Ep 227 || A Conversation with Seller Cheryl Hinton

[podcast_team]

We meet seller Cheryl Hinton who shares her sourcing methods. Brian and Griff answer your questions about DHL and eBay, eBay shipping rate tables, and whether or not to oblige a buyer request to split a lot listing.

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Episode Links:
USPS Jan 2023 Rate Changes Page
eBay International Standard Delivery Rates
Introducing eBay International Shipping
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Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: And I'm Griff. This is the eBay for Business Podcast, your source for the information and inspiration to help you start and manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this, by the way, is episode 227. Brian, you're so far away.

Brian: I am so far away.

Griff: Brian is in the studio and we're testing out our setup here in Riverside, which we love Riverside.fm. If you're thinking about starting a podcast, highly recommend it. I don't get paid anything for saying that, but..

Brian: But you should. I should. Yeah. Why not? You know, brand yourself. That's what all the young kids are doing.

Griff: Kinda like payola, you try to get me indicted. . No, we paid for this, but it's a great service.

Brian: We do.

Griff: Hey, you're getting ready for a big trip.

Brian: I am actually a couple trips, but they're gonna kind of get all stuck together because uh, it made sense to kind of stick 'em together. But yeah, next week I will be in Denver at a seller meeting or meet up. So if you are interested in attending that in your, in the Denver area, Dana Crawford, who's a longtime seller, is also gonna be there and presenting. And Stephanie Hall from our team is gonna join me at the meetup. So I'm excited to go out and see some sellers.

Griff: What day is that?

Brian: That is Thursday. And if you go to community.bay.com and you click on the events tab, you can find the Denver seller meeting as well as a few other seller meetings next week. New York City has one on the first.

Griff: That's February 2nd for the Denver one.

Brian: Correct. You'll have a couple days to get to Denver. I'm gonna spend a day in Denver work from there, and then hop on a plane on Saturday on my way to Dublin, cause I'll be in Dublin on Monday. And then in our London or Richmond office. Griff, who's our guest this week?

Griff: Well we announced last week that this week's topic would be about fashion, but we had a little scheduling snafu trying to get a guest internally here. So as it happens, the entire Fashion team is away on an offsite and they weren't available this entire week. This week we'll be featuring another of the sellers we met at the Seller Remix last October. The seller's name is Cheryl Hinton of Yaya Rust and Dust. And she talks just about everything. So it's hard to pin it down to a topic, but it is interesting to listen to somebody who's been a long-term seller talk about their life at eBay. And of course, as always, you and I have a few questions to address Brian, before we get to our guest this week. Is there any news?

Brian: We do have a news item this week from our good friends on the shipping team. Griff, as you know, every year the major carriers not only adjust their domestic shipping rates, but also their international rate.

Griff: Like clockwork.

Brian: Well, this year the United States Postal Service has raised their international shipping rates an average of 6.9%. You can find the details in the US P S international rate tabs of the January, 2023 price change file.

Griff: So is that it? Is that the news?

Brian: Not quite. There's more, you know about International Standard Delivery, right?

Brian: Yeah, I do. It's the alternative to the Global Shipping Program.

Griff: That's the one well along with the U S P S rate increase. eBay international standard delivery rates have increased by 6.6%

Griff: And the updated rate tables are available on Seller Center.

Brian: And here's a smart shipping tip. Soon you won't have to worry about international shipping rates ever again. eBay International shipping, our new expanded service will soon be available to all sellers. Sellers only need to ship to our domestic hub and then eBay takes it from there.

Griff: Yeah, and I believe this is in the rollout phase right now.

Brian: Now. It is. So some sellers may already have access to the new service, but soon all sellers will.

Griff: This new service is called what again?

Brian: It's called eBay International Shipping.

Griff: So many names to remember when the eBay International Shipping Service is fully rolled out, what's gonna happen to eBay International Standard Delivery and the Global Shipping Program?

Brian: Both programs will sunset and the single eBay provided international Shipping option will be eBay International Shipping.

Griff: Or EIS.

