eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎02-09-2020

So I undertake some time consuming types of items to sell... lately it's Stamp collections, next month it's going to be junk coins assembled into auction listings, and there's a box of buttons of military uniforms that are in my office for my next experiment - this I can't lose on, they belong to the B&M store and very little was paid for them.

Maybe it's because I work full time, maybe it's because my job is stressful and dealing with making listings and organizing inventory isn't at the top of my list when I get home from work, but I just find there isn't enough time to do it all.

As I understand, some of you sell very time consuming items too (like clothing, lots of pictures, lots of measurements), I don't envy you, it takes time, and clothes take up a lot of space and are susceptible to poor climate conditions, stamps take up less space, but need to be stored in a climate controlled place.

So I'm wondering how you juggle and manage all the maintenance that's required to keep your eBay store open (sourcing, listing, photographing) on top of your every day life.

I don't think I had this problem until a few months ago... but last October work introduced an automation system that eliminated the need for a human to be supervising our work group. We now have software that keeps track of every second of our day, including how long we spend in the bathroom. Knowing a report is being created every day of my activities has made life extra stressful and less fun when I come home.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎02-11-2020

@equid0x wrote:
I'm curious what it is you do? I was in charge of a call center for many years, and 9-12 calls from the ACD was a "typical" day. To add, there were other direct calls coming in as well.

2 calls a day sounds remarkably low but may not be if you average call is 3 or 4 hours.

I work in liability claims. We're a team of 8. We work in two teams, one handles all electronic incoming documents (emails and faxes, which come in through email), the other team handles physical mail, opening, scanning, validating to the correct file. Everything is paperless, so where we used to be a team of 5 in total, we became a team of 10 to handle the new tasks. Two people quit in the past month, so we're down to 8 which is our bare minimum to function.

Prior to this phone queue/call center type of environment, we all had phones with a common line. When someone couldn't reach the person they wanted to speak with in our department, the call would bounce to us, and whoever could answer the call, did answer it. Our manager tried to encourage even distribution of calls among our team. These calls last a few minutes (maybe 5 minutes if it's complicated or we have difficulty finding someone for them to speak with).

In addition to dealing with all the mail and faxes, we issue cheques for settlements, archive paper files (left over from when we had paper, they kept the files until closed, even though the physical file wasn't receiving any additional documents). We receive cheques from lawyers when we overpay. We download documents to a CD from the file to send to a lawyer (or photocopy it if there's a paper file still). We transfer documents to a server for our internal counsel when there's a dispute. All this could be done by two people full time every day, but since we're short staffed, we have to share this extra workload.

The call centre thing came in around October and now I get idiot calls from people all over Canada that are not even related to what I do. They assigned one person to take the bulk of all calls (this is all she does, she takes 100 calls a day), and then there's tier 1 handled by people in Alberta. Our group is tier two, we only get a call if the main receptionist is busy, and all tier 1 operators are on calls. There's at least 30 of us on tier 2 and the calls come in, in order, of how long we've been waiting for a call.

I was online twice today for 1.5 hours (which is a long time for me to stay at my desk) and I got zero calls today. Yesterday I got one call after being online for an hour straight. If I leave my desk every 30 minutes, I get no calls at all because I'm not there long enough to wait out the previous 29 operators getting calls. My typical phone call is 30 seconds because they have the wrong department and I'm rerouting it like a phone operator would do. I also get calls that concern our partner companies which have systems I don't have access to, to find out who they should speak with. The headset that's glued to my head (because they aren't cordless) interferes with my productivity.

C.

upgradedendmills · ‎02-11-2020

Are the stamps part of a long term plan?

sin-n-dex · ‎02-12-2020

@upgradedendmills wrote:
Are the stamps part of a long term plan?

No, my partner and I are always looking for things to do together and he has a bit of interest in stamps (but not much knowledge). When we were travelling in New Zealand last December we bought 3 albums to bring home and sell (in pieces). My objective was to get stamps that were common and easy to find down there, but more rare up here.

