inventory work shocker

[keziak]

Last year I quit Amazon and since then have been laborously inventorying my whole collection to find books to list on Ebay.

I put slips in books so I could tell what had never been on Ebay and what  had been here roughly a year ago and older. The shocking part is the high percentage of those books not actually listed. I have been thinking about how this happened but I really have no clue. 

So now I am thinking I'll need to do the whole thing again on a regular basis. One reason I find it hard work is because of having to haul books from shelves in the basement to the first floor where I use my laptop. Also the books I need to list pile up faster than I can list them causing clutter upstairs.

If you inventory your stock do you do it all at once or maybe target areas by age?

[keziak]

I am sorry about your surgery. Please take care to get enough recovery. I've personally run into trouble with that. It's hard to deal in books after surgery. One reason I am delaying knee replacement until it just had to be done.

[wastingtime101]

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@keziak wrote:

As for the laptop I  have tried to figure out a place to set one up and have come up short. 

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I get that, just putting it out there because you said lugging books up and down stairs is a problem. I've been in some seriously cramped spaces where I did inventory for others and just plopped my laptop on top of a stack of boxes and stood there to fill out the spreadsheet. You just need to get the bare bones in there and can flesh out the rest in your regular office spot.

Another option is taking photos in your basement - like if books are in a box with spines out or if you can remove the books from the box and stack them spines out - snap pics of what you have then when you're upstairs you can go through the pics and log it all in your spreadsheet. They can be terrible quality as long as you can make out the essentials needed (book title/author/storage box number).

Save your back and get creative.

[keziak]

It's even worse than I described. I carry books to the first floor kitchen to look up but then the keepers have to go to the second floor to list! Then back down 2 floors. I get help from my son but he has a hard job and I'm not going to give  him a second one. If it finally gets to be more than I can handle, well, I'm in my 60s and retiring has its appeal. I currently work about half to two-thirds time. When I get the inventory work done and it's not booksale season I will have only a small fraction of the current load to deal with. 

In the meantime I am also working through boxes and purging them to a significant extent. I'm hoping when things slow down I can do more of that. This is the sort of stuff I always listed at auction but I've slowed way down at that work too. 

[sin-n-dex]

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@keziak wrote:

I am sorry about your surgery. Please take care to get enough recovery. I've personally run into trouble with that. It's hard to deal in books after surgery. One reason I am delaying knee replacement until it just had to be done.

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If you need knee replacement you shouldn't be going up and down so many flights of stairs all day. But good luck with the replacement. In Canada the wait list is 18-24 months long.

I'm currently showing my roommate how to get into my eBay account and put me on time away or end listings since a trip to hospital (and staying there) is very likely in the next couple of months... if I go that long without that, I should be OK. Supposedly the medication I got will take a couple of months to start working and fixing things so I can be like before. My partner knows how to end listings but I thought it might be easier to get my roommate to do it since he'll be aware pretty much the minute I go to hospital, no delays. I just have to make sure I get items packed and ready to ship quickly in case that happens.

But if work doesn't approve of eBay sales while they're paying benefits it's kind of a no go... I tell myself this is only for a couple of months, if they don't approve it I can start selling the minute I return to work.

C.

[keziak]

How are you going to pack orders when in the hospital or laid up? 

By knee surgery I mean that is possibly in my future. Also the shots. But I told the specialist that I wanted to try lifestyle changes first and I took up swimming which is like a miracle drug though my knees still  hurt some of the time. I haven't gotten to the pool as much as before because of reasons. I like to swim but getting to the pool is problematic.

Another doctor at my check up said if I lost the weight it would help my knees. I've lost and gained the same 30 lbs over the years so I don't know if I can stick to a reducing diet but I am trying. 

[fbusoni]

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@keziak wrote:

Last year I quit Amazon and since then have been laborously inventorying my whole collection to find books to list on Ebay.

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@keziak 

Unless I misunderstand your post, it sounds like this is more a question of organization of inventory than anything else.

FWIW, I have two rooms in my house where I keep inventory.

In one room is inventory that is on eBay.

Everything else is in another room, waiting to be added to my eBay selling account.

That is how I inventory my stock.  

I let eBay's computers do everything else.

[keziak]

I think my organization is OK but I have been shocked when doing inventory to find so many books not listed online and I don't know why.  Inventorying everything is a ton of work. I was wondering if people here do it as one  job periodically or chunk it out in pieces like maybe whatever is in stock the longest.

[keziak]

Though that wouldn't help the unlisted problem. Maybe do one section at a time more often. 

[sin-n-dex]

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@keziak wrote:

How are you going to pack orders when in the hospital or laid up? 

By knee surgery I mean that is possibly in my future. Also the shots. But I told the specialist that I wanted to try lifestyle changes first and I took up swimming which is like a miracle drug though my knees still  hurt some of the time. I haven't gotten to the pool as much as before because of reasons. I like to swim but getting to the pool is problematic.

Another doctor at my check up said if I lost the weight it would help my knees. I've lost and gained the same 30 lbs over the years so I don't know if I can stick to a reducing diet but I am trying. 

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I'm on time away right now (and have already done one stint in hospital since I started time away, in addition to the surgery which was my original reason for shutting down). I'm waiting to hear what my doctor says on Monday, and if my work allows it or not, to decide if I'll be visible next week or stay on time away (I realize I have to reset it every 30 days).

C.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Because ebay constantly just poofs listings and they just vanish into the ether, not to be found in active, unsold, completed or ended. Just gone like the wind.

I'm forever finding stuff that was listed and now isn't when I'm hunting for sold items or just generally sorting/organising.

It's a royal pain in the patootie.

[wastingtime101]

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@keziak wrote:

I think my organization is OK but I have been shocked when doing inventory to find so many books not listed online and I don't know why.  Inventorying everything is a ton of work. I was wondering if people here do it as one  job periodically or chunk it out in pieces like maybe whatever is in stock the longest.

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I inventory as stuff comes in, before it's stored, and keep it up to date as I list/sell.

All I have to do is filter my spreadsheet to see what's listed (or not listed) and on which marketplace.

Then I go through twice a year to confirm accuracy.

[redlinear]

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@keziak wrote:

I think my organization is OK but I have been shocked when doing inventory to find so many books not listed online and I don't know why.  Inventorying everything is a ton of work. I was wondering if people here do it as one  job periodically or chunk it out in pieces like maybe whatever is in stock the longest.

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I don't sell books, but I can't see it being much different than anything else once you start taking pics.
I take pictures of 50 items, store each item in a numbered location, list them on eBay with the location in the listing.
Done.
If I want to know if I have something, I just search my listings.
If somebody wants to see my entire inventory, I send them a link to all of my listings.
If somebody wants to see ALL of my Ford F250 parts.  I search my listings for Ford F250 and then send them that link.  (That one works awesome for sales!)

[gloryglorygifts]

Thoughts and prayers for you for a speedy recovery!

[grand-and-glorious-purpose]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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I didn't hear about that. I have all OOAK items,

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If they deleted your pictures and it went to auto re-list and you didn't have a picture...because ebay deleted it then your listing did not re-list and got it deleted.

With no trail.

...and no notification. 

...and certainly no recompense.

[keziak]

I ran into the same phenomenon prior to last year when I would inventory sections of books to confirm the books were listed on Amazon. SO many allegedly on Amazon were not in fact listed. This has happened to other people I know online. It really does feel like older listings may be dumped off the site with no information provided to sellers.