Brian: Yes, EIS . Yet another in the dictionary of eBay acronyms. And as always, we'll put a link to that USPS page, the eBay International Standard Delivery Rate table, and the page for the new eBay International Shipping Service. In the summary, overview of episode links for this episode.

Griff: Yeah, which you can always view in your podcast app. You just scroll down, you'll see all the episode links and that's any app you use to listen to us. Or you can also go to the episode page at www.ebay.com/podcasts. And then just click the eBay for business icon locate episode 227. It's at the top of the page and then you can find the links there. Hey, that's all for our introduction this week. It's time to listen to our guests that we recorded back in October.

Brian: Great!

Rebecca: Someone can sing.

Cheryl: That's Dom

Rebecca: .

Griff: Cheryl Hinton is here with us. She's known on eBay as Yaya Rambles. Hello Cheryl.

Cheryl: Hello Griff. Hello.

Griff: And this is Rebecca. You know Rebecca.

Cheryl: Hello Rebecca.

Rebecca: Thanks for being here today.

Cheryl: I'm very excited.

Griff: What's going on downstairs?

Cheryl: Well, apparently they are breaking all the rules of whatever it is when you sing Happy Birthday and have to pay people. But there are several of the resellers that are having birthdays this weekend or this week while we're here. So they're singing Happy Birthday to them.

Rebecca: You know what, I actually kind of love it because one of the things we've been talking is about the community that you find here and getting to know other sellers and finding your tribe, if you will. And this is like a live well recorded, but a live great example of the kind of community that happens at events like these.

Cheryl: Yes. Yeah. Once you get here, you're not strangers anymore. So you might be strange, but you're not strangers . So it's great to celebrate each other and get to know each other and find out what is happening.

Griff: Not strange but, delightfully unusual .

Cheryl: Unique. Yes. Unique. Exactly. We're all unique.

Rebecca: Tell us for those who don't know, what do you sell and how long have you been selling on eBay?

Cheryl: Okay, well I'm sure you've heard this a lot. I sell anything legal and mostly hard goods. I do have a wall full of inventory of clothing if anyone would like to reach out and make a deal and am trying very hard to get those things listed and, uh, get them out of my house. I've been a eBay seller. I say longer than eBay says, but we will go. The official is since the very late nineties, back in the money order, cash in the mail, take a picture , go get id developed, scan it, that kind of thing.

Griff: And we liked it.

Cheryl: Oh, it was so exciting. But yes, so I've been selling off and on. Actually I started in the nineties. It's pretty much been off and on since then. And then my claim to fame, so to speak, is that I officially retired from my corporate job August 19th.

Griff: Congratulations.

Cheryl: Thanks.

Rebecca: Just a minute ago. Congratulations.

Cheryl: Speaking of birthdays, my birthday was the very next day. I planned it that way. And my husband will say it was a good thing and a bad thing because I've been home maybe two weeks since then. This is my third reseller conference since I retired.

Griff: Wow. Good for you.

Cheryl: So I might stay home for a couple of days when I get back.

Griff: What other ones did you attend?

Cheryl: I went to the very first FlipCon that they just had.

Griff: We had dinner with the two founders.

Cheryl: Yes, they're fabulous. And so I went to that. I came back and then I went to Boston for the New England eBay Reseller Group's event that they had the watch party for the Open. With Diane and Trish, those wonderful ladies up there. And then I came home in time to batten down my house before the hurricane. Thankfully. Missed us.

Griff: You live in Florida.

Cheryl: I'm in Tampa Bay and then I am here. So here we are. So I've been here since Saturday, leaving Saturday and keeping with the birthday theme. My husband's 65th birthday is on Sunday. So I thought...

Griff: He doesn't mind if you tell the word .

Cheryl: He won't, he won't even hear this.

Griff: . Oh, you think .

Cheryl: But I thought it might be nice of me to at least be home for his birthday, so.

Griff: Have you picked up any little nuggets of knowledge in the, at these three events or even just this event?

