The way I see it, this list is a microcosm of our society’s buying habits.  Our society scares me.

These customers were so desperate to get these listings that they went to the trouble of putting themselves on a waiting list.  Not a bad idea.  Except that when I think too hard about it, I can’t understand why there would be a waiting list for Me and My Likker (A Revised Edition) .  This was listed in my last Out of Stock report post which was about 6 months ago.  Not only is it still on the waiting list but, according to Amazon, there were many recent customers added to it.  Contrary to popular opinion, hillbillies can read.  Apparently there’s internet in them thar hills too.

People fascinate me almost as much as these lists.  Here’s an example of what I can only guess is a popular activity since this book is sold out and buyers are waiting impatiently to get their hands on it, among other things. 101 Sexy Dares has one copy available at $399.99 or, if you’re smarter than the average dumb person, you’d buy the Kindle version for $14.27 plus the Kindle for $259.99 and still be ahead.

I’m hesitant to admit in writing that I might just find this book hysterically funny:  Cyanide and Happiness: I’m Giving You the Finger.   I’ve never been easily offended and the more unpolitically-correct, the better.  Now if I had just known about this book and it was sitting on my shelf right now, I could cash in BIG.   But I guess my adult serious side has now surpassed my formerly- juvenile sense of humor because I’ve never heard of this comic book and will probably never see it on This Old House or Antiques Roadshow.  Guess I’ve aged.  Boo.

The Olympics is surely the cause for the run on this book: When I Grow Up I’m Going to Be a Hockey Star .  How did Wayne Gretzsky or Bobby Orr succeed without this one?

This book has nothing to do with pins that say cool things.  It’s about a magazine that was published in 1950 for less than a year.  And people are still lining up to get the reprint.   Best of Flair is definitely something to look for at your next estate sale.  This one will net you a few lobster dinners if that’s your thing.

Last one for today.  Did you know that you can get certified to be a PMP?  There’s an exam and flashcards are available for study.  Just not right now on Amazon. Flashcards for Passing the PMP Exam is possibly something that my husband could use because he’s a PM.  He doesn’t use the title PMP because he’s not certified.  Or maybe because it just sounds stupid.

On a somewhat serious note:  Silliness was in order today due to a variety of sucky events over the last couple of days beginning with a funeral for a childhood friend and (hopefully) ending with some crappy business issues.  More silliness may be required.  Forewarned is four-armed.  sick  ;-)

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This went to a 14 year old whose father told me that the piano on the cover was a 1923 just like the one he just purchased for his son who would be thrilled to get the piano book that matched it.

Estey Piano Book

This little item went to someone who was very pleased with it according to the feedback they left.

Pioneer Blackstone Washing Machine booklet

This buyer collects menus and was thrilled to get this one.

1944 Thanksgiving Menu

Even though I screwed up this sale and had to mail each item out separately, I had the most wonderful, understanding buyer from Canada that really loved both of these vintage items.

Cake Decorating Set and Aluminum Measuring Spoons

This was one of four yearbooks that a customer purchased from me.  I’m sure there was an upcoming reunion.

Yearbook 1957

Do you sell vintage? Don’t you love the stories that go along with the sales?

What’s your favorite one? I’d love to hear it.

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Why can’t I sleep and why is my head spinning? During another night of insomnia I did some more navel-gazing (I’ve been doing a lot of that lately) and what I concluded was that there were many reasons for my dazed confusion.

EBay is changing again. Once again we were notified months ago of some mysterious looming changes ahead that we would be given “plenty of advance notice” in order to adjust our listings – again.  Oh my!  What could they be?  No one knows.  Let’s all speculate on the chat boards as to how they’re going to screw the sellers again.  The naysayers come up with every horrific scenario under the sun and I start to believe some of it.  Some bad things have happened in the past, right?  It could happen again.  Well, the announcements were made, the dust has settled, and I won’t detail the changes here because they’re still new and won’t even go into effect for 10 weeks.  In a nutshell, I’m not the least upset with any of the changes.  When I get my May invoice I will know for sure whether I’ve been had or not.  My head hurts just thinking of all of the time I will spend between now and then while I go forth with my new listing plan under the assumption that eBay is telling me the truth.

