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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Understanding the Stock Market

(note: I was cleaning out old files on my computer and found this--perhaps you'll get a chuckle from it!)

Once upon a time, in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching.

The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

While the man was away the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

They never saw the man nor his assistant again, and once again there were monkeys everywhere.

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

New Postage Rates Next Week

New carrier rates will be in effect January 2, 2011 for USPS and January 3, 2011 for UPS. Once in effect, rates in the Shipping Calculator, eBay labels, and PayPal labels will be updated. Make sure your shipping costs reflect these new rates.

Friday, December 24, 2010

eBay's Christmas Present to Me

Merry Christmas to me! 

I got my green star on eBay! 

It means I have finally reached 5,000 positive feedbacks from my customers...it's taken almost 10 years. My next star will be a shooting star!  I hope that doesn't take another 10 years..... 

Here's what the different stars mean:
Yellow star () = 10 to 49 ratings
Blue star () = 50 to 99 ratings
Turquoise star () = 100 to 499 ratings
Purple star () = 500 to 999 ratings
Red star () = 1,000 to 4,999 ratings
Green star () = 5,000 to 9,999 ratings
Yellow shooting star () = 10,000 to 24,999 ratings
Turquoise shooting star () = 25,000 to 49,999 ratings
Purple shooting star () = 50,000 to 99,999 ratings
Red shooting star () = 100,000 to 499,999 ratings
Green shooting star () = 500,000 to 999,999 ratings
Silver shooting star  () = 1,000,000 ratings or more

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Going on a road trip!

I’m going to be gone for a while next month, so I will be putting my eBay store “on Vacation.”  This is a handy little setting that eBay has available for store owners who might be away for a short time. 

eBay will put a note at the top of each page that says: 

This seller is currently away until mm/dd/yyyy (it lets you fill in whatever date you want here), and is not processing orders at this time. You can add this item to your watch list to purchase later.

There is also an option for a personal message on my store front—I may put up something like this:

I am away and not able to send items out until February.  If you do buy and pay for an item, please keep in mind that I cannot send it out right now.  Thank you for looking! 

I did the same think last June when we went to West Virginia….and I still sold a few items while gone.  I emailed the buyers and they were very understanding about the delay in receiving their purchases. 

But, that’s two weeks away—so for now, I’m still listing and listing some more! 

Thursday, December 16, 2010

How Does Santa Do it All?

UPS is calling next week its "Peak Week," and on Wednesday, December 22nd, it says it will deliver 24 million packages from holiday gift-givers and online retailers, 60 percent more than usual delivery volumes. It says the 9 million extra packages it will deliver on December 22 represents more business than its largest competitor handles on an average day.

UPS added roughly 50,000 seasonal workers to handle the surge in package deliveries.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Sending money through Paypal

Here's a trick I used just this week when I needed to send money to private person thru Paypal (as opposed to paying for an item on eBay, etc.):

After you log into your account page, find the Send Money tab at the top.  That takes you to another page where you fill in the person’s email (Paypal ID) and the amount to send.  Under that you’ll see a box with 2 tabs: Purchase or Personal.  Choose the one marked Personal, which will give you more choices (gift, payment owed, etc.).  I usually choose Payment Owed.  Hit Send.  The person you are sending money to will not pay any fees to receive the money.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Packing Fragile Items

You want to make sure that your package arrives to your customer in the same condition you sent it.  That seems easy enough. But sometimes I have received a poorly packaged item.
Here's how I pack, and it's how I suggest you pack too:


This shows the item inside a box (the blue box), where it has its own layer of styrofoam or other cushioning. Then that box is surrounded by two to three inches of additional cushioning, and that's inside another box.

Nothing is perfectly safe, of course, but so far I have had no items damaged while being shipped to a customer when it's been packed this way. On the other hand, I have received sometimes damaged items and that happened because the packing wasn't good enough for the chance of rough handling.

Time to Get to Work!

Monday morning--a new week!  Time to get organized and get some things listed!

Look at all these great books I found at the Salvation Army Thrift store last week--I like the prices at SA over the ones at Goodwill.  Hardcover books (here) at SA are 50¢ and paperback are 3/$1.  But GW prices are $2 and $1!  Big difference!  And, I think the overall pricing system at SA is better than GW....

Any sportsmen out there?  Notice those two old Shooter's Bibles?  One is dated 1951 and the other is 1960 (I paid a bit more than regular price for those--even SA knew they were special  LOL).

The shoes?  Oh yes!  Anytime you find good quality (watch for expensive brands, too) leather shoes at a good price, grab them up!  Also, look for dance shoes, larger sizes, and narrow or wide sizes--all will eventually sell!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Don't laugh at me!

Now, don’t you laugh—I sold another Hippo Birdie Two Ewe mug!  Husband John thought the first one I sold was crazy and just shook his head in disbelief when I found a second one (after sending the first one to Australia). 
The second one has been listed just a couple of weeks, and it sold tonight!  Whoo Hoo! (Now I need to go find another—wouldn’t that be a trip!)

Free Shipping!

I tried something new for my birthday—I set everything in my eBay store to free shipping for 24 hours.  It was a learning experience to say the least!
I may be changing my opinion on the Free Shipping option—if you recall, I’ve always said it isn’t worth it because I’d have to raise prices on each item to offset the shipping.  And in doing so, my eBay fees will raise due to the higher final price.  That’s true, but it seems the free shipping icon attracts more sales, so if I’m moving more items out of my store, it balances out…
On the other hand, I sold a few items that cost me extra to ship, so I didn’t make much on them (men’s shoes that cost me $10.20 to send). 
So, I think I will start offering FREE shipping when I know the shipping will be fairly minimal: such as when selling a smaller item where the shipping may be around  $3.00 or less to send it via flat rate or media mail.  That will make customers happy, and happy customers might look around at my other listings, and buy more!

What do you think?  Do you use Free Shipping much?