Cheryl: My gosh, so many. Yes. Matter of fact, I was sitting talking with American Arbitrage, if you haven't met him yet, he's amazing. He taught me a lot about social media, which is what's going on right now. And then the one thing I took yesterday, which I'm gonna put in a big giant banner in my eBay room or my, my warehouse office, is you're your own worst bully.

Griff: Can you explain that?

Cheryl: Yes. It just means that we tend to beat ourselves up.

Griff: Yes. About things. Oh, every night.

Cheryl: Exactly. So you don't do something right or you're not selling enough, you're not doing whatever. And so she said, and I believe it was Lauren, if it wasn't, I'm sorry Laura, that we are our own worst bully. That there's other people, you know, there's some toxic people out there and you just have to ignore them. But it's your own mindset that really does you in if you don't stop it.

Rebecca: You should be your own best cheerleader.

Cheryl: Exactly. And so, you know, I thought I had a really good attitude and I tried to about a lot of stuff, but I thought, you know what, she's probably right because we are, we always are our own worst bullies. So I'm gonna put that up in my office and stare at it every day as I list.

Griff: We are the sole members of our very own individual flight clubs.

Cheryl: Exactly. Pretty much beating ourselves up.

Griff: How has business changed for you over the last 20 plus years that you've been selling on eBay?

Cheryl: Boy, well, and I've only been doing it off and on, so it's, it's every time I would come back, something has changed. The platforms changed, the how you do things, what's hot, what's not. I could talk to you about the Robert Graham shirts that I have at my house because I collected them thinking I was going to sell them back when they were very hot.

Griff: Did we have a conversation about this once?

Cheryl: We have not, but well, we may have at eBay in some past years, but yes, I have probably 10 Robert Graham shirts

Griff: And they're not sellable.

Cheryl: Well, Mikey that's right now downstairs on the platform thing. He still wears them and there's a few others that do so. But they're not the 70, 90, a hundred and something dollar when I bought them thinking that's what I was gonna sell 'em for. So that's what I've learned is don't collect things thinking you're gonna sell them for a lot of money and then not sell them. Sell them when they're hot, not wait five years. And now they're possibly not.

Griff: They are just passé and they bring passé prices.

Cheryl: I legitimately almost brought them with me thinking I would just money try to, well I was gonna try to get my money back at least.

Griff: Any two xls?

Cheryl: Oh. I always buy the biggest sizes I can.

Rebecca: So you must have seen a lot of trends over your years. I mean, I don't know. Think about the timing. You may have been for the dare I mention it, Beanie Babies moment. There've been a lot of trends that have come and gone and that eBay's been at the center of in one way or the other. Apparently like a couple of them you've chased them, it's not worked out, but like how do you think about paying attention to trends, knowing what inventory to have in stock and and staying relevant all these years?

Cheryl: Exactly. And that has been my biggest problem is that I hear I should be buying things to sell and then they go into my profit pile and don't get listed. I think it is very important. And now that I'm quote unquote retired, I'm hoping that I can be more active with the this is hot right now. Now I'm not sorry, Funko Pop people, I am not going to start buying Funko Pops. Right. I don't understand them. They have to be pristine. I'm not a pristine girl, so I'm not jumping on that bandwagon. But I have learned that you do need to be aware of what color's hot, what toy is hot, what, but then also be cautious of jumping on grabbing 'em all and then sitting on them right. Until the fad has passed. And then people get them for Christmas and they get to the thrift store where other people can buy them.

Griff: It's the great cycle of merch.

Cheryl: It really, really is sad. So yes.

Rebecca: Speaking of thrift stores, I don't think we covered this already. Where do you source from? I mean, with, without having, without giving away secrets, we don't secrets.

