Ep 256 || Check In with Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions

[podcast_team]

We check in with our regular seller correspondent, Lynn Dralle of the Queen of Auctions and learn how her business is faring and her plans for boosting business in the coming months. Griff and Brian answer questions about Sent Offer history, purchasing insurance for more than one invoice, and the effectiveness of the social media “links in comment” promotion tactic.

Episode Links:
eBay VP & GM US Adam Ireland’s Post
Lynn’s Sold Item: MacKenzie Childs Drawer Pull
Lynn’s Sold Item: Abe Lincoln Coffee Mug
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff, and this is the eBay For Business Podcast. Your source for the information, inspiration, and all the other "...ations" you need to help you start manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. This is episode 256 and as always, joining me from the home office studio in San Jose, our good friend, Brian Burke. Welcome.

Brian: Good to see you again, Griff. Virtually.

Griff: Yeah. We may see each other face-to-face next week.

Brian: We will. I'm excited about it.

Griff: You know, we're recording this several days before it launches and over this weekend, which when you're hearing this will have just passed. We're getting a hurricane in southern California.

Brian: You guys are, and I hope it stays down there and doesn't come up here.

Griff: Okay.

Brian: I hope it's not too bad. Although I think right now it's a four.

Griff: It's a four?

Brian: Yeah. And in the deserts you gotta worry about floods then afterwards.

Griff: Oh yeah. Yeah. It floods. There's these big things, if you've ever been to Palm Springs, there's these big things called washes and they look like dry rivers. And it's when the water comes rushing down from the Jacinto range after a deluge and it drains it out to the middle of the valley. But there could be some water events happening. Anyway, that would now have already happened. Hopefully. I'm still high and dry and so as everyone else, but as always, we direct you to the announcement board because if there's any natural disaster or weather impact to your business, go check it out. Make sure we've got you covered. 'cause we usually do.

Brian: Yes, we will definitely keep folks updated on the announcement board.

Griff: Exactly.

Brian: So who's our guest this week Griff?

Griff: Well you know her. Everyone knows her. She's the Queen of Auctions. Lynn Dralle is visiting us again in the studio to talk about the state of her business. I got a little clue from her that it hasn't been that good in the last few months, but she's working on a plan to improve it. So we're gonna talk about that plan.

Brian: You know, it's interesting that you bring that up 'cause I've read some posts within the community about other sellers saying something similar, that it was a softer summer than expected. So it'll be really interesting to hear what Lynn's doing, who's historically a pretty successful seller. What's her plan to attack that?

Griff: Well, she doesn't take this stuff lying down. She goes on the offense.

Brian: She is not a set it and forget it seller.

Griff: Kiss of death,, set it and forget it.

Brian: It is. None of our sellers should be set in and forget it.

Griff: Well Brian, is there any news this week?

Brian: Yes, there is. In the eBay news this week we have Vice President and General Manager of eBay US, Adam Ireland's post in Seller News regarding eBay's recent quarterly earnings. Sellers really should read this post. In it Adam talks about our recent quarter's results, but also highlights several new investments we recently made in the marketplace, as well as an expansion of eBay's live commerce streaming feature.

Griff: Okay. What is eBay Live Commerce exactly?

Brian: Well Griff. eBay Live Commerce or eBay Live as we call it.

Griff: Oooh, that's familiar.

Brian: It is, but it's quite a bit different than what you think of as eBay Live. It's a highly interactive live stream shopping experience that provides space where eBay buyers can shop curated livestream events hosted by their favorite influencers, brands and sellers.

Griff: Okay. So it's like online, a real-time auction?

Brian: Well, yes, but an eBay live streaming event can be in the auction or the fixed price format. It's up to the seller hosting the eBay live event.

Griff: Ooh, how exciting. Could I host an eBay live event as a seller? You know, I got a lot of stuff to unload.

Brian: Maybe someday.

Griff: Oh,

Brian: Currently eBay live is a beta release, so that's kind of means we're tested in a little bit with select sellers, but there is a form online for any seller who wants to let eBay know they're interested in holding their own live commerce streaming sale.

Griff: Okay. So where am I gonna find this interested seller form?

Brian: I'd recommend viewing the Live Commerce FAQs or frequently asked questions at pages.ebay.com/ebaylive-faq/.

Griff: Okay. I'll check that out.

Brian: And you can see upcoming eBay live commerce events at ebay.com/ebaylive. I'm excited about this Griff I'm super excited.

