Selling Issues And Tips

[whotoldya]

One of our members asked for us to create this category.

[tokersexchick]

I am having the WORST few weeks. I'm not sure what's going on with my buyers but I'm trying to figure it out & I ran into this old post.
I haven't had many returns but the last 2 were terrible. 1 sent me back 2 used hats. Ebay told me to just resell them as used. That's just not sanitary. My immune system sucks & i don't need to work with Used body base layers.
Then I had another buy an almost $20 skein of 3.5 oz yarn & sent me back 2.7 oz.
Then I got neutral feedback cuz someone didn't like my packaging. I have these new shoes I got from the charity that I ship free in a flat rate envelope for $12.95 & if they want a box they cost $10.95.
Then someone didn't like my user ID & left me negative feedback saying something about my user ID & that I sent used underwear. This DID NOT happen. I don't even know what to do. I had a buyer who wanted to try a few different panties so I threw a bunch of split packs of 1 or 2 pcs & sold maybe 10 or 20 for $5 & her underwear somehow got used on the way to Canada I guess... Of course none of them contacted me or filed cases.
It's been a good many years since I've had even neutral feedback. It's so depressing! Some of these people are just too much.
My health has been up & down but I just keep going. I'm actually lucky & I have to stay positive. I think I'm realizing that there's some people out in the world with terrible issues & being disabled kind of keeps us a little insulated from it so running into them on eBay is a bit shocking. At least I can block them & move on. I have A lot of great customers & have made some great friends.
Does anyone know about these Blacklists? I'm wondering if it would help me. One of the sites say they investigate to make sure their list is of valid bad buyers. I'm open to anything helpful at this point.

[comics-scifi-collectibles]

Just loving "not" the new Spring Seller Update May 2015   I just started selling again recently and was trying hard to get the required 100 sales to make the top rated seller tier ASAP before I sold too many how value items so I could get my 20% final value fee discount. 

Seems like we'll need that more than ever now that they cut the free listing from 100 to 40 a month for all catagories ,  20 in collectibles which is the only thing we sell:(   

Keith has a lot high value comics that we're going to get graded to sell, but I may start looking at other sites that deal specifically in comics.

Kind of a wait and see I guess since they keep throwing the free listings all the time, I have a feeling they will stop doing that though and are trying to make more people buy into stores, although if I am not reading it incorrectly they only allow 100 "free" listings in collectibles for auctions in ALL store catagories.   As a collectible is often of an unknown value, markets change etc, I always list auction on these. 

I guess the ebay share holders want a quicker turn over with more buy it now sales.  I think it will back fire and they are going to see a decline in sales over all. 

OK, that's my rant:) 

Jenny

[tokersexchick]

If you are trying to get your item number up & it wouldn't be a HUGE take on is there anyone you could work with & maybe share a sales account?
My numbers did not go up until I started working with a local charity that did not do EBay but I have free time. Since they get the profits back & I get a receipt I don't owe taxes at the end of the year & I have gotten between $30,000-$45,000/ total in a year over a few years in the past.
The charity had pallets of new Target items & I mainly chose clothes but got a few others as well like seasonal. There were benefits to me - I was offered whatever I could use & we set a value for the pallet which I pay when I picked it up. I 1st approached them cuz I felt the people who were buying it from them just were not paying enough.
For several years I was able to donate a bunch of stuff to my disabled but low income hospital friends or just people we knew in need. People who wouldn't ask for help that would accept something from me thinking I just had stuff I needed to get rid of.
Target donates alot of stuff to charity & many of them needs funds so it helps them to sell about 1/2 of it.
besides these items I sell the hats I make to help my hand that was almost cut off. There's about 150 different ones - too many for the low store & not enough for the middle store but by combining my 2 projects it's perfect.
Teaming up with another person is an option. This last year I haven't been able to get out & get new stuff so I had time to mentor a new seller. Sometimes I think it would have been easier to let her list 25 or 50 items. At 1 st I had to log on to her store to fix her listings anyways & she needed some access to mine to figure it out. She knits & I crochet so we share yarn to have matching items. We even teamed up to buy yarn we needed that was being discontinued. Having a kind of partner is pretty awesome. She's totally on her own now - she learned really fast by having help but from October until maybe January we did much that could have been done on 1 acct.
Since I do EBay to stay busy I have a ton of ideas. Luckily I'm still years away until I will be a real business plus I'm very fortunate my family is financially stable so they have been on board with the long term plan but I use this time to just educate myself so when my mom retires we can have her an arts & craft store & studio ready for her & all the other ladies that I can support with the online sales. I want to turn what she enjoys doing into something I can also do.
It can be hard to sell for or with others but if you come up with a plan it can be done. You won't make the money from them directly but you will benefit in other areas.
Who knows maybe you can find someone to help grade & sort your collectibles - do the work you can't & you do their listings? That's where a lot of us run out of time - it takes 1 person to just knock out EBay & another to take pix & put it all together to process enough to make money.
I know this is long but I hope it helps - at least gives you some out of the box ideas.
Cynthia