Cheryl: Yeah, I don't have any secret honey holes anywhere near me. I live in Old folks USA so pretty much anyone's house is a source of inventory for me, I really, all your typical thrift stores, I try to go to more the local ones, the church sales, the, the little Habitat for Humanity or the hospice ones that are in my area. I try to go to those because I know I'm supporting something tangible that I really know that the money is going for a good cause. But I do try to support the local places and we have a lot of, you know, little old lady church sales and we have those kind of things. So I go there and really, I was actually at lunch talking to someone about consignment. I have enough of my profit pile. I'm not quite ready to do consignment yet, but I'm considering it on a somewhat basis, but I don't wanna have to buy a second house right now. I have no room, but just the usual places. And then there's a platform right now that I'm sure you've heard of that we're all buying and selling from. So there's a lot of places you can source. It just depends on what your profit margins need to be. And, and that's another thing I need to learn is numbers. To me, I bought it for 50 cents and I sold it for 150. Yay me!

Griff: Well that sounds fun.

Cheryl: Yeah. But then there's other stuff I'm supposed to be paying attention to and now that I'm retired I need to pay attention to it.

Griff: Yeah. IRS wants to make sure you pay attention.

Cheryl: Oh they will get their money.They'll get it. It's okay. Trust me IRS, I'm not holding back.

Griff: One of the interviews that we did here was with a young couple who had built an accounting software. So we should talk to them. Faith and Paul, my reseller, Jeanie.

Cheryl: Exactly. Yeah. There's a lot of things out there that you can use and pay attention. You know, we've got our favorite CPA here at the conference and, and I'm looking at possibly adding to his workload just because I've met him and I trust him and him being a fellow reseller. I know he gets it.

Griff: Who is this by the way?

Cheryl: This is Mark Tew. Not Your Dad's CPA.

Rebecca: There's a report that eBay has put out called the Reseller Report. And we know that it's important to a lot of sellers to be a part of disrupting that Target to Goodwill to the dump pipeline if you will. Do you consider yourself to be a part of the Reuse? Reuse, Recycle?

Cheryl: Well I do that as a rule. I always have. So reselling kind of enables that for me because of, they were talking about, we're doing a, a thing where we're wearing thrifted clothes for our evening out on Fremont and I said, well all my clothes are thrifted so can I just grab something from my closet? And they were like, no, you really need to go buy something.

Griff: Oh they want you to buy something today ?

Cheryl: Or Well we were supposed to do that to bring with us to wear out on Fremont.

Griff: Do you have to show the receipts? How are they gonna know?

Cheryl: Well actually our shopping trip happened when I was in Boston with the New England ladies. So it's already out there in the interwebs. So many people already know what I'm wearing tonight.

Griff: Oh dear. Well.

Rebecca: Is this like that trend that I've seen where you just like close your eyes, you put your hand out and you have to wear whatever you put your hand on?

Cheryl: Yes, exactly. So thats what is happening. But yeah, so I literally, everything in my house, cuz I've been a reseller for 30 years plus. So everything in my house, all my furniture, all my dishes, all my clothing, all my husband's clothing, the clothes we wore to my daughter's wedding, I spent a hundred dollars total on my evening dress shoes bag, my husband's suit. The only thing he wore, he already had was his underwear and his shoes, . Everything else came from a thrift store.

Griff: And he wore those to the wedding?

Cheryl: Shockingly enough. Yes he did. Cuz I thought I was gonna have to trick him. And then one of the local little hospice thrift stores had gotten a donation of suits. You know, the actual suit suits from a very exclusive area in Tampa. And so these were nice, nice suits. And my husband is six five, so he's not easy to buy for. I mean he'll wear like, I get him t-shirts with funny sayings and that kind of stuff. He'll wear that. But for the wedding I thought he's not wearing a thrifted shirt but so what I did was I'm, I know of course I'm like Norm at Cheers with all the thrift stores. And so I went in and I saw that they had just gotten all these suits and I told my local managers like, oh my gosh, why go and buy him a suit or rent him a suit or whatever. And I said, I'd love to get in one of these but he'll probably never wear it. And she let me take like four suits that were in his size home and the pretext was he was going to try them on so we would know what size he wore so that when we went to the big box store we wouldn't waste time. Well as it turned out, without any prompting, the very first suit that he tried on fit him like a glove looked amazing. He took it off and we were talking, he says, you know, I don't, why don't I just wear that one cause it fits. And I said, well okay, if you think that's a good idea.