Griff: I'm looking at the page now. Oh, I see. Okay. So when these, they have a time and when you go, you can take part in this and you can....

Brian: You buy immediately,

Griff: You can buy or submit bids.

Brian: Yes. One of our previous guests, Ken Gaitano, Hustle Bee, recently had an eBay Live event.

Griff: How'd it go?

Brian: It went really well.

Griff: I'm not gonna be able to get used to hearing those two words together without thinking of what they used to mean. eBay Live meant something totally different 15 years ago.

Brian: Well, Griffin, this is a little bit different. There's no exclamation point after the live.

Griff: There should be. Shouldn't there be an exclamation point?

Brian: There should. For those who don't know. We used to have an event called eBay Live, which is an in-person event. We ran what, 2003 through 2008?

Griff: 2002.

Brian: 2002 through 2008. And it was called eBay Live! With an exclamation point after the live.

Griff: Yeah, it was anywhere from 10 to 20,000 attendees.

Brian: They were a wild and fast three days, but they were fun.

Griff: I guess when the team was trying to figure out how they're gonna call this live commerce thing, what they're gonna brand it. None of them were around back in the day. So they said, I know I've got a great idea. We'll call it eBay Live. How cool is that?

Brian: They did remove the exclamation point.

Griff: Okay. Okay. Punctuation aside, it does bring back memories.

Brian: It is a really good descriptor of what the product actually is or what the service is because it is a seller or a brand in person. Live with inventory that you can see and then you can choose to bid or buy.

Griff: Okay, well I'm gonna fill out that form.

Brian: Yes, I bet they may like a niche or perfume.

Griff: Oh, brother.

Brian: Back to Adam Ireland's announcement post.

Griff: Yeah. What else did he talk about?

Brian: Yeah, one of the other topics he mentioned is how eBay is implementing AI to improve the buying and selling experience.

Griff: Oh, that's wonderful. 'cause I for one, welcome our AI overlords please.

Brian: If you're interested in AI Or eBay live. You can read the details on the announcement board at ebay.com/announcements.

Griff: We recommend you do that on a daily basis so that you stay up to date on what's going on on the eBay universe. Now it's time to meet the Queen of Auctions.

Griff: Well, every six months or so, we like to check in with one of our favorite longtime sellers on eBay because, well, she has her finger on the pulse of a lot of stuff she's been selling since, oh, I don't know. Since nearly the beginning of eBay. I think.

Lynn: 98.

Griff: 98. Okay. Close to the beginning. You know her. You love her. We all love her. Welcome back to the show. Lynn Dralle the Queen of Auctions. Hi Lynn.

Lynn: Woohoo! So good to be here, Griff.

Griff: We're closer now.

Lynn: Yeah, we sure are.

Griff: I'm in your old haunts.

Lynn: I know and you gotta come see my new haunt.

Griff: In Ventura.

Lynn: Yeah. Only three hours.

Griff: It's not so bad.

Lynn: No. And then you'd be by the beach.

Griff: . Yeah. There's no beach here. Trust me. Lots of sand.

Lynn: The Salton Sea.

Griff: Yeah, I haven't been down there yet. I plan to go. I have to bring a mask.

Lynn: No kidding.

Griff: Anyway, the last time we talked, I think your business was sort of in flux, just to put it mildly. How has business been since we spoke?

Lynn: It's been tough. I used to do 10 grand a month and then about, I don't know, six months ago it dropped to four grand a month, which is never where I'm at. And then dropped to two. What I've found from my research is a lot of people are traveling and eating out and spending their money on those things and not so much buying collectibles or much online. It's been a struggle. I'm back up to about $2,800 a month now and you know, my goal is to get it back up to 10 by the fall season. So I've been working diligently. I I haven't stopped listing. I am dumping as much stuff in my store as I can always at auction first of course, in case I have something rare. But yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for the fall and I'm ready for this to turn around.

Griff: You making any changes to inventory?

