When I talk to sellers, I often find that they carry a lot of excess inventory. Using the term “carry inventory” is no mistake, you might not be physically lugging around the inventory albatross, but excess inventory can be a heavy burden. This is particularly true in the cases of one-of-a-kind sellers who equate having a lot of extra inventory as “money” or even “insurance” (color me guilty) and depending on how you handle your accounting, it might not be either.  It might be time to reduce your inventory.

eBay is having a 50% off listing sale in some categories until November 22^nd.  There are two schools of thought and both have merit – Get your popular stuff listed and out there OR List your unpopular items at the cheaper listing cost.

If you use cash base accounting, you don’t have to worry about a physical inventory -however you can’t deduct the cost of goods until your items sells. In this case, the impetus to sell would be that there is money tied up in inventory that can’t be deducted

If you use accrual based accounting, you will typically need to do a physical inventory but you can deduct the cost of goods. In this case, the impetus to sell would be that you don’t want to have to spend days doing a physical inventory.

One thing to consider is to get rid of your obsolete inventory. Previously, we posted about “Letting Go of Obsolete Inventory”, and this may an opportunity for you to have an inventory reduction sale, or reduce your inventory by using this opportunity to list items and reduce your physical inventory.

As Always, Happy Selling!!

When selling online, the image is the most important piece of sales collateral that you can “hand” to your potential customer. It is the first thing that a potential buyer sees.

You do not need to be a professional to recognize a good image, and you don’t need to be a professional to take a good image.

Here’s some tips to improve you images:

1. Make sure your item and camera lens are clean. This might seem like a no-brainer, but if you use your camera often, you may forget to check the lens for dust.

2. Light your item. You can create your own inexpensive photography box (or even buy one). For inexpensive lighting, you can purchase clip on lights at any home improvement store. Shine the light onto the product and stand behind the lighting.

3. Unclutter the area. It is not good practice to take an image with other items in the photograph. If you are selling a vase and want to display it with flowers, take an additional photograph, but your main photograph should be of the product and the product only.

4. Take several photographs. Vendio image hosting is inexpensive and having multiple images help sell your product. You will want to take images from several angles. If you sell collectibles, take an image of any makers mark.

5. Resize and crop your image. Make sure that your product is what is seen, not the background.

7. Include a visual reference to size when appropriate. For example, use a ruler or a coin for visual reference to item size.

8. Try not to use a flash, but use lighting instead. If your item is reflective, don’t use a flash at all.

One other tidbit to note – the best way to determine if your images are up to par, is to view similar items and compare your items with your competitors. If you have Vendio Research, it will display the images of completed items, so you can see at a glance if your images are better (or worse) than your competitors.

Happy Selling!!

If you understood the above, read no further, you are an eBay maven!

I’m all for expediency by using acronym to cut down on the time it takes to type (or chat) something out. There are a few more acronyms that we’ll probably hear a lot about in the future and some new names for some new positioning.

Take Power Seller..That was a word we all “got”. It was easy and we didn’t feel the need to (for the most part) abbreviate with PS (which means something altogether different). Now we have TRS, which an acronym for Top-Rated Seller.

Here is a list of eBay (not general selling) acronyms, I’m sure there are more, so feel free to post yours

BO – Best Offer
FP – Fixed Price
BIN –Buy It Now
FVF – Final Value Fee
DSR – Detailed Seller Rating
TRS – Top Rated Seller
VERO – Verified registered owner
FB – Feedback
INR – Item Not Received
NARU – Not a Registered User
UID – Unpaid Item Dispute
NPS – Non Performing Seller
NPB – Non Paying Bidder
FP – Fixed Price OR FP30 Fixed Price 30

In closing, I will note that Best Match does not seem to have an acronym. Interesting…

Happy Selling!!

Typically, the final value fees are tiered so that as closing price increases, final value fee fees decrease. For example, on an item that starts at $150 and sells for $300:

Old Fee Structure: 
$2 insertion fee + final value fees 8.75% of the first $25 of closing value, 3.5% of the remaining amount = $13.82

List 5 Free Fee Structure:
Waived insertion fee + final value fee 8.75% of $300 = $26.25 (so you get charged $20).

So, for that same listing, fees would have been the $2 listing fee, $2.19 for the first $25, and $9.63 for the next $275. Add these all together and it totals $13.82.  That’s a $6.18 (45%) increase. Those aren’t the greatest savings in the world…

How to take advantage of eBay’s List 5 for Free:

The special pricing isn’t all bad though. Items selling for $25 or less will be cheaper than normal because of the lack of insertion fees. This results in a savings of $0.10-$0.55 depending on what category the listings are in.