Griff: You're very crafty aren't you?

Rebecca: I know we are taking notes here.

Cheryl: My husband wore the most amazing suit and looked amazing. Fabulous. And I found my long dress in that GW word we were talking about under a hundred bucks.

Rebecca: So you said something really interesting there about building those relationships. And getting to know the people who run your various like sourcing locations. And have you really thoughtfully built relationships with people?

Cheryl: I tried to, yes. Especially the smaller ones, the big ones that we're not talking so much about. It's hard to do that. I know there are some people that are able to do that because they can buy in bulk and say, I know there was some guy that bought ties cuz nobody was buying the ties. So he would say, Hey, I'll buy all you've got. So he built that relationship. Sometimes you can do that, but the local thrift stores, it's much easier to do if you're there all the time like I am. And you get to know the manager and you get to know the employees and things like that. And it's helpful when, let's say something doesn't have a price on it, you know, you can go up to them and say, well how much is this? It didn't have a price on it. And some places, we can't sell that today. It has to go back to the pricing area and it'll be back out tomorrow. And I'm like, well I live in another town, I'm not gonna be here tomorrow. So your local ones, I can always go up to them and say, Hey, this doesn't have a price on it. And then they'll give me a price and usually it's really good. So it is important. It really is because you gotta be polite just for the sake of being polite. Don't do it just because you think you're gonna get a better deal. I mean, I just try to be nice to people as a rule.

Rebecca: Before we end, there's one question that we are asking everyone. If you have one piece of advice to other eBay sellers?

Cheryl: Will I break copyright laws? If I say just do it?

Griff: No, you'll be fine.

Cheryl: Yeah, just do it. And this is the second thing, don't be your own worst bully.

Griff: Yeah. Don't beat yourself up. Unless you it feels good and you like it.

Cheryl: Yeah, we don't judge. No, we don't judge.

Griff: Thanks so much. Yaya or Cheryl Hinton.

Cheryl: Thank you.

Rebecca: Thank you so much for this.

Cheryl: Thank you.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: We got answers. And this week we have three questions, Brian, and our first question is actually from a seller from across the pond. I thought maybe you could read it, Brian, and then we would discuss the questions and hopefully provide answers.

Brian: All right, sounds good. Hi Brian and Griff, this is Martin from MoveMarine in Denmark. Our team is enjoying listening to your podcast every week and we always learn something new. We have two questions for you. Since we are located in Europe, we frequently use DHL Express for shipping internationally. Unfortunately we cannot give this option to the buyers on ebay.com. Is there a way to integrate this option to our shipping policy? Some buyers would prefer to select DHL over UPS or FedEx. In specific cases we received many orders from Southeast Asia and occasionally also Africa, where the only reliable courier seems to be DHL Express from our experience. Second question is, we recently changed our company name from Blue Marine to Move Marine and we were able to update everything on eBay except our eBay store url. I know that you've mentioned recently on your podcast that this is not possible to change after the store is created, but eBay support reassured us that the URL will eventually update to our new store name. Should we be optimistic about the change? Thanks to your podcast, we heard about the eBay Main Street EU policy and we joined forces with them. We hope to help with shaping the framework that will include SMEs and create competitive e-commerce in Europe and worldwide. Thank you for such a great podcast. And greetings from Cold Northern Europe. Our eBay username is MoveMarine and that's all one word. Kind regards. Martin Erek.

Griff: Thank you Martin. Well first off, let's talk about DHL because DHL is definitely, as he knows, not an option on ebay.com for shipping internationally. If you're listing something on ebay.com, there's no way to add DHL as a service. We don't provide it, there's no plans to add it as a shipping option. And I can't go into great detail about this, but I want you to consider for a minute, it took eBay quite a long time to get a lot of these carriers to agree to be listed together as options on eBay. And throwing a fourth one into the list one that most people who sell on eBay do not consider using would actually be quite a challenge. I would just leave it at that. The only way to use another shipping service that isn't on ebay.com on the list of services is to offer a shipping option from what are called in the dropdown list, standard services from abroad. And then you could select standard shipping from outside the US but the problem with this is the option is not available for calculated shipping only flat rate. So it probably won't work for you unless the items you're selling can be offered with a flat rate shipping cost. So that's how that works. Have you ever had any, um, dealings with DHL?