Lynn: You know, that's a really good question. I used to pay a lot more for my inventory and so with sales the way they are. I've been really, really frugal, which is not my modus operandi at all. I'm usually out there paying whatever, but you know, I sell a lot of dinnerware and flatware. I used to pay 25% of what Replacements is asking because I would hope to get half, I've gone down to 10%. I am really cutting back on my money that I'm putting out. And you know what, people are okay with that because a lot of people are coming into the store and advertising things at very low prices because I think the economy's really tough right now and people need the money. I just bought some amazing, beautiful dinner sets at 10% of Replacements costs. I got like $4,000 worth of dinnerware for, I think I only paid actually $200, so I paid 5% and then I'm okay sitting on it for a while. And so that's been a real part of my new planning is just not to invest a lot of money right now, but going for the very good items. And I have a lot of high-end things in my store, in my consignment store, and I don't know if you know this about our pricing, but every 30 days our prices go dow 20% in my store. It makes for a real fun shopping experience. So what I've been doing is I'm watching the better items and then when they're at that lowest markdown price, I'm snapping 'em up and getting 'em on eBay, trying to put higher quality items on eBay.

Griff: So when you say you're snapping them up, does that mean these are items that are on consignment?

Lynn: Yeah, and I buy them. So once they're down to that lowest price I'm buying.

Griff: And your consignors know how this works and they're okay with this.

Lynn: Oh Yeah. Oh yeah. They're happy to get anything. I mean, even if they get the lowest price, they're happy. They get their percentage of it and yeah, I mean it's a win-win for everybody.

Griff: Do you put some of the slump in sales to, you said people are going out, people are traveling but isn't it normal in the summer to see a slump in sales?

Lynn: No. Last summer I was at seven grand. You know what I mean?

Griff: Oh.

Lynn: And everyone's always like, oh well Lynn, it's the fair. That's why the store's not doing well. I'm like, well last year on this day we did three grand and this year we did 400. I mean we're looking at day for day. People are just not spending.

Griff: What's the fair?

Lynn: Oh, it's the Ventura County Fair.

Griff: Is that on right now?

Lynn: Oh, Griff, you gotta come out for it. It's from like August 2nd to the 12th. It's amazing. So much fun. It's right on the ocean. So you got the Ferris wheel and you're looking out at the ocean and we went and saw a country band the other night. it's a lot of fun.

Griff: Hey, do you have any stories about unusual items that have sold or come walking in the shop?

Lynn: Well, let's talk about this one. I have an item for you if you're ready. It's sold item. It's 4 0 2 1 9 1 3 0 7 1 5 9.

Griff: Now if you're typing this in at home, when you search for it, you may need to filter for sold items for it to show up. What is that?

Lynn: Do you know who MacKenzie Child is? She's a designer. Wacky dots and squiggle lines and she does a lot of pottery and, and enamelware. And these are drawer pulls like you'd put on a dresser and I had a consigner come in and they didn't want to consign them. They wanted me to buy 'em. There were about 40 of them and they wanted $400 for them. Well I wasn't gonna pay that. I offered I think $80 and they left. And you know, in the old days my grandma said, if I make you an offer and you walk out the door, the offer is null and void. She was so smart, Griff. She was like, I'm not gonna have you go down the street to Lulu's antique store and get $10 more because Cherry Leaf offered you this amount.

Griff: Right. Call me when the auction's over.

Lynn: Yes. . So it was very interesting. They came back and Sandy had known that I offered $80 and so she gave 'em the $80. I go, no, no, I wouldn't have bought 'em. But I'm glad I did because I've sold almost all of them. This one's sold for $40. A lot of them sold for $50 and $60 for one knob. Yeah. So anytime you see anything sign MacKenzie Child buy it.

Griff: Oh, I've just written that down. Not that I'm out hunting, but who knows?

Lynn: You're going to revivals all the time.

Griff: I know. And I have to say that I finally broke down. I, I needed some lamps and we walked in one day and I went 1, 2, 3. Those are exactly what I needed. I haven't started buying inventory yet.

Lynn: Oh, you are in the best place for inventory and the state sales out there, Griff are to die for. Literally.

Griff: People are dying to have estate sales.

Lynn: You are in heaven's waiting room now. It's what they call the desert.

Griff: I feel so good about moving here. My future. No, I haven't established or calmed down from the move yet and the idea of adding to what I'm actually trying to organize out. So I haven't been looking for inventory, but yeah, who knows. I mean I'll be looking for MacKenzie drawer pulls. You said they sold for for $40 or for, it says here $60.

Lynn: Well I took a Best Offers.

Griff: I see. Right. It was a Best Offer, we didn't share that.