I’m slowly focusing on doing more business on other venues. I just uploaded 1000 listings to my store on eCrater and I’m pleased that it was so easy to do.  However, I need to adjust each listing and take out the eBay lingo and references to my eBay newsletter and to adding me as a “Favorite” – an eBay thing.  I did one page of 40 listings yesterday and that was enough for one day.  Some of the words were pushed together and the categories needed to be changed on each one.  I’d like to have these done by the day of the first Google upload (1/31) but there’s no way that I’ll have 25 more pages done by then.  Crisis?  No, but I’d like to look somewhat like a professional seller.  Oh well.  On the plus side, this is an absolutely free venue that gets a phenomenal amount of Google hits (I’ve been tracking it for a long time) regardless of the “prettiness” of my listings.  But my head spins just thinking about all of the revisions that I need to do there to get up to speed.

I sell on multiple venues. Even though I have an inventory management system, it doesn’t work for all venues so I must still manually delete some items that sell.  It’s also time-consuming to keep up with all of the changes that occur on each site although eBay has all of them beat in that category.  At last count I sell on ten sites and track payment deposits, seller fees, returns, and customer inquiries for each one.  Some days Linda Blair’s head could not spin as fast as mine.

I maintain two blogs that I love. This one, which is more personal, and my shopping blog that I started in December because I love to share good deals with the readers.  If I made enough money on either one or both I could probably sit all day and write.  Let’s face it, hardly any one makes that kind of money blogging.  Bloggers write because they like it.  If I didn’t like writing, I never would have taken on the additional tasks of having two blogs.  I have some followers, whom I greatly appreciate, and I get a scattered comment once in a while (yay!).  Honestly, even if I didn’t have any readers, I would probably still sit here and blather on just the same.    Therapeutic? Yes.  Additional work?  Shakes spinning head yes.

I use a full spectrum of Social Media. Twitter is my friend.  I maintain a personal Facebook page as well as a business Facebook Fan Page.  I spend a lot of time tweeting and Facebooking.  Too much time probably.  LinkedIn is another place I network.

I’ve started to write articles for eHow. This site has been on my To Do list for ages and I’ve just recently signed up and written two articles there.  I have a long range plan for this site and it seems to be one more thing that I really enjoy doing.  Because I need more to do…  :-)

Should I scale back on something? No.  I like selling on multiple venues and I’m not ready to give up on eBay or my writing.   The social media is my connection to the outside world.  No way I’m giving that up.

Am I complaining? No.   Wah, wah, wah, right?!  Some days, but not many.  All of the above are choices that I’ve made a part of my life willingly because I actually like this whole gig.  It’s a lot some days, but I love it.  I just wish there were more hours in the day.  Until there are, I’ll just have to find a better way to unwind and stop spinning.

Do you also find yourself adding more to your list even though your plate is full?

How do you handle all of the multi-tasking involved with eCommerce? Make my day and leave a comment and let me know.  I’d love to hear from you.

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Believe it or not, in a roundabout way I got some business ideas from watching my cats deal with a recent dilemma.  Sounds silly but stick with me and let me know what you think.

Rewind to a few months ago when I started seeing my cats looking under my stove and sitting for hours just staring.   It went on for days and I thought it was odd but I wrote it off as a new cat “thing” that this lowly human would never understand.

A few days later my husband pulled a pan out of the bottom drawer of the stove and was met by a little fuzzy beast who squealed and ran back through the electrical cord hole to the basement.  Yes, we have a mouse in the kitchen and the cats had heard him scratching.  The mouse had probably been waiting every night for the lights to go out to make a mad dash Tom-and-Jerry-style to the cat’s food dish and then back under the stove.

So far the mouse had been successful because the cats were still on the job a week later.  Well, one cat was anyway.

It started out with three guardian cats day and night watching for the beady-eyed intruder.  Three cats with a mission all lined up staring at the most fascinating challenge that they’ve had in ages.  It was highly interesting for all three.  For a while.

Smoky was the first to give up. He’s a tail chaser from way back that gets distracted very easily.  He lasted at the stove front for a few days until he walked away for the last time to peruse a box, a ball, then a wood chip by the fireplace.  Any new object was fair game and he looked at them all.

