Troubleshooting.

So, people, my husband included, are asking me why I don't just have a Big Sale.  Because, according to Omniture, I'm getting LESS THAN 50 views a day for the past week or so.  I mean, what's the point of having a sale when no one's even looking at your stuff?  This morning, I was reading Auction Bytes blog and they talked about how, staring June 1, people with 1 day handling time and 14 day return policies are basically going to get bumped up in the searches. 

This got me thinking...which is dangerous because I am having severe allergies and thinking is really difficult right now.

Knowing eBay, they may have already put this into effect without telling anyone.  My handling time is 2 days because I'm lazy.  What if this is hurting me?  I've already changed my return policies, but perhaps I should change my handling time, too and see what that does. 

So, I did.  I changed all my handling times to 1 day and checked my return policies.  I also caved and decided to run a Big Sale and see if changing my policies and discouting prices will increase my views.  We will certainly see. 

Frustrated

Well, I didn't post any pictures of me failing on the prom dress packing front because it actually fit nicely in a larger size box.  I slipped a dry cleaning bag around it and out it went! 

That being said, I have not had much at all in the way of sales for the past week.  It's depressing.  I don't think I'm getting much in the way of views (omniture says about 50 a day...terrible), so I don't know if it's me not doing it right or eBay screwing me over.  Yard sales last weekend were a total bust, so it's not like I have a lot of cheap stuff to list this week.  In fact, I haven't listed anything since Sunday.  Not selling stuff is not good motivation to list/buy anything else.

We are also looking at houses like crazy.  We're in a lower price range, so it's frustrating to see house after unsuitable house.  I think our real estate agent was getting frustrated too.  Not with us, but with the quality of houses and misleading listings of other real estate agents.  I mean, we went to see a few that the listing agents said were "above average" that were total nightmares.  We put an offer in on one with the stipulation that the lady put a railing on the front porch so the house would be approved for FHA, but she refused.  We have an offer in right now on another house and the seller just asked for an extension to consider the offer...so that's more waiting.

Waiting on the phone to ring, waiting for someone to buy some of my crap...and oh yeah, waiting for Addy to get over her double ear infection...*big sigh*.

Hindsight is 20/20

So, of course, when I'm listing, it's very rare that I actually stop to think of the logistics of shipping an item.  My brain doesn't work that way.

My old prom dress sold for $62.00 + $14.25 shipping.  I'm happy with that for sure.  However.  It is seven layers of crinoline.  If the top weren't so heavily beaded, it could stand up by itself (which, of course, was a prerequisite of any prom dress I had).  I have realized that shipping this could, possibly, be a huge pain in my butt.  The buyer already paid, so I'll have to start on this tomorrow. 

I have had a couple of sales every day this week, which certainly isn't going to make me rich, but is enough to keep me from whining about it constantly.  I have realized that I have GOT TO get back to yard sales now that the season is starting up.  There's not many in town and I can't go too far up the road since we're looking at a couple of houses tomorrow, so I've got two on my list.  One says "everything $1" and one is a three family yard sale, so we'll see how that goes.

If my dress packing turns out to be as ridiculous as I think it will be, I will try to take some pictures of me failing big time with accompanying expletives.  Should be fun.

*chirp*

Lawks a mercy.  I haven't sold anything since Saturday.  I'm hardly getting any views.  This perplexes me because I have more things up than ever, lots of big brand names, larger sizes, even several items that are new with tags.  I'm assuming part of this is because I'm getting lost in the crowd.  I am reading that people are being tight with money because tax season is coming up, but not EVERYONE in the world is doing this.  Surely someone would want a NWT Talbot's skirt, a prom dress, or some name-brand men's clothing? 

Tyler and I are getting serious about the house buying business so I've been too preoccupied with that to really stress over eBay crap, but not hearing my little "ka-ching" in three days is getting pretty old. 

I get to go to jury duty tomorrow.  Notice how I say "get to" and not "have to".  That's how much I hate going to my job.  Baby will be at day care and I think I only have to go in for orientation, so that leaves me some good thrifting time since I'm supposed to be done by 10:30.  I figure I'll devote an hour or two to that and then go pick up Addy.  Although, it seems like any purchases will be in vain, I did set a listing goal of 175 for the month and I'm at 161, so maybe I can at least accomplish something.

Please Advise.

Well, here's some stuff I just listed today and yesterday.  I actually made it to the estate sale and it had nada, so I trekked to my GW's and Salvation Army:

This is actually my senior prom dress.  I really can't tell from the completeds what I should list this as, but I started an auction at $60 and put BIN for $115.00.  It's in really good shape and I shelled out about $500 for it new.  And, yes I did pay for it, by the way, because mother told me there was no way she was going to.

