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Post by G on Jan 5, 2013 9:55:22 GMT -5
Getting my comics ready to be sold has been an ordeal. I've been at this nearly 3 weeks now and it's been an awful lot of work. I spent 2 days just separating the good sellable books from the junk. And then I have been scanning books ever since then. I have determined that I have scanned over 800 books and I'm ready to start putting things on sale. I pick out what I feel is a great package of books to put out and hopefully get me a decent amount of money.
I had Turbo Lister and I tried to use it. I didn't like it. The whole time you're using it, you don't have the answers on it that the regular ebay site has to tell you. There is too much back and forth. It's unproductive. I decide I'm not going to use Turbo Lister. I'll just do them one at a time like I did before. Once I get the hang of it, most of it is copy and paste and change a few words, so I'm not scared of it. But once again, its going to be a lot of work.
So anyway, I get all set to start putting my package together and I notice something I noticed last time but paid little to no attention to it because it didn't matter. This time it did.....
Ebay now has an item limit. And being I have only sporadically used ebay over a 10 year period, I had to call them to try and adjust it. At first I spoke to a foreigner who was nice but couldn't help me. Made me feel like my account was in trouble. Sent me to someone else and this guy took like 20 minutes to answer. When he did, I explained what I was trying to do and why I needed the item limited lifted. I understood their point of view, but I've got to imaging other people get in jams like myself and decide they are going to go hard at ebay. I had to speak to this kid who sounded 20 years younger than me and was professional but a bit condescending. Like I had to grovel to him to get what I wanted. I literally need about 1000 item limit a month. Although that seems unrealistic to do, I could use that freedom.
After being preached to for a bit and asked a few questions that met with shock at my responses, the kid says he'll grant me up to 250 a month to prove myself and I can request a higher number in 30 days. I had to feel grateful about it and let it go. I got 150 more out of it and I figure 125 books every 2 weeks just might work. Maybe they saved me from myself.
Well, this created a new problem. I had to gameplan my books in a way were I would evenly distribute the good books with the mediocre books. When I had thought up 350, I had like 150 books that were lower level sellable books. Now I had to pick out 125 and hope that what I pick brings in a worthwhile amount of money. Not only that, the lesser tiered books are not nearly into play. More or less, this development causes me to cherrypick myself more. Putting up more stronger books than I want to and causing me to weaken my stock a lot quicker than I want to. After numerous edits, I got my books down to 125 and added more upper tiered books to the stock. I'm ready to make listing now.
Well that, after I decide my shipping stock. I'm hoping in the next 2-3 days I am live and up for business. Just thought I would share my ordeal so far.
I'll link to it when it's ready. I'll also post some scans here eventually when my time allows more. Once I get books up, I will be cutting cardboard 7 days a week to prepare what to me will be the hardest part, shipping. I need to ship out as fast as I can so I can put my next 125 up and get that taken care of. I'll go back to ebay after that and see if I can get them to 500 eventually. I figure I can do things the way I want to with that. I can sprinkle in a lot more of the lower class books. They really hurt me with this rule. They informed me they did this after many years to have stricter controls on sellers and create more reliable buying experiences for buyers. I understand their reasoning. I'm just saying if you ever get that hair up your ass to give it a go. Be prepared to try and change those limits if you have them. I think automatically the limits are higher. But if you're like me and use ebay here and there, expect your limits to be low and in need of adjustment.
