sell pretty quickly, well except for mugs/plates. Those are slower. I was elated when I sold 8 of these mugs to one person. That was a $72 order. Yay, less china to pack!!
This doll furniture was in a $5 set that I got at a flea market. The clock wasn't straight and I did notate that in the listing. It sold for $24.99. I love doll furniture, and was glad to get rid of this set as I had it stuck back in a closet forever.
Dear Diary, I used to be afraid to sell china because of the packing. Now don't get me wrong, I don't LOVE packing china, but I no longer fear it. In the old days I would wrap it up in bubble then carefully pack the box with packing peanuts surrounding the object, but many items had more than one part and many buyers were buying multiple china pieces. It was a challenge protecting each piece. Now I have discovered how to jelly roll and my problems are solved.
I sold this Sadler teapot for $69.99 and free shipping. The item is being shipped in a nearby zone so it will be cheaper to send this by Priority. The first thing I do is to insert a bag into the hollow of the teapot. I then stuffed the bag with some newspaper. Most of the time I use peanuts because it weighs less but today it was paper. Next I take some bubble and fill up that space between the pot and the handle. Next I wrap some bubble around the spout. Then.... I make a mummy out of the pot. This usually means I wrap it twice until it looks like what you see below.
You see I have opened a Priority box. (Since I know I'll be sending this item by Priority it is okay to do this. ) Now time to jelly roll! What I do is move this teapot to the edge close to me, and start wrapping the cardboard around the pot!
Now here is what you get. The jelly roll is pretty big on the edges so what I will do now is to take my handy dandy knife and cut down all the corner folds of my jelly roll.
I cut clear down to the item. I had to cut these flaps down because obviously they were too long. I could have sized the box before hand but that would have made too much sense and why we can't be sensible now can we? There will be lots of flaps. Some you will be able to cut off because you won't need them. The object is to protect the ends, so if it is covered, then you are good. Do this to both ends and tape it up well. I jelly rolled the lid in the same fashion.
I put all the jelly rolls into another box, and I did cut that down too to make the box closer to size. It was an odd size in items, none of the Priority boxes fit quite right. I filled the void, and then taped up the box. I usually wrap my packages up in black trashbag when the box has been cut down just because it looks better. You know it is ALL ABOUT first impressions.
And there we go. This teapot will arrive safely and with out alot of packing expense. If an item is smaller like a mug, I pop the jelly roll into a padded flat rate envelope. I am stuck on jelly rolls and no longer do I worry about shipping breakables. I've been shipping out cookie jars this month and I can assure you that those babies are easy to break in shipping. Not one complaint, not one instance of damage. In fact I can not remember a claim for breakage this year!
I've been cleaning out my closets. This purse used to be my favorite but now I've grown tired of it. I sold it for $42.99 even though there was a huge honking lipstick stain inside of it. It sold overnight! I swear adding all the extra item specifics is magic.
I finally sold this Vacron set. I've had it in the store forever. I let it go for $29.99 and I think I paid somewhere around $5 to $7 for the set. I am truly surprised that it didn't sell. These sets are really neat and keep drinks cold for a long time. I remember my Grandmother using these types of sets.
I found this Revere 8 Quart Stock Pot at the Goodwill for $3.00 This is NOT the copper bottom one so I priced it at $49.99 and free shipping. It sold the first night :) Love listing those Revere Ware items.
Dear Diary, Recently I thought I would try out the Global Shipping program for myself. I had heard some nasty stories about other seller's experiences but true to form, I just HAD to find out for myself. I thought there could be some merit since your listing is installed directly onto the other country's eBay mixed in with their regular listings. As soon as I put this program on, I noticed my sales came to a standstill. I got ONE international sale and that was to Canada. I shipped the item to Kentucky... I have not one good thing to report. Here are my issues:
eBay charged import fees of $10 on this sale to the customer. If I had sold this and shipped directly the seller would not had to pay this fee
The customer does not see all the fees up front! They can see some fees up front one fee isn't shown until after they commit to purchase and they continue to checkout
When the customer receives the item the return address of this Canadian shipment shows Canada as the address. This confuses the customer. My customer wanted to return something, they thought it would be cheap since it would be going to a Canada address. They were not happy with that.
The customer left me a negative because of the import fees. I got it removed but it took multiple calls because of customer service error on the first call, long waits on transferring my call to Trust and Safety on both calls... ughh
I would NOT suggest this new program!
