Monday, June 30, 2014

Monday Mumbling

Is anyone else having trouble getting on ebay today? I've tried on both of my computers and what comes up is all jumbled and unusable. I'm not having any trouble getting on other sites. I was all psyched to list today too after buying some cool stuff at an estate sale yesterday.

Here is a screen shot of what I get


In Other News

Yesterday I saw that I had received another defect. I got a 3 star in the item described category. I ran the report so I could see who left it for me and was surprised. The person who left it left positive feedback which said "Perfect description". Um, hunh?? I'm not sure if I'm going to call customer service or not. I've never had to call CS and hear mostly negative stories when I read other people's experiences with CS. Any advice for me? I'm at a 1.22% defect rate right now out of a possible 2%. That doesn't leave me much room for error. Two of my defects should fall off in August and September as it will be a year.


I've noticed lately that a lot of the re-sellers that I pay half attention to are coming out with ebooks, videos and such selling their knowledge. There's nothing wrong with that but it really annoys me that the pictures that they use to advertise their product show binders, cd discs, spiral books etc when all you are getting is a file download. Is it just me? Isn't this misrepresentation? Has anyone else noticed this? Am I overreacting? One in particular who I was starting to listen to regularly on youtube I quit listening to because it seemed like the content of his youtube videos was becoming more and more promotion for his product. Seems like a growing trend. I'm glad that the seller blogs that are my favorites and that I visit the most aren't like this. :)

Well off to see if I can get on ebay yet and get some work done.




13 comments:

  1. I know what you mean, Nancy. And the really sad part about so many of these so called experts is that they are making their living selling this stuff to unsuspecting newbies, and they aren't really selling very much on eBay. I have purchased educational materials from some reputable very successful sellers, but I did my research first. I checked out their stores and their completes over a period of time. I want to get my education from people who are actually selling as much as I want to sell instead of people who are actually selling less than I'm already selling.

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    1. I signed up worth a "reputable" ebay professional for a monthly subscription to have access to the videos and online seminars. The seminars were informative, but the individual was always pitching more stuff to buy. You can pay to go shopping with them, and now there are different levels to the subscription plan that is offered.

      My initial intent in signing up was the lure of making 100,000 on ebay. This was a "special seminar" available to those who were under the subscription plan.

      I see now that this person makes their $100,000 with the services offered to learn how to sell on eBay. It was disheartening, and after 3 months I stopped the subscription.

      Lesson learned.

      Lisa@centralfloridathrifter

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    2. Lisa I think I've seen the particular product you're referring to.

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    3. Kimberly I read your blog and I don't think you need to pay anyone for their knowledge. You're doing great!

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  2. Ebay was glitchy for me today. I hit the relist gadget thingie and the box popped up like usual. I changed the price and suddenly it went to an SYI form that said "Create your listing." I immediately hit the back button. Weird.

    I think if you have sold on ebay for a year or more, you probably know just as much or more than a lot of those so-called experts. The best way to educate yourself on brands, labels, maker's marks, etc is to check the completed listings and choose highest price first. Read those top 20 listings and get yourself a free education without all the annoying pop up ads.

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    1. It's still not usable for me. I'm hoping I don't have a virus of some sort but I guess it would be weird if it just affected ebay.

      I agree with you searching completeds is a great education. It's also a great way to learn the terminology when you're listing something unfamiliar. A lot of times it's the experts or pros who are selling the item for big bucks and you can study their listings to find out where to find the model number, how to describe the flaws etc. Booksellers of expensive books have a whole language and grading system.

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  3. I haven't had any issues with ebay either. I don't read blogs where they try to sell their experience. While I don't have issues with people getting paid for knowledge, I have found some don't know any more than I do. LOL. I am more into a lets share our info and make a buck together. Also I saw an ad to buy an ebook for 25 discontinued items to buy now. How many people bought that book? I have a feeling the market is probably flooded with those products. I don't know because I'm not going to pay $19 to find out. Also how these "gurus" drum up business is shady a lot of times. One went into my eBay facebook group with the sole purpose of starting drama to get people into their FB group instead.

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    1. I found out the ebay/computer issues were because of a storm we had the night before. Internet fixed this morning! It's amazing how addicted I am even though it's work I still can't stand to be without it.

      I like the free exchange of information too. You help me…I help you. Hmm. That sounded vaguely like Barney ;)

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    2. I am so thankful my kids never got into Barney..... :D

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  4. I totally agree. There are many people that start doing ebay and then right away want to call themselves experts and start charging people to teach them how. Lets be honest, its not that hard to teach yourself, there is a wealth of information for free. I taught myself how from reading blogs! Like Grace said, lets share info and make a buck together!

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  5. Selling information. It's like that in every profession. Do you blame them? If you create a product or a couple of products once and then are able to sell them over and over again..it's definitely much easier that reselling on ebay. I think that if a person has been a seller for a long time and indeed does have information that will help other sellers, and they can make $ doing that. I'm all for it. I do believe that if you invest let's say $30 in come continuing education and will learn one thing, you can easily and quickly recoup your investment. What I don't like is the new people, like you said Nancy, who actually haven't much experience, trying to get in the business of selling expert information. I also like sellers to be transparent and show their stores. So you can do research and see that it is working for them and that it's not all BS.

    Ha, I just bought the Thrift Store Reseller's guide (Meinard). I follow his ebay stores. He's a great Ebay seller and is very knowledgeable and I look forward to reading the guide and learning from him. His knowledge is completely different than mine and I look forward to picking up some knowledge from him. :)

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    1. Hi Margaret. I'd be interested to know what you think of the guide you bought once you've had a chance to read it. You're right, there is nothing wrong with people selling information. I checked out his site and I see he doesn't make it look like you're getting a set of dvds and a binder and actual book. That's my pet peeve about so many selling these guides is they put together this information that is maybe gleaned from other sources, maybe not, and then present it as this slick package of multiple dvds and books. Hopefully most people understand that that is not what they are getting but it still irks me.

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