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Post by defiant1 on Jan 5, 2013 11:54:43 GMT -5
Getting my comics ready to be sold has been an ordeal. I've been at this nearly 3 weeks now and it's been an awful lot of work. I spent 2 days just separating the good sellable books from the junk. And then I have been scanning books ever since then. I have determined that I have scanned over 800 books and I'm ready to start putting things on sale. I pick out what I feel is a great package of books to put out and hopefully get me a decent amount of money. I had Turbo Lister and I tried to use it. I didn't like it. The whole time you're using it, you don't have the answers on it that the regular ebay site has to tell you. There is too much back and forth. It's unproductive. I decide I'm not going to use Turbo Lister. I'll just do them one at a time like I did before. Once I get the hang of it, most of it is copy and paste and change a few words, so I'm not scared of it. But once again, its going to be a lot of work. So anyway, I get all set to start putting my package together and I notice something I noticed last time but paid little to no attention to it because it didn't matter. This time it did..... Ebay now has an item limit. And being I have only sporadically used ebay over a 10 year period, I had to call them to try and adjust it. At first I spoke to a foreigner who was nice but couldn't help me. Made me feel like my account was in trouble. Sent me to someone else and this guy took like 20 minutes to answer. When he did, I explained what I was trying to do and why I needed the item limited lifted. I understood their point of view, but I've got to imaging other people get in jams like myself and decide they are going to go hard at ebay. I had to speak to this kid who sounded 20 years younger than me and was professional but a bit condescending. Like I had to grovel to him to get what I wanted. I literally need about 1000 item limit a month. Although that seems unrealistic to do, I could use that freedom. After being preached to for a bit and asked a few questions that met with shock at my responses, the kid says he'll grant me up to 250 a month to prove myself and I can request a higher number in 30 days. I had to feel grateful about it and let it go. I got 150 more out of it and I figure 125 books every 2 weeks just might work. Maybe they saved me from myself. Well, this created a new problem. I had to gameplan my books in a way were I would evenly distribute the good books with the mediocre books. When I had thought up 350, I had like 150 books that were lower level sellable books. Now I had to pick out 125 and hope that what I pick brings in a worthwhile amount of money. Not only that, the lesser tiered books are not nearly into play. More or less, this development causes me to cherrypick myself more. Putting up more stronger books than I want to and causing me to weaken my stock a lot quicker than I want to. After numerous edits, I got my books down to 125 and added more upper tiered books to the stock. I'm ready to make listing now. Well that, after I decide my shipping stock. I'm hoping in the next 2-3 days I am live and up for business. Just thought I would share my ordeal so far. I'll link to it when it's ready. I'll also post some scans here eventually when my time allows more. Once I get books up, I will be cutting cardboard 7 days a week to prepare what to me will be the hardest part, shipping. I need to ship out as fast as I can so I can put my next 125 up and get that taken care of. I'll go back to ebay after that and see if I can get them to 500 eventually. I figure I can do things the way I want to with that. I can sprinkle in a lot more of the lower class books. They really hurt me with this rule. They informed me they did this after many years to have stricter controls on sellers and create more reliable buying experiences for buyers. I understand their reasoning. I'm just saying if you ever get that hair up your ass to give it a go. Be prepared to try and change those limits if you have them. I think automatically the limits are higher. But if you're like me and use ebay here and there, expect your limits to be low and in need of adjustment. Your situation is tough because you need money rolling in. If I wasn't in that bind, I'd list all my crap first but making sure to list at least some crap that had popular characters or keywords. I'd do a lot of smaller crap sets to try and push it out first. I've never sold on ebay, but I'd want the stock I was adding to be better each week. In all honesty, the whole eBay thing makes me cringe at the thought of it. I try to isolate myself from stupid people. Ebay puts them right at your inbox. df1
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Post by G on Jan 5, 2013 12:01:32 GMT -5
Unfortunately, those stupid people are what separates me from that cash I need. I'll have to grin and bear it. ;D
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Post by G on Jan 5, 2013 12:14:17 GMT -5
Your situation is tough because you need money rolling in. If I wasn't in that bind, I'd list all my crap first but making sure to list at least some crap that had popular characters or keywords. I'd do a lot of smaller crap sets to try and push it out first. I've never sold on ebay, but I'd want the stock I was adding to be better each week. In all honesty, the whole eBay thing makes me cringe at the thought of it. I forgot to mention my original limit was 100 items a month. I cannot explain quickly just how damaging that was. I was stocked for bear and loaded with ammunition but yes, most of it was bottom heavy. I had about 325 books ready for creating listings for. It was a mix of all my categories, but it was most predominately lower class books sprinkled in with medium and higher class stuff. The lower class books I figured would easily bring in $1 - $5 each. I figured for what they lacked in price, they would make up for with volume. Also, its easier to sell your lower stuff when you have items of interest surrounding it. If its all lower class stuff, people are not going to keep looking. But its good enough stuff to make you want to add it with better stuff up there. My game plan had me needing an average of about $4 a book which I thought should have been reasonably obtainable. Well dumping from a 325 item upload to 125, that changed the whole gameplan. Now I have to make the process work a lot more for me to make it even worthwhile to do. I went from needing to average about $4 a book to needing to average at least $6 or $7 a book and even that would be disappointing. And instead of pushing out the bad with the good, I'm pushing out more good than I want to and only able to sprinkle in a few bads. I have done this though. I had TONS of duplicates! In almost every case, I put out the worst condition copy first and pushed off the better copies for later. I feel if I can push the limit to 500 a month, I can push out a lot more lower stuff and still keep it interesting. But I'll have to gameplan making this month worthwhile and not cherry picking myself into a box. I think I have gameplanned it rather well. Now, will it work? Only time will tell.
