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Moving To A Store Subscription
I'm about ready to jump into a store subscription. I have 627 listings right now that I've been working on for a while. I have thousands more. Over half of my listings are sports trading cards and other similar collectibles. I haven't even started on the clothing yet. I had a small store back in the day with the same name so there will be a little bit of a following once I change from my free store that's listed under my name. My intention is to sell anything and everything, but I have a passion for sports cards and memorabilia and music gear, mainly guitars, but also accessories, such as cables, straps, picks, really anything music. I've got percussion listed right now, as well as a harmonica. I have a pile of amps and guitars. I've only listed one guitar and it hasn't sold. I buy them and take them completely apart, re-wire them, and basically make them sound good for the customer. I like selling somebody a guitar they can plug in and have it play well, play easy, and sound great.
So, here's the question(s)...1.If I purchase the Basic Subscription, do my current listings transfer to the store subscription? I really don't want to have to go back through this stuff and re-list. 2) I'm going after this. I'm serious with what I'm doing, even though it's new to me. I need help with organization. With the store subscription, do I have options to break my inventory down into different sections? I am going to sell items I'm passionate about, so there will be a lot of tools, snowboard gear, boots, electronics, sporting goods, men's clothing, hats, and of course the sports cards and music gear. I have a room setup with shelves for inventory as I want to make sure I'm as organized as possible...not my strong suit. Are there organizational tools that come with the store subscription? 3) The listing capacity. I was told to list, list, list, but then I'm seeing stuff about being charged for every listing over 250. Is that 250 per month or 250 total? Being that I'm pushing toward 700 and will probably be at 1,000 by the end of the weekend. The basic subscription says 1,000/month. That seems about right. The Starter subscription seems pointless for me, and Premium seems like it's a little too much for what I need. I'm new to this and want to make sure I'm making the best decisions possible. Everything has a learning curve and I've already made mistakes and I'll make more. That's how we learn, but that also doesn't mean I want to just flounder and flail. Minimizing the mistakes and blunders is certainly preferable.
If you've stuck with me this far, I am open to any advice or suggestions that anybody is willing to share with me. I really enjoy doing this. It's slowly going better and better, so the one thing I know from conventional business is that you can't tread water. You're either moving forward or you're drowning, so I'm going to keep moving. I mean $22/month isn't much, but it's a question of whether or not it's time to just take the next step or do I keep moving along as I have been. I feel like my listing skills are getting better every day, I'm understanding more and more about the platform, so I'm thinking it's time to make the next move. I'm hoping that I basically am able to just move all my listings into the store under the new name and just keep moving. If I have to re-list that's going to be a real bummer. Anybody who reads all this is awesome! I'm wordy and not sorry about it. I'm not for everybody and am well aware of it, but hopefully in a few years I'll be able to help somebody else with some solid advice when they're trying to get up and running. Any suggestions are welcome! Thank you!
Mike
wooden_flower
Mentor2 years agoYour listings automatically go into your store, all into a category called other. You can then set up lots of categories and subcategories to organize your store.
Right now, you are being charged $.35 for each insertion over 250 each month. You definitely want at least a basic subscription - the starter does not get you any additional insertions, and no fee discounts. Besides the 1,000 use for any fixed price item you get with a basic store, you get 10,000 that can be used in certain categories, which includes trading cards.
If you're not sure you'll stick with it, start with a month to month subscription at $28 per month - there is no early termination fee. You are spending way more than $28 on insertion fees right now, so you will still save a lot. (You are probably paying over $120 per month now.)
Even at 600 listings you will save with a basic store, but you should also know your personal selling limit - a store does not raise that limit, so you might not be able to use all of the available insertions with a basic store right away. Go to your selling home page - you should see 2 boxes towards the bottom of the page - one shows the 250 and how many you have used, the other shows your personal limit and what you can still list/sell this month.
Card sellers seem to be given substantial limits, so it might not be an issue, but you should know what it is.
Wordy is no problem, but a few more paragraph breaks will make your posts easier to read 🙂