The other case where this ends up saving money is for items with higher starting values and closing prices. For example, if you have an item starting at $400 and selling for $500, the $3 listing fee is waived and the final value fee is $20 vs. $21.82 on the previous pricing ($3 listing and $18.82 in FVFs). So for low and high ticket sellers this is definitely an option where some money could be saved. However, for sellers who have mid ticket items please be advised as you may be paying more if you take advantage of this new pricing.

Now that I “get it”, I thought I’d share the basic questions that I had when I first started. I found it hard to really find this info..So here is Twitter 101.

What is Twitter?
Twitter (www.twitter.com) is simply a scrolling message board with newest posts (tweets) on top. You are limited to 140 characters per post. You select to follow people you are interested in reading and in turn, people will follow you.

How do I find people to follow?
First, it is likely you have friends, coworkers or clients that use twitter. You can go ahead and follow them. That might be enough for you. If you are looking for areas of interest, such as selling on eBay or selling on Amazon or Kaleidoscope collectors, you can do a search using twittersearch and find like-minded people to follow and connect with – Oh, and don’t forget to follow Vendio!!

What is a DM?
DM (Direct Message) is really just a PM (Private Message). To send a direct message, just click on the twitter name of the person you want to send the message to and select to send a DM (if the person accepts private messages).

What is RT?
RT stands for Retweet and one of twitter features that does the “networking”. If you are reading something on twitter that you want to share, copy the message and place a RT to indicate it’s a Retweet. For example, let’s say you wanted to do a Retweet of a recent Vendio Review:

Original Post:
all_business New blog post: Vendio Platform Review – The Answer for eCommerce? http://bit.ly/jf2xJ

You simply add a RT@ and post it, so that YOUR followers can also see the tweet (in case they are not following the original poster):
Your re-tweeted Post

RT@all_business New blog post: Vendio Platform Review – The Answer for eCommerce? http://bit.ly/jf2xJ

How do I link to a blog post or website?
Since you only have 140 characters, you can use a URL “shrinker”, which takes a long URL and makes it shorter. There is a plethora out places on the web that will do this for you, such as tinyurl and budurl.

What does the # mean?
The # symbol is a hashtag. Hashtags “group” a conversation. When hastags are used it for a specific purpose, you can search only for that specific tag and find all posts that contain that hashtag. For example, Vendio uses #VendioS (for Vendio Store). If you were to use the tweet search link above and search for #VendioS, you would find only items related to the Vendio store.

If you wanted to start a grouped conversation about Kaleidoscopes, just search #Kaleidoscope and if it is not in use, go ahead and begin using it when talking about kaleidoscopes. If it is in use, just join the existing conversation. This allows conversations and networking between folks interested in kaleidoscopes.

And that’s twitter in a nutshell. Happy Tweeting!!

1. Consider the last date you can ship and think about offering expedited shipping to extend your holiday selling season and to assist your customers.

2. Offer free shipping. It gets you more exposure in eBay search results, and buyers are searching for sellers who offer it.

3. List your items as three-day auctions. This will give you additional opportunity to sell more items.

4. Make sure the keywords and the categories for your listings are optimized. Vendio Research can help you determine both.

5. If you accept coupons from MS Live Search and eBay, let your customers know. Consumers are more price sensitive than ever.
6. Run a clearance sale to attract more customers and to reduce end of year inventory. This can be done now, not just the last week of the year.

7. Get items ready to launch for after the Holiday. eBay typically holds a listing sale between Christmas and New Years, so have your items ready to launch.

8. Email your customers to wish them a happy holiday season. This increases their loyalty, and you can use the opportunity to inform them about sales and offers. If you do not have a customer list, there is no time better than now to start one.

9. Make sure you list your items properly to avoid having them buried in eBay search results. eBay has recently made changes that can result in poor search result positioning. For more specifics about how these changes affect you, click here.

We look forward to getting your feedback on these tips, and wish you the very best this holiday season.

Happy Selling !!

For some sellers (and I am so guilty of this) it becomes emotional and not about the money or the numbers, but about the bad buying decisions. Sometimes you paid too much or picked the wrong product or got into the market too late. Whatever the reason, it’s hard to let go. It’s akin to admitting failure and none of us like to do that.

In addition to eBay or Store fees, there is a large cost associated with carrying obsolete inventory that is often missed. These are such things as rent and utilities, insurance, physical handling, damage, theft and so forth. For sellers in this industry, one of the most destructive carrying costs is that holding onto the obsolete inventory reduces the capital available for new inventory – If your money is tied up in stuff that is not selling, there is no new money to buy stuff that does sell.

It costs a lot more than your initial investment to hold onto inventory that does not sell. It would be hard to calculate the “general carrying costs” for sellers in this industry, but it’s NOT a low number. A sheer guesstimate for this industry is likely higher than the 25% rule of thumb, thus your $100.00 item in a year’s time has cost you at least $125.00 (before you list it anywhere).