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Post by defiant1 on Jan 5, 2013 18:07:55 GMT -5
Unfortunately, those stupid people are what separates me from that cash I need. I'll have to grin and bear it. ;D There are 2 kinds of stupid people on eBay. Ones who have more money than common sense and those with no money and stupid questions. Let's hope you get the ones who bid stupid amounts. df1
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Post by G on Jan 7, 2013 6:47:48 GMT -5
I will be going live tonight. No one will ever realize how much work went into this. I can honestly say it was a shitload of work! The only good thing is I think I did a lot up front to make it easier for me as I go. But this first round was hard as hell to get done. I may not be done with my listings tonight but I'm going live anyway. Whatever I don't finish tonight will be finished tomorrow. I will link to it once it goes live. I need a shitload of luck too. I'm down to my last cheeseburger. But I believe hard work will be rewarded no matter what form it is. If you put the effort into it, it should be rewarded. I can honestly say, I put a hell of a lot into this. And the ebay limitations really crippled what I wanted to do. So I'm worried this isn't going to solve my short term needs. But I'll go down fighting anyway. Wish me luck please.
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Post by G on Jan 7, 2013 19:42:20 GMT -5
I had a timing snafu with putting it off feature on ebay. I had it originally set to start on Sunday but thought better of it. Especially considering the workload I was still facing. I quickly changed the date to the next day, but evidently I wasn't paying attention to the time and must had inadvertently had the AM/PM sequence mixed up or something like that. I really didn't pay any attention to it because I changed it rather quickly. This was a bad mistake to me because now instead of a lot of my books ending on Monday night, a lot of books will end Monday afternoon. Anyway, since then, I have made the remaining listing take place to go on sale tonight. I won't be finished tonight, so I will have some more going on for Tuesday evening as well. That will end my first run. So what you may see now, depending on when you view it, there may be more coming. If anybody wants to watch and see how I do, my books can be seen at the following link. Thanks! www.ebay.com/sch/chamberofcomix/m.html?item=150976673635&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESCX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
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Post by defiant1 on Jan 7, 2013 22:59:51 GMT -5
I had a timing snafu with putting it off feature on ebay. I had it originally set to start on Sunday but thought better of it. Especially considering the workload I was still facing. I quickly changed the date to the next day, but evidently I wasn't paying attention to the time and must had inadvertently had the AM/PM sequence mixed up or something like that. I really didn't pay any attention to it because I changed it rather quickly. This was a bad mistake to me because now instead of a lot of my books ending on Monday night, a lot of books will end Monday afternoon. Anyway, since then, I have made the remaining listing take place to go on sale tonight. I won't be finished tonight, so I will have some more going on for Tuesday evening as well. That will end my first run. So what you may see now, depending on when you view it, there may be more coming. If anybody wants to watch and see how I do, my books can be seen at the following link. Thanks! www.ebay.com/sch/chamberofcomix/m.html?item=150976673635&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESCX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562I think there is some pretty good stuff there. That would be the last stuff I'd want to sell. I figured you'd do sets of you ex's books first. df1
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Post by G on Jan 8, 2013 3:06:53 GMT -5