Lynn: And so that's another thing I wanted to mention is every single item that I have listed on eBay has the best offer. My philosophy is if I price it at $500, I wanna get $250. The way I look at it is people like a deal. So if I want two $250 for something, I'll price it $500 and then I'll have a sale. I'll do 10% off all glasswork. My strategy is always price it high and then run a sale. People like them and then when they pop up and it says you can send 'em an offer, you send them an even better offer. It's a good retail tactic to put things on sale. That's why I price higher. So I can do that.

Griff: You send the offers and you use Best Offer too. So that's something you're listing?

Lynn: Yes, everything has a Best Offer. And then I send offers. And when you do send an offer, you have the option to allow Best Offers after you've sent that offer. Absolutely allow that. It could have been something you've had for six years.

Griff: Now your strategy of reducing things, uh, 20%, that's for your store, but is that also for eBay?

Lynn: Oh no, no, no. I don't do that here. But I'm constantly running promotions. Every single item in my store is on a promotion. So I have dinnerware always at 13% off. I have flatware at 15%.

Griff: Okay, so I got it wrong then before when you said 20% off after 30 days.

Lynn: That's in my actual physical store.

Griff: That's In the physical store. Okay. Yeah. And people know that.

Lynn: Yeah and on our price tags, I should show you a price tag, but it shows it right on the price tag. There's one price at the top and then there's a date and a lower price and a date and a lower price. When people come in and shop, they have to really read the tag.

Griff: We talked about addressing how you're gonna boost your business up. Are there any other plans for boosting businesses? Have you had to make changes in operation?

Lynn: I've cut back my assistants hours quite a bit. Cindy's here three days a week to, to do my shipping and like on a Friday if I get up and there's only one thing to ship, I'm like, no, stay home. Her hours have been cut and well my assistants hours have been cut. I was also gonna say that I am taking some really low ball offers. I'm just trying to get my numbers up because I think the more you sell, the more you come up in the searches. And I'm just really thinking hard about those offers that before have just turned down. I'm like, nah, let's move it. Let's get some momentum going.

Griff: Get them, get your cash back and put it back into something else.

Lynn: Yeah, for sure. And then I was also gonna say nowadays with Google Lens and Replacements has something similar so that you can identify dinnerware, flatware and crystal. There's no reason that you should be overpaying. You can look up stuff so quickly. I had some YouTubers in the store and they wanted to film a show about finding treasures in my store. So of course I let them, but the stuff they bought, they thought they had put one over on me and they bring it up to the counter. It's like I've researched every single thing you're buying and you're paying full price, but it's okay. Put it on your station. But yeah. Have you used Google Lens?

Griff: I have in the past. Yeah. It is a good thing.

Lynn: Oh and it's great for me when consignors bring stuff in, I can take a picture and get some ideas real quick. It's really changed things.

Griff: Well it used to be called Google Goggles and it wasn't as effective, remember Years ago.

Lynn: Yeah. Right. So now it's Google Lens. But in the old days, my grandma and I, it would take us hours to research things. We'd have stacks of Kovels and Schroders.

Griff: Kovels! . Oh yes, I remember these.

Lynn: All on a table. And we would thumb through 'em and try to figure out what stuff was worth and now can find it in two seconds.

Griff: The magic of the internet.

Lynn: And it's kind of ruined it, you know what I mean? It's kind of ruined because the hunt is so much easier now.

Griff: It was tougher back then.

Lynn: Oh it was so tough. And knowledge was important.

Griff: So yeah, the hunt has become easier in some respects. It's also become more difficult because boy everyone we were at revivals and there was a number of people you could see them all on their phones on eBay. All checking prices to see can I make a buck on this? Can I make a buck on that?

Lynn: Isn't it crazy? It's really changed and I even think in the last five years it's just drastically changed.

Griff: I think. So I've always wondered when does the other shoe fall? Because in my experience, and I'm sure you notice this too, in your experience selling that if a market becomes saturated with too many items or too many sellers, that tends to have an impact on demand. You can see prices fall. There's more than enough used clothing out there. So I'm always wondering how do sellers manage to adapt to that? And what sellers have told me is we focus more on brand and quality. I become much more picky when I'm looking for stuff. I used to just fill my cart with stuff and now I'm much more picky about it.

Lynn: You have to be so picky, Griff, so, so picky. And that's how it's in my store too. I don't want anyone walking in here and thinking it's a thrift store. Do you know what I mean? We're so, so picky. And I'm that way on eBay too. It's just not worth your time. I mean it takes a lot of effort to list one thing and it better be a good item.