Bear is a very laid back cat that is as sweet as he is lazy.  A good day for Bear is a 23 hour nap followed by a cuddle session then a feast.  He watched for the mouse for about a week because it didn’t require much effort and he really didn’t have many plans anyway.  After that week, he walked up to the corner of the stove and, much to my disgust, took a territorial pee and walked away for good.  He was done.  That mouse wasn’t coming out.  Buh-bye.

Tiny, the third cat, is an odd little character.  I found him in the yard 5 summers ago teetering on the edge of a cinder block by my garage.    He was all of a few weeks old and his mother was nowhere to be found.  I would never have seen him if my husband hadn’t pointed down to the ground to show me.  There was this little bag of bones kitten that ended up shunning the bottle that I initially tried to feed him with, and went straight to lapping from a saucer.  He was a scrapper even when he was a kitten and to this day I have no idea how he made the long trip from the neighbor’s barn far behind us to our yard.  But he got where he needed to be and he’s been happily spoiled ever since.

It seems to me that there are at least three ways to handle a problem and I have three cats with very different personalities that just happen to make this lesson clear to me.

When faced with a challenge I can do one of three things:

Try different things that might be more productive. Instead of just relying on eBay and Amazon for most of my income, I can put some effort into other venues that I list on and try new venues too.  My Google Analytics tracking tells me that eCrater and Bonanzle are getting more traffic all the time (especially eCrater).  I have accounts on both but I don’t spend much time on either one.  EBid.net just partnered with Google a few months ago and I’m a lifetime member (no fees) there even though I’ve not done much with it yet.  In the past I’ve gotten off track chasing every new venue under the sun so there’s a fine line between diversifying and getting distracted, but the aforementioned venues seem to be worth their weight these days so I’ll consider doing more business there.  I can also continue to try new ways to make money such as blogging and writing articles.

Say “Piss on it” and give up. Some venues were a total waste of time (OLA anyone?) and I’m glad I walked away from them.  One of my favorite book sites, Alibris, has just raised my seller fees to an amount that may make it unappealing for me to sell there anymore.  I’m also getting away from selling books in general since many are going digital, I’m running out of room, and local buying options are getting scarce.   As much as I love bookselling, common sense tells me that I should just phase myself out of it.  I have plenty of backup plans for that if the time comes.  EBay is one venue that I’m constantly reviewing to see if it’s still profitable.  Although it’s number 1 for me in income, the fees have become so expensive that when I really sit down and do the math, the big venue isn’t so big in my book anymore.  Giving eBay up may free up a whole lot of time to sell on less expensive venues.

The third option is to persist with a laser-like focus. This isn’t a strong point for me and my plan is to try harder on this one.  The first two options are much easier to put into practice.  Those options aren’t wrong in some cases but I wonder sometimes if things would be different if I only focused on one venue.  I read a lot of blogs (to the point of distraction) and I’m not so sure that my fellow eBay sellers who limit themselves to just eBay are feeling really great about the venue either.  Persistence can sometimes be confused with beating a dead horse.  I’ll know in a few months whether I will continue on eBay or pull the plug.  If they take away eBay stores, they will have made the decision for me.  Without my store I would have to run continuous auctions and if my sell through rate is what it is right now then hello dead horse, goodbye eBay.

Ask Tiny about persistence.  Look.

He's focused.

His gaze is laser-like.

He’s still there.  He’s in the kitchen right now as I write this.  Focused.  Persistent.  Taking on the challenge.  Bear’s snoozing in front of the fire.  Smoky’s playing with a new dustbunny.

Where’s the mouse?  I don’t know, but if he surfaces Tiny’s going to be the first one to greet him.

Have you changed your business model this year?  Does it include eBay?  Are other venues working out for you? I’d love to hear from you.

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Business was OK for my Christmas sales, not jump-up-and-down wonderful like some months in the past, but just OK.  I had happy customers and lots of sales and I’m grateful for every one of them but… I’m not quite where I want to be yet.

I’m feeling the slow and steady demise of eBay in my big picture.  Seems like I’ve been wanting to spend less and less time there even though it’s still my #1 venue for sales though not as much as they used to be.  Without spending much time at all on my Amazon listings, my sales there are slowly stealing eBay’s hold on that #1 spot.  It’s not difficult at all to do business on Amazon either.  EBay, however, is fraught with hoops to leap through, feedback issues, frequent price increases, lower traffic, and daily changes that require complete overhauls on a regular basis.  On Amazon, I list a product, reprice if needed, and wait for it to sell.  Period.  On eBay I’m constantly trying to figure out it’s latest search formula and then tweak my 1000+  listings to accommodate this mysterious, ever-changing algorithm.