I've moved along to buying collections from Europe, but the shipping is pretty steep on some of these larger albums.

The short answer, it's just for fun. It's what I really want to be doing instead of all this other stuff that feels too much like work. I find sorting them out and studying them to be pretty relaxing.

C.

keziak · ‎02-12-2020

@sin-n-dex wrote:

So I'm wondering how you juggle and manage all the maintenance that's required to keep your eBay store open (sourcing, listing, photographing) on top of your every day life.

C.

Well, this IS my full time job. I admire you in running an ebay business on the side. Good for you! I'm not even a WAH mom now, the kids are grown and only need me for emotional support anymore, not all the supervising homework, driving to activities, etc etc.

Having said that, "not enough time in the day" should be my bumper sticker. I have been advised numerous times to get up boundaries for work and not consider it just an never-ending, never-done job. It's not like I NEVER do anything else. I run errands, volunteer most days at the library (they would be sunk without me), take naps, eat meals, and watch DVDs. The difference is that I can't help but bring work home because it IS home.

I also have NEVER managed to go on vacation for more than a day and not check in with the biz, even though IT is on vacation! I can't tell you how many times I've been at far flung family reunions and still managed to find a library with free Internet access. More recently I've brought along a laptop and have made sure we've stayed places with wi-fi.

writertypes · ‎02-13-2020

.

What a delightful thread! It's nice to roam along an eBay peripheral or eBayless altogether sidestreet. Thanks guys -- especially sin-n-dex, steeler and chapeau -- for letting me eavesdrop.

equid0x · ‎02-13-2020

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@equid0x wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
. He was hired as an efficiency expert to transform the company, and micromanagement is what he's decided he's going to do.

That's all I needed to hear. I would stage an exit, ASAP.
Easier said than done... I'm paid $5 an hour more than other companies pay for the same type of job. Everyone is supposed to get 2 weeks of holidays, but due to seniority at my company I get 6. They give me an hour for lunch, but most companies only give 30 minutes. My benefits cover my medications 100% (which would cost me $600 a month if paid out of pocket). I get $2500 a year in dental coverage (my co-pay is 10%), which I frequently need due to less than fantastic teeth. I'm 3 miles from work, so I can go home for lunch (enough time and close enough).

All of that might be worth putting up with a bit of difficulty coping at work. We are monitored for being on time (to the second) and not leaving before our scheduled time (to the second), which I know I will do fine at because I go to work 15 minutes early to take advantage of a breakfast sandwich in the cafeteria before I start work. I've noticed that in my group of 8 people I'm the only person who is at work on time... so I'm not too worried about my performance here.

And most of all, I know the job very well and won't have to learn a bunch of new systems and tasks. I've been on our team for 8 years longer than the next most senior person, so everyone comes to me for help with the more difficult tasks. (And there's a few things there that only I know how to do, another reason I'm not worried about losing my job).

C.

Everything is up to you in life. Your benefits sound good, and if this is working for you, I could see why you wouldn't want to rock the boat.

Personally, I can't stand being micromanaged and that will drive me crazy faster than anything. You want that dude who walks in one day and goes postal, to me, that's how you get it.

Can you deal with it? If you can, then why are you here complaining about it?

These are the questions... only you have the answers.

equid0x · ‎02-13-2020

@chapeau-noir wrote:
@equid0x wrote:
@steelernation2007 wrote:
LED does not make blue light if you use the proper camera settings. There is a setting called "Fluorescent Light". I know, someone is going to tell me cell phone cameras don't have that. People should not be taking Ebay photos with a cell phone anyhow.
I wonder about this, though. I can sit down and take 5 shots of the same item under the same conditions on the same backdrop and get 5 different results.

I'm really beginning to wonder if there is something up with my camera although I never had these problems when I shot my photos on a white background.
Have you tried a gray card?

I have not. I kinda know what this is. Kinda. It has to be some color from the .... uhh erggghhh.... oh yes.. pantone pallet? Is that right?