Brian: I don't think I've ever even shipped with DHL. So Griff does eBay support DHL tracking numbers though in those use cases?

Griff: That's the point I, I wasn't sure. So of course I went to the well, I asked our good friend Nate Hayward on the Shipping Team and he assured me that yes, DHL tracking numbers are indeed supported by eBay.

Brian: Well that's good to know. So Martin, as for the store URL, changing after a seller has changed their store name. I've never heard of that have you Griff?

Griff: No. And in fact what we were told on more than one occasion is that the store URL stays the same as the original name when the seller changes their store name and the URL never changes to reflect the new name unless we're missing something. I don't know why support would've told him that. Cause I don't think that's the case. It's not ideal. You would think it would change right away or it would change at all. I don't think that that works that way.

Brian: Yeah, I've never, I've never heard of that either.

Griff: Yeah, and I know there's a lot of sellers who've asked this, Hey I want to change my store URL because I changed my store name and I've never heard of anyone saying, oh and it eventually changed.

Brian: Martin, these are probably most likely not the answers you hope to hear, but if it's any consolation we'll send you not one but two eBay for Business Podcast mugs to help keep your beverages of choice warm on those, those cold Denmark nights.

Griff: Yeah, Northern Europe. Oof. It's still freezing. Up next. Brian, do you remember the question we answered about the eBay Product Catalog back in episode? I think it was 225.

Brian: I think I do.

Griff: I'm sure it was episode 225.

Brian: Oh yes, I I remember that question.

Griff: Good. Because we talked about how the eBay Product Catalog works and how if there isn't an entry in the catalog when you go to start a new listing, eBay will often display a list of current live listings that may match the item the seller wants to list. Ring a bell?

Brian: I remember that.

Griff: Well, seller bill had a comment about using the eBay offered similar items when listing a new item. And Bill says the problem with those pre-filled matches for listings is that they are user generated. And every time I thought about using one, I found errors in the item specifics so I won't ever waste my time on them anymore. That's what Bill said.

Brian: That's one approach.

Griff: Yeah, I've used them occasionally when I'm starting a new listing, most of my stuff falls under a category where I can use one of my listing templates. But I do remember having to make a few changes.

Brian: Save some time too. I mean like if you only have to go in and change two or three things as opposed to create a listing from scratch, I think you're still ahead.

Griff: Yeah and on a few occasions I remember that somebody had filled out items specifics that I wouldn't have filled out and they matched so I kept them, I couldn't make the same blanket statement bill makes but then I don't sell what Bill sells so maybe, or I think I don't, maybe this is Bill's experience. But Bill, thank you for the comment. We love it. Our next question is from eBay seller George and it was sent to podcast@ebay.com and George writes, when USPS increases their postage rates, I print the new rate tables for Priority Mail. This can be found by searching the U S P S website for notice 123 and downloading the PDF file. And uh, he attached it so I could see what he's talking about. I find this printout useful when packing orders to decide whether to use a regular box or a flat rate box or if priority mail is cheaper than parcel select for a particular order. In the past, the priority mail commercial rate pricing was the same as charged by eBay for bulk shipping labels. And fortunately this is no longer the case. I didn't know that. Can you find out if the eBay rate tables are posted anywhere? I know when you print the postage labels you can see the pricing for all the options but at that point I've already packed the order. I think if you can find the rate tables it would be useful to other sellers who listen to the podcast. Thanks George Kufta.

Brian: Well George, there aren't eBay shipping rate tables displayed as tables since the rates depend on the destination and origination zip codes. But we do have an eBay shipping rates table page that lets you see the current rates for USPS, UPS and FedEx based on the origination and destination zip codes. And it's at https://www.ebay.com/ship/RT.

Griff: Yeah and we'll put that URL as we do whenever we mentioned one into the summary overview for this episode. Also let you enter things like the box dimension and box weight.