Change isn’t easy but the writing on the wall is telling me that if I don’t change my business model soon there won’t be enough hours in the day for me to continue to do all that is needed to make a decent living.

So what does all of this have to do with cats?  Nothing, so far.  Because I haven’t posted in 5 weeks, I’ll squeeze another blog post out of all of this in tomorrow’s Part 2 story.

Alright, I just mentioned what I wasn’t going to mention.  Why haven’t I blogged in 5 weeks?  I read a LOT of blogs and I intensely dislike posts that invariably start with “I know I haven’t posted in ages but ….” while the author blathers on about being (lazy, busy, sick) fill in the blank.  My readers are smart enough to figure out that December is a busy month for online sales, hence “I’ve been busy” seems to be the main reason.  But you knew that.

I’ll continue this too-long post tomorrow and it really will be a post about what I learned from my cats about my business.  Captivated yet?  Here’s a precursor to what you won’t want to miss:

Is it just me?  Are you feeling a major change coming too?  Is eBay becoming less of a player in your online business?

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Every blog is now required by the Federal Trade Commission to have a disclosure and privacy policy that explains what information is garnered from statistics, whether your site accepts cookies, and whether the blogger is paid to endorse the items they have reviewed. Even if the product was received by the blogger for free but no money was paid, she must divulge that fact. Some blog readers are still unaware that many of the links and boxes that catch their attention and ask them to click are advertising that may result in paying the blog owner a small commission if the click results in a purchase. This must now be disclosed.

The FTC is not the only one requiring disclosure.  Do you use Google AdSense on your blog? Here’s what Google has to say in it’s Terms and Conditions for AdSense publishers:

“You must have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy that clearly discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your user’s browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on your website. Your privacy policy should also include information about user options for cookie management.”

Google also requires a mention of the DoubleClick DART cookie in your Disclosure. Don’t know what that is? Neither did I. If you’re dying to know, here’s the info.  If not then you’ll be happy to know that there are several places on the internet that will generate all of the required information for you.  I used SERP Rank but there are many other sites available to design a sufficient policy for free.

Why bother?  The Federal Trade Commission specifically states that there will be a fine of up to $11,000 PER POST for any infraction.

You might think, as I did, since your blog is tiny, doesn’t generate a whole lot of dinero, and the chances of free product offers are slim to none – and slim just left town –  that you don’t need to comply with these rules.  After imagining what it would be like to be fined $11,ooo over a link that paid me $.03, I figured that I would take the time to comply.  Also, huge blogs were once tiny blogs so why not prepare right now before the traffic explosion happens.   Always the positive thinker, people.  That I am.

Do you have a Privacy and Disclosure page on your blog yet? I’d love to hear from you.

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Enter the Amazon Kindle.  For 3 years now the Kindle has enabled people to read books, magazines and newspapers on this wireless device by simply downloading a file from Amazon.com.   Did you know that for a small monthly subscription price you can download your favorite blogs too?

Why pay for a Kindle subscription when you can read the blog for free on your computer?  Simply put, portability.  If you have certain blogs that you just don’t want to wait until you get home to read, the Kindle blog subscription may be for you.  The Kindle offers the ability to read on the subway, on the bleachers, on your lunch hour, in the waiting room, in the grocery line, etc.  I can easily see why these wireless devices are so popular.  As a bookseller I’m not happy about the potential lost sales that occur every time someone buys a downloadable book, but I’d be a fool to think that these nifty little portable devices are just a temporary fad.  They’re here.  They’re staying.  Our lifestyles are not going to slow down anytime soon.  Neither will the sales of these devices, in my opinion.

Here’s a link to my blog subscription so you can see what it looks like:

It’s very easy to add your blog to Amazon. Just go here to apply. If you sell on Amazon already, this is a separate account. It’s free to apply and you will receive 30% of every subscription sold. Most blogs, including mine, sell for $0.99 per month. Right now, there doesn’t appear to be a way to change the price.