Griff: Right. And if it's not a really interesting item and it's kind of just generic. Yeah. It's not gonna sell right away unless you're giving it away.

Lynn: Right. Which a lot of people do, you know. A lot of newbies are just not smart and they're doing free shipping for a $1.99 item. Can't compete against that.

Griff: , God bless them, .

Lynn: God bless them.

Griff: We love those. We love those sellers. Bring 'em on.

Lynn: Yeah. Right. Okay, I wanna share one more item. That is another one. One of my strategies. Okay. It's 3 1 4 1 9 7 2 0 1 5 7 7,

Griff: 3 1 4 1 9 7 2 0 1 5 7 7. And then sort for sold.

Lynn: Yeah, it's a coffee mug and it has an Abraham Lincoln quote on it. It's not the years in your life but the life in your years. I love it. And I buy cozy mugs for a buck. Sometimes I'll pay two and $3 Now I put it on for $59.99. I ran my promotional sale. I think it was 10% off. And then I always do an extra 10% off. If you spend over $50 and I don't know if you use that tool, but it's one of the promotion tools and what that does Griff is it keeps your buyer on your items. If you don't run that sale, it will show you similar items from other sellers. If you run that tool, it'll show you other things to make up to the $50. It'll show things from that same seller. It will show my items to try to get 'em to the $50. It's a really, really important tool to always use. 'cause you don't want them looking at your listing and then being drawn off somebody else.

Griff: Exactly.

Lynn: And this sold for $50.99 minus the $5.10, 10% extra. And it's, it's a good price. Check it out.

Griff: Is there a reason why this particular mug is so expensive?

Lynn: Okay, so you know, back in like the seventies, people collected tea cups and saucers?. Okay, well now people love their coffee and if this is your favorite coffee mug and you break it, you'll pay $50 to replace it. I sell a lot of coffee mugs, most of them in the $25 to $35 range. But I've sold 'em for a hundred, $200. Just regular coffee mugs.

Griff: It's amazing.

Lynn: It's, and they're easy.

Griff: I should keep an eye out, right? I'll be on the lookout.

Lynn: Bolo.

Griff: Well Lynn, it's always a pleasure. Of course I'd rather hear better news about how business is, but you've always been the most optimistic of sellers and I think you will pull this off and we'll find out. We'll come back and visit around the holidays and see how business is doing.

Lynn: It's definitely gonna pick up Griff, you just gotta keep listing, you know what I mean? Gotta keep sourcing. My grandma always said you make your money when you buy.

Griff: The sun will come out tomorrow.

Lynn: Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Griff: Yeah. Well Lynn, thank you so much for checking in and we'll see you again in a few months.

Lynn: Thanks Griff. Great to see you.

Griff: Lynn Dralle sells on eBay under the moniker, the Queen of Auctions. You can find her newsletter if you search the Queen of Auctions. You can also find more about her consignment store in Ventura under Lynn's consignments.com. If you're in the area and you wanna shop or you want to consign, I don't think you could do any better. You want to check out Lynn's store and her eBay store as well.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: We've got answers. Lots of answers. We hope Our first question, Brian was emailed.

Brian: Accurate answers?

Griff: Look we just started this segment. Why are you starting in on me?

Brian: Sorry.

Griff: If you keep this up, I'm gonna mail you a ball cap and I'm gonna put it in a padded envelope.

Brian: Okay. .

Griff: So don't start with me. Okay. It's been a long week. Our first question was emailed to podcast@ebay.com by seller. Robert, would you mind reading it Brian?

Brian: Happy to. Robert writes, Gentlemen bravo on episode 252, released on July 25th. Thank you so much for highlighting the new social page and tools. Ms.Vayo's discussion was insightful. Please give her and her Product Team a profound gratitude for developing a tool that makes interactions with social super easy. Recently there have been social media industry discussions about the use of Facebook First comment as a best practice to gain the most exposure to a Facebook post. Can you ask Ms.Vayo to circle back on this in a future episode? I would like to hear her take on this as to importance and how to best utilize it personally since starting to add a Facebook first comment to include the link to the item I am selling and the relevant hashtags. Rather than place this information in the body of the post, I have observed increased traffic and engagement with the post. Hmm, that's a good thing. I appreciate all the work you do and your team does each week to bring forth relevant and useful podcasts. Sincerely, Robert Groves, eBay seller, C and G Eclectics across time.