I have added something to my listing. We all know that we should try to use all those item specifics. The item specifics is searchable, buts considerable weight on your desirability score. Remember, this new search engine "decides" what the buyer will see according to the information eBay's tracking cookies gather (data mining). eBay knows which listings each specific buyer tends to gravitate to, so the engine trys to find matching listings to put on their Best Match result. I thought I was doing enough filling all those specifics out, but no. What I am doing now is to make sure that most if not all my keywords in my title is carried over to the specifics. I now create my own specifics to make sure of this.
I had a stack of movies that I want out of my house. (We are moving) I priced them to sell. Because the market is flooded with the movies I have I've priced them ultra low to move them. If you enlarge the pic above you will see that I have added specifics to use my title information. (which is super fast) The result is that my performance score improved very quickly. Not only are the movies flying off my shelf, my other items are selling too. Now when I list, I ALWAYS add my own specifics. You see, search engines count the keywords in the Title, the Item Specifics and in your listings. The more a keyword is repeated, the better your score. Try it and see for yourself if this works for you.
I used to collect cookie jars... since we are moving I've been selling them off. This is a jar I purchased for $10 in an after Christmas sale at Walmart years ago. I sold it yesterday for $49.99 I use free shipping and build it into my price. If the buyer is far away from me then it normally costs around $14 Parcel Select. These have been flying off the shelves too. I made sure I put a link to all my cookie jars inside the listing body so that I can keep them looking at MY JARS instead of going back to the search results.
I found this Disney Sputnick at a thrift store for a quarter. Sold him yesterday for $19.00 I like to sell plush although right now I've not been stocking it because of space issues. Plush doesn't fly off the shelf, it waits for that one special person.
I found this tray at a thrift store for $3.00 and sold it this week for $29.99 If I had the choice and the space, I would focus on beautiful glassware.
Dear Diary, Choices, we all love choices. Sometimes we sell items that we want to divide up different ways. For instance, when I sell flatware, I might want to sell a lot of 4 forks, maybe a place setting and perhaps 3 knives. If I listed these separately I would obviously have 3 different insertion fees. But, if these are all the same pattern, I could list all those choices in one listing and let the customer choose. That is called a Multi-Variation listing.
In this type of listing, you can have many different possibilites. Perhaps you have 5 shirts that are the same except different sizes, or maybe they are all the same size but different colors. Put them all in one listing!
You can NOT Multi-Variation Listings in all the categories. These categories allow it: Clothing and Accessories, Crafts, Sporting Goods, Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop, Gift Cards & Coupons, Health and Beauty, Pet Supplies, Jewelry & Watches, and most Home & Garden. When I list collectable and vintage items, I choose the Home & Garden categories when I want to do the Multi-Variation listings.
Multi-Variation listings are scored higher in the search! All fixed price items use a "Listing Performance Score". eBay keeps track of sales in relationship to the number of impressions received on that item. For Multi-Variation Listings, the sales and impressions are counted for EACH item in the listing for a better total score. When you make a sale on that listing, the other items get a boost.
How do you do these types of listings? I'll show you. In this example I have two of the exact same cake stands (Jeannette Harp Pedestal Stand) but one has more gold left on the edge trim. So I have used this listing to give my buyers a chance to get the cake stand with gold loss cheaper than the other.
I have paused this in a few places in order to save time. My videos are limited to 5 minutes each. I hope this has helped you do one of these listings on your own.
I've been busy cleaning out my cabinets getting ready for this Spring move to Virginia Beach. I've had this large fryer for years but hadn't used it much especially since we are eating healthier now. I sold it for $24.99 very quickly. I was really happy to have this big thing out of here.
This is a Napa Valley 100 slot cassette holder that we've had for a long time too. I sold it within the week for $50.00 Now I did have free shipping on this and because of the size I paid around $14 online to send this Parcel Select.
Another one of my 49 cent mug purchases. This item sold for $24.99 and went to a military family. I was happy to get that. Lately I've not been buying as many mugs unless I am pretty sure they are fast seller. I've got lots that haven't moved and I'll be marking those down as I don't want to pack them.
I'm still getting rid of Churchill Blue Willow! I sold this butter dish for $39.99 this week. Butter dishes normally do go high so don't leave them behind.
Got to get back to listing! I'm working on various diecast cars that we've collected over the years. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