I'm not a photographer... and I'm not exactly interested in it either, which is part of the problem.

I've picked up a few things being around marketing departments over the years but TBH it drives me nuts.

Do you think it will fix it? Do you have one? If you think it will fix it, I'll but it from you.

equid0x · ‎02-13-2020

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@equid0x wrote:
I'm curious what it is you do? I was in charge of a call center for many years, and 9-12 calls from the ACD was a "typical" day. To add, there were other direct calls coming in as well.

2 calls a day sounds remarkably low but may not be if you average call is 3 or 4 hours.
I work in liability claims. We're a team of 8. We work in two teams, one handles all electronic incoming documents (emails and faxes, which come in through email), the other team handles physical mail, opening, scanning, validating to the correct file. Everything is paperless, so where we used to be a team of 5 in total, we became a team of 10 to handle the new tasks. Two people quit in the past month, so we're down to 8 which is our bare minimum to function.

Prior to this phone queue/call center type of environment, we all had phones with a common line. When someone couldn't reach the person they wanted to speak with in our department, the call would bounce to us, and whoever could answer the call, did answer it. Our manager tried to encourage even distribution of calls among our team. These calls last a few minutes (maybe 5 minutes if it's complicated or we have difficulty finding someone for them to speak with).

In addition to dealing with all the mail and faxes, we issue cheques for settlements, archive paper files (left over from when we had paper, they kept the files until closed, even though the physical file wasn't receiving any additional documents). We receive cheques from lawyers when we overpay. We download documents to a CD from the file to send to a lawyer (or photocopy it if there's a paper file still). We transfer documents to a server for our internal counsel when there's a dispute. All this could be done by two people full time every day, but since we're short staffed, we have to share this extra workload.

The call centre thing came in around October and now I get idiot calls from people all over Canada that are not even related to what I do. They assigned one person to take the bulk of all calls (this is all she does, she takes 100 calls a day), and then there's tier 1 handled by people in Alberta. Our group is tier two, we only get a call if the main receptionist is busy, and all tier 1 operators are on calls. There's at least 30 of us on tier 2 and the calls come in, in order, of how long we've been waiting for a call.

I was online twice today for 1.5 hours (which is a long time for me to stay at my desk) and I got zero calls today. Yesterday I got one call after being online for an hour straight. If I leave my desk every 30 minutes, I get no calls at all because I'm not there long enough to wait out the previous 29 operators getting calls. My typical phone call is 30 seconds because they have the wrong department and I'm rerouting it like a phone operator would do. I also get calls that concern our partner companies which have systems I don't have access to, to find out who they should speak with. The headset that's glued to my head (because they aren't cordless) interferes with my productivity.

C.

Hmmm... that was WAY more of a response than I expected to get... but it does explain it.

I wasn't calling you out, just speaking from general experience. No malice meant.

I actually never took a look at how non-wireless headsets effected out engineers. We did not use them when I started there... and I only granted even myself the wireless one when mine broke. When new operators came on, and wireless were readily available, we started buying those, but for no particular reason other than that they were cheap and available. As older headsets died out, we replaced them with wireless.

We always had an ACD which was replaced actually a couple of times as the company grew. It made no difference to our engineers but was kinda a PITA to supervisors and management as we had to keep "re-inventing the wheel" on reporting based on whatever system we ended up with.

Actually, when we got bought out, we refused to change the system because we had only changed it last less than a year before. So, they had to setup their system to transfer their calls to ours in the way we wanted them. This stuck around for nearly 4 years before we agreed to get on the new one.

When the systems had been replaced we really didn't have an choice. The old system just couldn't handle the volume and was dropping calls.

We weren't so worried about our people and the ability to learn new systems. We just did not want the interruptions for the customers.

clu3 · ‎02-13-2020

I thought this was a fantastic article for product photography.

I have a lot of books and getting the correct lighting was impossible. Recently I purchased a light box from Amazon that has the LED lighting built into the top of it. I like it, it's collapsible and so far I'm getting better results but I haven't had much time to really work on it yet.