Griff: You know, it's funny that this email came in because I've been noticing and I didn't really give it much thought, but I've been noticing that a lot of the pages that I follow on Facebook, they'll have a story. They'll say, here's a video and it's the Beatles vocal acapella from the recording of you know, a song. Then it'll say links in the first comment and then you see the first comment and that's where the link is. And I thought, oh, I wonder why they're doing that. I didn't really give it much thought. And then when Robert sent this email, I went searching on the internet for this topic using first comment, Facebook first comment, and found tons of information. It's called the link in comments issue. I guess, and I gotta tell you before we do this, I can't vouch for this because I don't work for Facebook. Apparently what all these gurus are saying is Facebook doesn't like posts that have links in them. The links take the viewer off of Facebook instead of going directly to YouTube. They don't like it. They say that they kind of throttle those posts. You don't get as many viewers. They don't wanna lose you as a content provider, but they don't wanna come out and tell you don't put a link into your post. So the workaround that these intrepid users have discovered, especially influencers who depend on engagement is they'll post any links in the first comment for that post and then alert viewers that there are links by mentioning it at the end of the post they say something like link in comments. I'm sure you've seen this.

Brian: I have seen it.

Griff: The folks that depend on this kind of engagement have discovered that like Robert, and again I can't vouch for Robert's observations,

Brian: But he has said it. It worked for him.

Griff: Yeah, he's noticed an increase in people viewing his item and hopefully that leads to more sales by putting the link to the item. Like maybe he has a picture of it and he talks about it, but then it'll say link to the item in the comments and you go to the comment and you can click on it and go from there. Interesting.

Brian: Definitely. Interesting. Well Robert, we forwarded your question to Jessica Vayo for her take. And of course we would love to hear from sellers who have utilized this first comment tactic on their social media posts for Facebook and Instagram. Does the link in comment strategy work for you? Let us know podcast@ebay.com or (888) 723 - 4630.

Griff: Now our next question comes from eBay seller Chris who sent the following to podcast@ebay.com. Hello guys, longtime listener and learner from your show. I had a first the other day when I sold one person. Listen to this, 58 items. Whoa, from an Elvis collection. They're mostly photos and it was from an auction sale. I didn't know when you sell that many items to a buyer it only allows you to send an invoice for 40. I had to send another invoice, the remaining 18 items. My question is, when I create the label for the 40 items and add insurance, how do I also add the insurance for the other 18 items to cover all the items amount if I'm gonna ship everything together is my only option to ship two separate packages. A lot of questions here. I just ensured the first 40 and added the tracking number to the other invoice with the remaining 18 items. It was still a decent amount of money and I wanted to protect it just in case. I have other instances where a customer just pays for separate items before I can combine an invoice for them on auctions. So all I can do is print the label on the most expensive one and ensure and just add the tracking number to the existing item. But I can't purchase any more insurance to cover both items. Maybe this is an easy fix that I'm missing. Thanks Chris And his user ID is user Grady 8 1 2. This confused me at first 'cause a lot of questions and a lot of the scenario here, but the one thing that, I'm not sure that Chris caught. So there's a difference between invoice and there's a difference between combining shipments at the point of purchasing a label, I don't know if you've seen this Brian, but when you have two or more purchases from the same buyer, when you go to purchase the labels for these shipments, there's an option for combining the orders in into one order. Something I've used in the past so that you know that well maybe I can put these in the same box but even if you can't put 'em in the same box, you can combine the orders and if things have to go into two separate boxes, you simply print another label for that shipment, do it that day. Don't worry, you know, obviously you're not gonna wait and do it a few days later. But those two labels you would use for two boxes. But that's not what Chris is doing. Chris wants, I think to put everything into one shipment.

Brian: That's what it sounded like in the email.

Griff: So if you're gonna send all 58 items in one shipment, Chris, after the buyer pays for all of them, you'd purchase just one label with the appropriate weight and dimensions for all 58 items. And then when you're purchasing that label, you purchase insurance based on the value of all the items and you can use either ship cover or USPS When you use the USPS insurance option, you can set the amount you're purchasing the same with ShipCover. That way you know that the shipment is covered.

Brian: So In essence, Griff, what you're saying is he's getting two payments, one for 40 and one for 18, but then he's gonna just do one shipment and ensure that one shipment.

