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?

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@grand-and-glorious-purpose wrote:

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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.

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Well, that's one possibility, but there are many other possibilities, all of which involve user error. 

Personally, I've never had a listing go missing that wasn't most likely user error.  

@keziak  I used to inventory once a year, but it's grown way too much for that.  I keep a running inventory for tax purposes but I don't actually physically check on any given schedule.  I have an amazing memory & so what I do is when I'm looking at my photos, it always jumps out at me if I haven't seen an item listed for awhile.  So, once my brain glances at the pic & says to me, hmmm, I haven't seen that for awhile, I actually check & 99% of the time, it in fact got unlisted.  Since I constantly list & unlist (seasonal merchandise), this usually happens due to user error.  99% of the time b/c I use eBay's UNSOLDs to know what to relist & those are only there for 90 days, so occasionally I get busy & they drop off the list & I missed the drop off & don't remember what was there in the UNSOLDs. 

[chapeau-noir]

I've had listings go missing routinely - I think they may get dropped during indexing and it's usually toward the 60 day mark when I'm getting ready to turn everything over. Every few months I'll be going through my hanging racks and think "I haven't seen this running" and sure enough - it's gone. I look upon it as 'new' inventory. The problem hasn't been as bad since I've not allowed listings to run past 60 days.

[keziak]

It's just been such a large number of unlisted books. I've increased my ebay inventory a lot by listing stuff I originally only had on Amazon and all these unlisted books.  Just had one of those sell in hours, just have been on someone's saved sale list or something. Prior to that it was just taking up room on the shelf. 

[sin-n-dex]

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@keziak wrote:

It's just been such a large number of unlisted books. I've increased my ebay inventory a lot by listing stuff I originally only had on Amazon and all these unlisted books.  Just had one of those sell in hours, just have been on someone's saved sale list or something. Prior to that it was just taking up room on the shelf. 

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I use SixBit and I can tell looking through SixBit if an item is no longer listed (so I can relist it). It will differentiate between items that are sold out, and items that are in stock but not listed.

It's not practical for every seller to use SixBit because of the expense (I think it's $30 a year), but to manage 11K in listings and have things in folders so I can do mass edits on sections of listings it seems to work pretty well. (Plus it's subsidized by the brick and mortar store who shares any necessary expenses relating to selling here, provided I have a good argument on why we need it).

C.

[reallynicestamps]

having to haul books from shelves in the basement to the first floor where I use my laptop.

How much does your laptop weigh?
Did you know they are portable?

Don't move the books, move the laptop.

or

Get a pencil and a piece of paper, write down all the authors and titles on a given shelf and bring that to your laptop.

[reallynicestamps]

I have been shocked when doing inventory to find so many books not listed online and I don't know why.

EBay has been getting reports for decades of listings suddenly disappearing without warning.

At one point they did warn us longtail sellers that a given OOAK listing had been up without selling for 16 months.

Those I would take down, rethink and usually relist. Occasionnally donate.

Even worse than the delisted items are the relisted /ghost listings where a Sold item relists weeks or occasionally years later.

One advantage of the current Canada Post labour dispute is that I can take time to review my listings and see if there are any anomalies.

But the dispute has moved from Strike to Work to Rule (no overtime basically) for the next two weeks so we have a little respite.

Unless management goes on strike and locks the workers out.

[chapeau-noir]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@keziak wrote:

It's just been such a large number of unlisted books. I've increased my ebay inventory a lot by listing stuff I originally only had on Amazon and all these unlisted books.  Just had one of those sell in hours, just have been on someone's saved sale list or something. Prior to that it was just taking up room on the shelf. 

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I use SixBit and I can tell looking through SixBit if an item is no longer listed (so I can relist it). It will differentiate between items that are sold out, and items that are in stock but not listed.

It's not practical for every seller to use SixBit because of the expense (I think it's $30 a year), but to manage 11K in listings and have things in folders so I can do mass edits on sections of listings it seems to work pretty well. (Plus it's subsidized by the brick and mortar store who shares any necessary expenses relating to selling here, provided I have a good argument on why we need it).

C.

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$30/year is less than $3 per month, though - I'd say that's a thrifty bargain for a tool that sounds like it works so well. In fact, even at my small size (but with three platforms) it would be a cheap investment for archiving since I'm now only selling part-time these days (only when I'm in the US). I hadn't realised.

[wastingtime101]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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It's not practical for every seller to use SixBit because of the expense (I think it's $30 a year), but to manage 11K in listings and have things in folders so I can do mass edits on sections of listings it seems to work pretty well. (Plus it's subsidized by the brick and mortar store who shares any necessary expenses relating to selling here, provided I have a good argument on why we need it).

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$30/year is less than $3 per month, though - I'd say that's a thrifty bargain for a tool that sounds like it works so well. In fact, even at my small size (but with three platforms) it would be a cheap investment for archiving since I'm now only selling part-time these days (only when I'm in the US). I hadn't realised.

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Typo @chapeau-noir .  $30/month

https://www.sixbitsoftware.com/pricing/

[lakefor94]

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

I never go back and inventory anything. When I get inventory, I either list it, recycle or trash it. There is no in between.  List it, and document the EXACT location of the item within the SKU field of the listing. 

All items stay listed until they sell. I have at times, ended listings and recycle/trash them. Nothing sits here unlisted.