Brian: It's a good question. Yeah and it's a good tool for someone if, especially if you've got oversized or kind of different size or weight items and you wanna kind of get an estimate for what it's gonna cost you shipping into different zones.

Griff: What I do is I let the eBay shipping calculator do the work for me. When I list the item, a item I have to put in the weight in the dimensions. I always know what my item's gonna be boxed like and if I'm not sure I'll actually put the box and the packing material on the scale as well. Then I have the dimension, I have the weight but put that in the listing and very rarely is it wrong when it's time to print out the label. And when I print out the label, I can easily compare services there. The box is packed but I haven't made a commitment to what service I'm gonna use unless the buyer has selected a particular service. And in that case, eBay frowns upon you then using a service that's going to be different. But you can, so you may be able to save a little money if you made a mistake over weighing it in dimension, it's up to you. But if you wanna make a comparison before you even list the item, if you know again, what I do is I use worst case scenario. So I'm located on the west coast, I use the zip code in Maine and I'll put in the weight in dimensions of the box when I'm selecting what I'm gonna select. But I'm also thinking I don't want to eat the shipping on this one and if I'm right adding some of it or all of it into the item price, I wanna know the worst case scenario so that I'm not finding myself paying out half the shipping cost.

Brian: That's a good use of that tool.

Griff: Yeah. So again it's at ebay.com/ship/ RT for rate tables. George, see if it works for you. Brian, remember a question from last week sent by seller Mike Ellis whose eBay name is WetChickenInTheWindow?

Brian: I do. How could I forget? It's only been a week. How much is that Wet chicken in the window?

Griff: You mean the one with the water log feathers? Well, Mike Curtis of course ragging on the odd name and he sent us this. You guys wanted to know where I got wet chicken in the window. So on eBay, by the way, he says it's all one word WetChickenInTheWindow, no spaces. He says, my wife and I own a small farm and one morning during a rainstorm we had a wet chicken in the window looking at us as we drank coffee. It was standing in my wife's flower box just looking at us and I've attached the picture.

Brian: Oh this is brilliant.



Griff: I took, and I'm gonna try to put this in the transcript. There is a, you know it's a window and it's obviously raining and there's a wet chicken looking in with one eye going.

Brian: I wonder if the chicken knows that if it goes in there's the risk of being eaten.

Griff: I think the chicken is willing to take that risk if there's a comfort of a warm not so wet place. Or maybe he's just curious going, what are those people doing in there? What are they drinking and why aren't they out here with the rest of us in the rain?

Brian: And why aren't they offering me a cup of coffee in a nice eBay for Business Podcast mug?

Griff: Except that I know the reason why because caffeine will make you a jittery chicken and we don't want that.

Brian: Maybe one of our listeners out there has got the jittery chicken in the window name taken.

Griff: I have to tell you though, in all my 20 plus, 25 years now at eBay, Wet Chicken In The Window is definitely the most memorable and one of my favorite user IDs of all time. It's, you don't forget it.

Brian: I love that he sent a photo too because there's a wet chicken in the window.

Griff: Is that a fryer?

Brian: I bet it's one of those ones that lays eggs.

Griff: Oh poor chickens. Chickens are the weirdest animals on the planet. I'll try to put this photo up. It really is almost a meme. So I wanna thank you again. Thank you for sending that, that picture. That was a really good one. I think we have another last question. I'm gonna let you.

Brian: We do. Our last question this week is from seller Nick who sent this to podcast@ebay.com. This has happened a few times and I was wondering if you could tell me what the best practices would be. Let's say I have a listing that has several items in it, a lot. A potential buyer says they're only interested in a subset of the lot, one or a few of the items. Am I able to accept an offer on the listing and send them only the items they're interested in? Or do I need to make a new listing that only includes the items they're interested in buying? I just don't want someone saying it's an item not as described due to only receiving the items they required. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks Nick. Well Griff, this sounds like a tricky one.