Griff: Yeah, if that's what his, it sounds like his intent was he could put all 58 items in one box. That makes sense. You just buy that one label and when you buy the label, you're not limited to how much you can insure it. You know the value of all those 58 items, you can purchase that much insurance.

Brian: Yep, that makes sense. I wish I could get 58 purchases from one buyer in a single day.

Griff: We forgot to congratulate Chris. Congratulations Chris.

Brian: That's a great sale.

Griff: If your issue is that then you've got these other 18 items in the separate invoice that didn't record that as a tracking number, you add the same tracking number to all those items. So you're correct in that assumption. If you're putting all the items in one box and not all of them are showing that tracking, then you can add them. But I believe that if you have the option to combine all those purchases at the time of purchasing the label, then all of them share the same tracking number. Right. The only thing I don't know 'cause I've not been faced with this and I haven't had time to ask anyone on the shipping team, is there a limit to how many items you can combine into one label? I don't know. I assume there isn't but I could be wrong. I think your solution is the right one. It should work.

Brian: Agreed. That was a nice problem for Chris to have.

Griff: Yeah, Yeah. Chris, we're hoping we answer the question but we don't feel sorry for you. I don't. I wanna make that clear. 58 sales to one buyer, whatever you do, keep doing it. Okay, our next question. This was one that actually caused a bit of a discussion on our Facebook post because we were going to use it last week and then I discovered that our answer wasn't correct. I used my own research on one of my listings to determine an answer and at one point it looked accurate. However, something then happened that suddenly my answer was not correct. So we cut it out of last week's episode and now we're gonna use it here.

Brian: So we didn't have to do a We Stand Corrected.

Griff: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We preemptively prevented a, We Stand Corrected because you know, between record day Saturday and ball caps and boxes or padded envelopes. I don't have any more energy for writhing at our listener's feet in a frenzy of self a basement. I'm just kind of drained right now. Let's listen to Frank's call, shall we?

Guest Caller: Hi, good evening. My name is Frank Hefflefinger My eBay ID is countdowncardsandcollectibles all one word. My question for you guys today is I just had this happen and it's happened to me quite a few times so I want you to see if there's something I'm missing or something that needs to be addressed. So on a fixed listing when somebody watches the item we are able to send offers to and I send an offer to that party and they wanna make a counter offer, they send me the counter offer and I can't see, once they send me a counter offer, I can't see anywhere where my original offer was. What I like to do is, you know, in negotiating a price for an item, I will like to sometimes go halfway between what I originally offered and what like the client is offering or whatever. You know, I wanna negotiate it but if I can't see or don't remember what my original offer was, it makes it difficult to work out that negotiation. If there is an answer to that issue, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day. Bye.

Griff: Okay,

Brian: Well that's an interesting question from Frank. Griff,

Griff: All Frank wants to be able to do is when he goes to the order history, which by the way it's not easy to find, is to be able to see what his original offer amount is. And when I tried this with one of my listings, I took one and I sent out an offer and then I looked at the offer history and where it says price, it showed my offer. Later that night I got a counter offer and this was after we had recorded last week and I looked and my original offer disappeared the amount and instead the counter offer was in its place.

Brian: So the counter offer supersedes the original offer that you sent.

Griff: Right? And I looked everywhere, couldn't find it, asked David Bernstein of course as I do 'cause David's our go-to guy. David said, yeah, this is definitely a known design deficiency of the application, the feature and the team is working on a fix for this so that it shows the true history. You see as it was like a bid history only it's an offer history. I said well that'd be wonderful, but in the meantime Frank, the only solution is pen and paper or write down your counter offer so you know what it is.

Brian: Or a spreadsheet

Griff: Or a spray or you could put it in the notes for that item. But it's manual work. You know, you're gonna have to write in the notes field. Original counter offerer was..

Brian: I think the manual approach would work for kind of the individual seller who's doing a few items a month but probably not sustainable for somebody doing hundreds or thousands of items a month.

Griff: Well it's make work. Who needs make work when you can just have it automatically recorded? It is a known design deficiency as I call it K D D, that's the acronym. It's a K D D.

Brian: You just made up another acronym for us to remember.

Griff: Yeah, I should not do that. eBay's ingrained in me. So acronyms. Anyway, Frank, thanks for your question and rest assured they're working on it. So, in the meantime you're gonna have to rely on pen and paper

Brian: Or a spreadsheet, like I said, some of us like laptops and computers, not just pen and paper.