I had a timing snafu with putting it off feature on ebay. I had it originally set to start on Sunday but thought better of it. Especially considering the workload I was still facing. I quickly changed the date to the next day, but evidently I wasn't paying attention to the time and must had inadvertently had the AM/PM sequence mixed up or something like that. I really didn't pay any attention to it because I changed it rather quickly. This was a bad mistake to me because now instead of a lot of my books ending on Monday night, a lot of books will end Monday afternoon. Anyway, since then, I have made the remaining listing take place to go on sale tonight. I won't be finished tonight, so I will have some more going on for Tuesday evening as well. That will end my first run. So what you may see now, depending on when you view it, there may be more coming. If anybody wants to watch and see how I do, my books can be seen at the following link. Thanks! www.ebay.com/sch/chamberofcomix/m.html?item=150976673635&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESCX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562I think there is some pretty good stuff there. That would be the last stuff I'd want to sell. I figured you'd do sets of you ex's books first. df1 That's why I was saying the limit made me rethink things. I don't have time to dilly dally around. I need to make some money yesterday. I put these books up and I'm still worried. I went from having a lot of lower tiered books with good books sprinkled in, to having a lot of decent books with only a few lowered tiered books sprinkled in. I had to make the books I put up count. Now this is well pondered. I had about 800 scans to choose from. I tried doing it in a way that I hope will make me money as well as tried not to cherry pick myself too much. I still have most of my strongest books unused. My wife had mostly funny books. I have about 150-200 funny books ranging from crap to pretty good stuff. Was considering an all funny book run but fear it might not bring the money I need. As for now, I don't know if you seen things before or after the night books showed up. I'll have another 45 books hitting Tuesday night giving me 125 books total. I can't believe how much work this has been. I get better at everything as I go and at least I won't have to scan again for awhile. But man, listing took a lot longer than I thought it would. I'm used to doing 10-30 at a time. As of this moment, I've made 95 advertisements and let me tell you, that took a long time. Anyway, check the link out after anytime late tonight. Hopefully you'll feel like it's a decent run. I'm still concerned. I need my average to be quite high for it to give me the breathing room I desperately need.
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Post by defiant1 on Jan 8, 2013 17:49:18 GMT -5
I think there is some pretty good stuff there. That would be the last stuff I'd want to sell. I figured you'd do sets of you ex's books first. df1 That's why I was saying the limit made me rethink things. I don't have time to dilly dally around. I need to make some money yesterday. I put these books up and I'm still worried. I went from having a lot of lower tiered books with good books sprinkled in, to having a lot of decent books with only a few lowered tiered books sprinkled in. I had to make the books I put up count. Now this is well pondered. I had about 800 scans to choose from. I tried doing it in a way that I hope will make me money as well as tried not to cherry pick myself too much. I still have most of my strongest books unused. My wife had mostly funny books. I have about 150-200 funny books ranging from crap to pretty good stuff. Was considering an all funny book run but fear it might not bring the money I need. As for now, I don't know if you seen things before or after the night books showed up. I'll have another 45 books hitting Tuesday night giving me 125 books total. I can't believe how much work this has been. I get better at everything as I go and at least I won't have to scan again for awhile. But man, listing took a lot longer than I thought it would. I'm used to doing 10-30 at a time. As of this moment, I've made 95 advertisements and let me tell you, that took a long time. Anyway, check the link out after anytime late tonight. Hopefully you'll feel like it's a decent run. I'm still concerned. I need my average to be quite high for it to give me the breathing room I desperately need. Any people watching on the auctions with no bids? I think shipping is too much on individual books. I'd think small runs would do better. Also, don't underestimate non-superhero stuff. The fastest flip I ever made was on 2 long boxes or Archies with average condition of VG and it was excellent profit. df1
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