Griff: Yeah, it's definitely a risky, tricky proposition there Nick. First off, Nick, if a listing is for a single lot, you know, like a quantity of one but it's consisting of two or more items, eBay considers that one item even though it's many different things in it and any sale from that listing needs to be for the entire lot seller Who agrees to the buyer requests that you got? That one that you just outlined is opening themselves up to an item not as described case if the buyer claims that you didn't send all the items. So there I would never advise a seller to oblige such a request never.

Brian: Exactly right. Yes, you could fall back on the messages from the buyer but it wouldn't matter to customer support. They would most likely still rule in favor of the buyer.

Griff: Yeah, that's true. And then you've got this stick it where you have some of the items and the buyer has some of the items. eBay's not gonna say, well you only have to give him a partial refund, you're gonna have to give him a full refund. Yeah, this is just setting yourself up for a real nightmare unnecessarily. So Nick, the correct options are to either decline the request of course politely or to end the listing in question and re-list a new listing with just the items the buyer wants. No, you could do that.

Brian: Another consideration, Nick, is the buyer asking to purchase only the best value items in the lot? Would splitting it up result in your having the less desirable items? Do the items make sense as a single lot?

Griff: Yeah, Brian, those are important points. Nick, I have to say, if it were me, for what it's worth, you know, I might check to see how many views or watchers the current listing has and if there's several, I'm pretty sure I'd politely decline the request. In fact, I have to think about this, but I think I would decline the request no matter what. What would you do, Brian?

Brian: I think I would too and then I, I would decline the request and then if they were all kind of roughly equal value, that's the one instance where I might say, okay, I'll split it and re-list it. But if they were, the values were really, he's only looking and fishing for the most valuable item and doesn't want the rest, I may not.

Griff: Yeah, the only time that you should put items together in a lot is when it really makes common sense to do so. You know, there are parts to one appliance, one single appliance, they're somewhat identical but not identical enough to have it be a multi quantity listing and the category isn't appropriate for variations, then maybe you might have, it is a lot, but I am really disinclined to honor a request of that type because I think it sets up a buyer's expectations so they can go around the rest of the eBay and do that with other lots and it's just not an ideal situation. So you consider all your options, you're free to do it. I mean I strongly recommend against it, but of course you're free to do it if you want.

Brian: In some ways, you know, we ask like what are the best practices for this? And, I think, you know, you kind of just hit the the nail on the head, which is kind of decline it or it's ultimately a business decision for Nick on whether he wants to split the lot or sell a portion of it to the buyer.

Griff: Yeah, and I'm not saying that all buyers would do this, but you may run into a buyer who's doing this and then says, yeah, then when I get it, I think I'll, I'll pretend like he didn't send all the items. Yeah, that's the ticket. And then I'll file an item not received or I am not as described case. And then I'll get a full refund. Sure. That's what I'll do. Why even entertain that sort of outcome? Well I wanna thank you anyway, Nick, for sending that question. Do let us know how that works out and that's all the questions we have this week Brian.

Brian: Those were interesting questions though.

Griff: They were.

Brian: Do you have an interesting question, comment, or story about selling on eBay? Why not ask us here at the eBay for Business podcast? Just call in your question at (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That's (888) 723-4630. Call that hotline any time of the day, any day of the week, and leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air.

Brian: And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast ebay.com.

Griff: And now your three point podcast checklist reminder.

Brian: Check the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements for up to date seller news every day.

Griff: Number two, if you haven't started attending seller events, this is the right time to do it. Spring is ready to spring soon. Make sure that you're checking out what's going on in your local area. I guarantee if you've never been to a seller hosted eBay seller hosted event, you'll have a lot of fun. You'll make new friends and you'll learn something.

Brian: I agree with that one.

Griff: Of course you do.

Brian: And if you're in the Denver area, come see me on the 2nd of February. Need to review anything in this episode. It's easy. Check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to find the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: On our next episode, we'll be talking fashion. The Fashion Team is back in town and we'll be talking with a representative from that team about fashion trends. Don't miss it.

Brian: We'd like to again, thank our guests this week. Cheryl Hinton of YaYa Rust and Dust.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.