Griff: I get a little stack of sticky index pad notes because I'm used to doing it this way and I like to do it the old way with a pen. In fact, I use a mechanical pencil from my drafting days.

Brian: Well that's efficient. You don't have to keep buying pens, you just have to get the replacements.

Griff: I've always preferred pencils because knowing me, especially as I got older, I shouldn't be inking in anything because it's very obviously gonna have to be erased or changed at some point.

Brian: And it gets messy with that white out stuff that I used to have to use when I typed papers.

Griff: I've got an idea for some podcast swag that we could deliver in the future and they're good quality mechanical pencils that say eBay for Business Podcast. We Stand Corrected with a huge eraser on one end.

Brian: With like the old Griff logo that said be like Griff use pen and paper.

Griff: Exactly. Except do we ship them in a box or in a padded envelope? That's my question.

Brian: Oh no, our last question this week is from eBay seller Lori. Hello Griff and Brian. Looking for advice on time management and self-discipline. I had to take a break from selling on eBay in mid-March 2023 and now I'm struggling to get motivated and back on track. Aren't we all? Wondering what other sellers do to plan their day or week? I tried blocking time for tasks and went as far as getting an on air sign so the kids will leave me alone while I attempt to do anything eBay related. The only thing I do consistently is eat lunch, laughing out loud.

Griff: Boy, she's strumming my pain.

Brian: I've listened and re-listened to the podcast episode and love the new updates to the eBay mobile app. My eBay handle is Unique Valuables. Thanks for all your help. Lorie Boss Lady Peters,

Griff: This one hits close to own for me because I'm definitely not a sensei when it comes to managing my own time. What about you Brian?

Brian: Same. I do the standards and I've gone through multiple systems throughout my career and trying to be better at it, but it's to me always a work in progress.

Griff: I don't know about you. I'm a procrastinator, I have to do everything at the last minute. It's just how I operate. It's how I find my bliss.

Brian: The one thing that I've found that has been helpful is like with electronic calendars like Outlook and et cetera blocking off time and then with a purpose. So I used to block off the time thinking, oh that'll be my moment to catch up on email or work on that project that I have to work on. But now I become much more specific and I say no, that time's blocked off. So I work on that project. I'm still not great at it, but at least I know what the purpose of that time block was for.

Griff: I think we all do that right with Outlook, at least in the corporation end of things

Brian: As far as consistently eating lunch. Definitely. But talk about snacks too or oh I need to get up and go get another cup of coffee or go get a soda from the refrigerator that's in our kitchens here in the office. I think I use those kind of breaks a lot.

Griff: It's funny, we don't need an alarm to tell us it's time to eat.

Brian: You know what we should probably do? What is, find someone who's like really, really good at this and have them on the podcast. They'd probably run screaming from the room after talking to the two of us.

Griff: Who wouldn't?

Brian: They would probably give our listeners some good valuable tips.

Griff: I thought of that too and then I then I thought we, we can't make the assumption that all of our sellers who tune into this podcast regularly are as bad as we are. So I thought why not ask them? What advice would you give to Lorie for helping her get a handle on managing her time? I put the question up on our Facebook group and the subscribers there posted some great answers and I'm gonna use some of them, but we wanna hear from you. Why don't you, if you have some time management advice for Lorie.

Brian: Or Griff or Brian.

Griff: Yeah, we'll take your advice as well. I can't promise there'll be a positive result. (888) 723-4630 or you can email it into us at podcast@ebay.com and let us know if you might be willing to read out your advice to the on the next episode. We'd love to hear from you. So again, (888) 723-4630 or podcast@eBay.com.

Brian: And as always, we're happy to take any eBay selling questions as well. That's (888) 723-4630.

Griff: Call that hotline anytime of the day and leave your question or comment and we might put it on the air.

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

Griff: And now it's your weekly Three Point Podcast checklist. Number one, Brian.

Brian: Check the announcement board or subscribe to the announcement board at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate Seller News every day.

Griff: Number two is send in your time management advice this week for eBay seller, Lorie, and let us know if you'd like to record it on the next segment. (888) 723-4630 or podcast@ebay.com.

Brian: 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: Yeah, next week, as I mentioned earlier, it's an all Q and A episode. Your questions our answers. Hopefully they meet in the middle somewhere, email or phone in your questions now.

Brian: We'd like to again thank our guests this week. eBay seller, the Queen of Auctions from the great state of California. Lynn Dralle.

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