If you carry inventory on your books, there can be tax advantages to disposing or liquidating your unsold inventory. Definitely talk to a tax professional before the end of the year to determine how you want to dispose of your obsolete inventory.

Excel Tip – Do you create your own SKUs (Inventory numbers)?
Quickest method – lead with a letter when creating your first SKU in a cell (example a101). Hold your mouse over the corner of the cell until a + sign appears. Right click and drag down. Let go. Eureka..instant SKUs. If you want to create SKUs without a leading letter, hold down control and repeat steps above.

Excel Tip – Need to paste information from eBay?
Copy the data (invoice, listings) and use “paste special”, and select Unicode text. This will keep all the items from ending up in one cell.

Word Tip – Do you find you use the same text repeatedly in emails?
Use word to help you organize your responses. Name and save your emails into word. For example: Buyer wants Feedback. Highlight the name you’ve created for your email and select Header one. When it comes time to answer an email, turn on document map (view>document map) and select the email you want to send from the left navigation pane and paste into your email. I found using this method was faster and provided quicker editing than saving email templates for every responses.

Cool eBay Links
Where is my item?
How many items are for sale in your category?
What are eBay fees (not a cool link, but one I have trouble finding whenever I need it)

We would LOVE love to hear your tips and tricks!!

Sellers who opt to pay the home page featured fee ($59.95 for 3, 5, 7, or 10 days or $179.95 for 30 days), may have their items displayed in a small box at the bottom of the home page.

While eBay does not guarantee that your item will be displayed in the “From Our Sellers” box, it is important to realize that the titles are cut off and using the right keywords in the right order is the best bet for getting the most out of your investment.

When using Vendio Research, be sure to check the Top Seller tab to view the keywords that are responsible for driving success and price.

Typical Title: Elegant Ladies Steel & Gold Rolex Datejust Watch

Shown on eBay’s home page: Elegant Ladies Steel & Gold Ro…..

Researching Rolex shows the keywords that drive sales success and final price. This seller may have had better luck by placing the best keywords first to help get the most out of their Featured listing and by using the rest of the title space for the remaining necessary descriptive keywords (ladies, datejust) to help with search.

“18k Gold Rolex Watch” would have been the best use of space for the cut-off description on eBay’s home page, and making sure the rest of the title contained any applicable keywords could have ensured great success for this seller.

On October  21st eBay announced the new Paperless Payments requirement. You will need to accept PayPal or ProPay . As long as you have one of these options selected, you will have  no trouble with your listings. eBay will no longer display Checks or Money Orders as an option, relists with these options will not fail as eBay will just ignore them. Additionally, if you have any text in your Auction Ads that reference checks or money orders, you have until January 14th to remove that text from your listings

In the past eBay stated that they would suspend sellers who had a 4.3 or lower DSR rating in ANY of their ratings, but they have changed that to 4.1. Now, who have any DSR between 4.1 and 4.3 while be allowed to list, will have their items demoted in search.

For those sellers who have between a 4.1 and 4.3 DSR rating in one or more of their DSR ratings – you will definitely need to increase your ratings or your account will likely be suspended at some point. Here are a few ideas to help you increase your DSRs if you fall into that “at-risk” bucket:

1. List in Auction Format (you may use Buy It Now) – Since you are demoted in search results, ending soonest and newest in the Auction Format offers the best opportunity for your items to be seen. Unless you have rare items, low DSR ratings will put you at the bottom of Best Match search.
2. Only list items where you can offer Free Shipping. Because you are in the “at-risk” bucket, you cannot list items that have high shipping costs without the risk of further low DSRs. If you want to move the needle, you will need to offer free shipping.
3. Ship your item out immediately upon payment. If the item has not cleared PayPal, consider shipping ahead of time (weigh the risk factors – sending before cleared payment vs. low DSR for shipping time). You may wish to consider listing items where your cost is low.
4. Check and answer questions quickly. Make sure you are very specific when buyers are asking about shipping and accommodate buyer requests if at all possible.
5. Review your existing complaints and determine the root cause of the low DSRs and look at ways to ameliorate the issues. For instance, if you are a furniture seller who has high shipping cost – look for methods to help buyers understand the costs. Think about picking up the phone, calling the buyer when you ship the item and letting them know it’s on the way, and explain your shipping charges, for example.

eBay has also announced that when a seller has offered free shipping, eBay will display an onsite reminder that the seller offered free shipping to the buyer when they are leaving DSRs

Feedback Revision also went live this week. If anyone uses this, I’d like to know if it allows the buyer to revise their DSR ratings when they are going through the revision process, or if its limited to just Feedback comments. You are allowed 5 revision requests per 1000 transactions, so it might be best to make sure you have resolved any issue and the buyer is on board with changing their ratings prior to sending requests.

As always, Happy Selling!