posted on September 1, 2000 10:34:03 PM new
networker67- I have copied down all the information to read and try. It sounds hard but I guess when it all comes together it is rather easy. This year I am limited to my income but next year I can make what I want. This year I am only selling what I need to make and that's $456.00 a month hoping that I can deduct my medical on my income tax form. then next year I will start full force and hope that I can make a few more dollars than that. When I read that you and others are making 3,4,5 thousand a month I just gasp. It's hard to imagine the work you must put in and how much inventory you have to have. My inventory is small, in size, not numbers. I don't want to deal in glass or heavy objects just my little objects that only require a bubble envelope or small box. By the time I am ready to go full force and I have the opportunity to read this message board I should be good to go. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. It sure does help when experts are around.
posted on September 2, 2000 01:37:27 AM new
Gee your all funny.
Digital Camera? Get the cheapest thing that works for you. Screen resolutions on PC's are limited to 72 dpi (dots per inch) which ANY digital camera will do. If your spending more than $100 on it your throwing money away.
The DIFFERENCE between success on the web and not is knowing the technology and what your doing. We have a email list buil up over 3 years, 35,000 buyers. We set up a webshop rapid like, registered w/ search engines and READ to understand the technology. I've probably read over 20,000 pages of understanding the technology and it shows. We grow at 400%+ per year. Started at haggle online and now are at the best sites the web has to offer.
Just like you understand brick & morter or shows/flea markets you need to understand the web and its considerably more complex.
Presentations COUNT. Its all you have on the net. It also takes money to make money on the net.
Bulk listers besides I gather Anadale are useless for eBay. There are TONS of people selling "client" software that allows you to make your ad's then bulk upload them to eBay. The problem is when they post they get put up instantly poof. So you put up 120 items lets say ending on a friday night. It posts one per second. Thats 2 minutes. You have ALL of two minutes of product exposure to the majority of bidders. Most people bid within the last 3-4 minutes of an auction, any site be it eBay or First Auction, Onsale etc. If your giving yourself all of 2 minutes of closing exposure your sales WILL suffer. Anadale will post (I hear) at "intervals", its also a service you pay for, in fact, the fee's are as much as eBay I think. Like .25 a post, atop ebay's post fee. These are of course tax deductible. Anyone selling on the net that not a business and wants to make a living at it is a dumb dumb. Write off's are important, the costs of doing business. Atop that if your buying for resale and run into someone like a assistant state attorney general as a buyer you best hope you have your ducks in a row or you can expect to loose everything you made and then some.
What are the odds of that? You'd be surprised, we've had 6 of them buy from us in the past year.
Dont use the bulk loader however unless you want to loose sales, or make "small" collections say 3-4 items and then bulk load em one at a time.
Many many sellers have made big oopsie's in doing this and they STILL dont realize it.
Most of the so-deemed auction pro's (or self-deemed) sell at eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, all person to person services. These services are all undergoing increased scrutiny by authorities, manufacturers, the press and legislators. Consumer confidence is waning as well. Expect legislation to come causing any auctioneer to be licensed by their state. Its not something states want to do, its something they are going to do to try and curb bad sellers. There are going to be LOTS of changes coming after elections are done. There are some 17 bills I know of that have been sat on as both Democrats & Republicans do not wish to make web regulation a campaign issue for obvious reasons. A candidate saying "ISP's will be forced to log user activities" would be a kiss of election death but you can expect it. Several services already do it. Virtually every DSL/Cable (High speed internet provider) hires external firms to log/monitor usage, its right in the terms of service people never read. many of these bills have already been given a "go for it" by legislators and are simply on hold until elections are done and cabinets completed etc.
The web is basically 101% out of control and its a global issue. The US of A is a nation that loves freedom BY control and the web is not that. Instead its The Wild West and just like The Wild West it will get controlled at least for US citizens. ALL of this technology in 5-9 years will evolve. No more PC's, Home information units instead. No more buying software to run on it, you'll basically have a intelligent terminal that will bring you TV, Radio, Music, News, Games, Software etc. all piped in to you and all rented/leased. This will kill the music piracy, software piracy and the fear now of video piracy.
It'll basically be interactive cable TV if you will. Thats what Microsoft.NET is about. Its also why Microsoft is being broken up not to KILL a monopoly but poise a singular entity to transform the web into a controlable medium. The fed knows they cant legislate all the problems and even if they did policing it would be expensive and inneffective. That means it must become controlled BY the providers of it. The AOL/Time Warner merger is not just a "good idea". Its a merger that will in less than 5 years put all but the big players out of the web hosting and ISP servies out of business. So now there are big players left, and things are controllable. As PC Sales wane we approach the time convergence of this all.
Why do you think MSN offers $400 to sign on for 4 years? They are locking users in. AOL will go FREE dial up access, perhaps time limited and do their best to move people toward high speed cable web access.
No sales business can look at the web long term be it big or small business. It changes JUST LIKE THAT. For example, you'll find people here that go BATS if eBay is down for a day. They loose money as sales dont take place and then blame the hand that feed's em like eBay ought be perfect 101% of the time. It just doesnt happen. eBay does a fantastic job but murphys law will strike and smart business makes sure that they A. Dont waste their time on sites that dont sell and B. work hard (very hard) to get at sites that do sell and that requires you KNOW the environment.
posted on September 2, 2000 10:40:36 AM new
networker67
WOW! What a lot of information! I like the idea of hiring a college student to write a program for me...
My problem tracking my inventory is all the different items. Because I've been in business several years, my inventory is pretty large and very time consuming to keep up with. Every year, I start my inventory numbers with a different letter, so I know that things that start with A are the oldest. (I'm not even sure I have any A's left!)
Anyway...
I've started tracking my eBay sales in a different manner. I do not track shipping on a per item basis. I just keep a running total of all the money I spend at the post office. I also keep a running total of my eBay fees. My eBay inventory consists of a list of the item description, it's original inventory number (from my A-Z list), its cost, and the total amount of the check I receive. I also track the state the items are sent to (for sales tax purposes) and whether they are resale or not. And I also track any adjustments or refunds I give out on a per item basis. My eBay sales are very easy to keep up with.
The manual inventory system is killing me. I have hundreds of sheets of ledger paper filled with inventory... It's very time consuming even trying to find the items on the sheets. This is why I need to find a computer program that will track my inventory.