What are you waiting for? Why not get some extra exposure?

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This video is a brief look into the life of a 21 year old Chinese woman who works in a WalMart factory in China.  She works long days for less than $3.00 a day for at least six days a week.  She does this by choice even though her family would like her to come back home and not work so hard.  After I viewed this I had many feelings but I also had questions.  What are her options? Why did she choose this life?  Were there repercussions for her opinions?  Is she still working there?  If so, why?

I’m conflicted about these types of videos.  After the initial angry feelings subside a bit, I start to logically dissect it for validity. One of the first things I learned about the internet was that a LOT of what’s on here is fiction represented as truth.   After viewing this video and applying what I already knew was true about Communist China, I had no reason to doubt that this was a fairly accurate depiction of a Chinese manufacturing plant that just happens to be owned by WalMart.  I don’t believe for a minute  that WalMart is the only company that buys and runs their overseas manufacturing this way, but they sell the most stuff so they are usually the target of our disgust with “sweat shops” and disdain for their participation in doing business with countries that lack workers’ rights.  Judge for yourself:

These types of issues always draw my eye because I sell online and continuously look for products that can be sold at a profit.  So many items that are offered to me at wholesale are made overseas and are manufactured without any wage and living condition standards in place for their workers.  The questions I ask myself all the time  (and I don’t think I’m alone here) are:

“How do I stay competitive in the online marketplace without sacrificing what I believe?”

“If I sell this stuff am I supporting slave labor?”

“It seems like everything’s made overseas so what choices do I have?”

“Some products are still made in the US but will people pay more for them?”

While at a wedding reception yesterday I struck up a conversation with a stranger (who I found out minutes later was my husband’s niece’s fiance)  who told me that he works for a local trailer manufacturer that builds all sizes of trailers for the government and the Red Cross, and for many custom orders too.  It was refreshing to hear that there were still some products being built in the United States, and I told him so.  He agreed but later added that the parts were mostly from China.

Where’s the line? I guess we each have to draw our own?

As I said, I’m conflicted about this issue and it comes up regularly.

How do feel about this issue? Does it impact your business? Does it effect your business decisions at all? I’d love to hear from you.

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Cornfields and clouds.

 

Fast moving trees.

Fuzzy horses.

Along winding roads.

I couldn’t figure out one reason why this road was constructed this way.  There surely must have been something that the crew couldn’t dig or blast through so they made it curvy, right?  My husband thought that the construction crew was just probably drunk.  We’re pretty far out in the sticks here.  Anything’s possible. 

Eventually there comes a time when we have to get out of the car and actually get up close and personal with the trees and nature.  Here we had our chance.

This particular trail is only open four weekends a year.  This was the final day of the season.  Time to go hiking (or huff-and-puffing as I call it.) 

Wait!  Stop the presses!  There was a food tent set up at the foot of the trail and I hadn’t eaten anything all day.  I asked my fellow hiker if we should eat something before we walked, or after, or both.  Which one do you think I chose?  Did I mention it was to benefit the local church?

We started hiking through the woods on a well-marked trail while we ate our gooey brownies and saw the sights, the sunshine, and the trees.

When we reached the top we were rewarded for our efforts by the sight of the waterfalls.

Glad to see that we weren’t the only fossils at the top of the trail.

See the trylobytes?  They’re millions of years old.  And they made it to the top of hill just fine.

We decided on the way down to take the scenic route which we did not know would take us waaaaaay out of the way and would require us to walk another (gulp!) 20 minutes!  It was well worth the extra effort since we got to go deep into the woods and see more of this.

Some people followed us in because they thought that we knew where we were going.  My husband and I laughed because, little did they know, only fools would follow us anywhere.  I’m that person who should bring full survival gear at the mere mention of hiking in the woods.  My spouse is the typical male who would never ask for directions, even if our life depended on it.  After about 15 minutes and no sign of people (other than our also clueless followers) we both kind of nervously laughed that this trail was leading us nowhere and seemed to be going deeper into the woods.  After a very long additional 5 minutes we saw the comforting sight of the food tent.  Yep, time for coffee.  And a park bench. 

Autumn is my very favorite time of year.  It doesn’t last long enough, in my opinion.  Hikes do though.

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By the way, these numbers are outdated.  I wonder what they would be today?

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