 This is a David's Bridal bridesmaid dress in a size 22W.  It's in great shape.  This picture also reason #58 of why I need a bloody mannequin.  The shipping on them is so expensive, though!

I thought this was basically the best shirt ever.  It's unbranded (I think the tag was torn out, but it's hard to tell) and it's all embroidered work on here.  Men's size XL, paid $4.50, sold today for $34.99.  Tyler laughed at it when I showed him, but it had 5 watchers before it sold, so HA!  I love quick flips.  I love them even more because they've been so few and far between lately.

I am also having thoughts.  I love selling men's clothes.  I do well with men's clothes (better than books, lately) and I've never had a man send a return back or complain about their stuff.  I am thinking about considering entertaining the possibility of whether to open another basic store wherein I would sell only men's stuff.  Does anyone out there have two basic stores?  Can I have two basic stores?  Is it a giant PITA?  Please advise.

Oh, dear.

I don't know about you, but when I have a yard sale I want to go to, I want to be one of the first suckers there.  I'm off school today, so I figured I'd try to find some indoor sales and take the baby along.  There's an estate sale not too far from our house that starts at 9 (right now!) and I'm here writing this blog!

It's the baby's fault.

We're trying to break Addy of her night time bottles, and of bottles in general.  I have people telling me 80 different things: "oh we broke ours of that before they were one", "oh, just do whatever you want, she's your baby", "oh, she must be spoiled!".  And blah blah blah.  I hate it.  It's been going ok, but last night from 2:00-3:30 she was very upset about the situation.  I finally caved and gave her a bottle, of which she only ate about 3 ounces.  She woke back up at 6, we played a bit, and then she crashed an hour ago.  I was kind of itching to make it to my first estate sale of the season on time, but I'll take a happy well-rested baby over somone's old crap any day.  So I guess I'll just wait it out.

This week has been painfully slow, eBay wise.  Sunday was excellent, so I thought my "end everything and then list it again and pray that it sells" tactic was working, but this week was awful.  I am a big nerd and keep a line graph of my daily sales week by week, and Thursday is always good for me, even during January and February when it was so slow.  Did I have any sales yesterday?  Heck no.  In fact, my stupid Omniture thingy said I only had about 40 people even look at my stuff (I would post a picture of that, but it's down right now...like always). 

If we don't make it to the estate sale, there's a couple consignment sales going on in town and I'll also be heading to the GW, so hopefully I can find some stuff.  I figure since I'm obviously not going to be busy shipping anything, I should make a goal for this month, listing-wise.  I am at 153 right now, thanks to some kid's clothes donations from my sister-in-law, so I think it wouldn't be asking too much to get to about 175 by the end of the month.  I would say 200, but where the hell would I put all that stuff, know what I'm sayin?

I'll post pics if I find anything that I don't instantly regret buying.

Watcheritis

I have a bad case of it.  Watcheritis is what happens when you have a great thing up with lots of watchers who never buy it.  I actually had many things that were infected with this terrible disorder, so I went a little crazy this morning and I ended everything and did sell similar. 

Extreme?  Perhaps.

However, ending 135 things (I did not end fairly recent stuff) only cost me about $20.00 and I figure if one of those things sell, I'll be even.  I also jusitified this in my head by figuring that I'll have to change my return policy to 14 days instead of 7 soon, anyway, so let's just get it out of the way now.

I went thrifting today and Thursday afternoon and picked up some pretty good stuff.

These Nine West shoes are real stunners.  And they're my size!  About four years ago, you would have had to pry them off my cold, dead feet, but priorities and tastes change and now I couldn't imagine wearing them for any length of time.   They retail for $87.00 and these are in very good shape, so I'm asking $34.99.  Paid $4.50

I've had my eye on this shirt at our local Goodwill for a while now (and no one else has bought it, so maybe that's a bad thing).  It's a size XL and has Scooby and other characters coming out of the pocket.  This week, it was the 1/2 off color so I figured I'd go for it.  I have it up for $24.99 and it's already got a watcher.  Paid $2.25

You know, I used to be apprehensive of paying the full Goodwill price for Polo shirts, which is $4.75.  Today, however, since none of them were the 1/2 off color, I figured "what the hell".  I mean, I will gladly pay $4.75 for a sure thing.  I have this one listed for $24.99.  It's 16x32.

Just listed this one today as well and it already sold for $28.99.  See what I mean about a sure thing?

Well, that's what I've got for today.  Hopefully my extreme measures have cured my Watcheritis!