Yabba Dabba Yahoo! I got a sale with yahoo auctions, and it ended up cheaper than eBay even though it was featured. (.57 cents for insertion, gallery, FVF, feature to like usually .60 for just insertion and gallery) I might do a dual auction set up where I divide things between the two- like I might start buttons over on Yahoo! and keep junk auctions(although it's weird to call them junk auctions- it's usually good stuff- just stuff I need to sell to make room for more stuff) over on eBay.

One problem with yahoo is that they only take gifs or jpgs as image files, which causes duplication on my part..

It's been a long day of making earrings, and updating my store. These earrings and others are for sale, and much more where that came from when I get more supplies in. I'm hoping to be able to use up all my supplies before buying new ones, but it's too too tempting. I always end up buying something.  

I wonder how many buyers there will be on eBay if everyone who sells items under $10 leaves? It's one of those sound good things that doesn't really work in real life. Sure, it SOUNDS good to only have people with huge profit margins on eBay, but in reality, most buyers can't pay high prices for items- that's why they are on eBay. Not to mention that many small sellers are big buyers. Looking tough can be a good way to bite yourself on the behind.

I am trying a pricing experiment. Also, I am experimenting with jewelry sets.

I'm trying other auction sites because of the fee increases. Yahoo has the advantage of free counter, free gallery, and it also has the wrinkle of paid 'showcases'. However, I still don't know how to optimize my auctions for more traffic, and it might be a low traffic site. The length of auctions can be ten days without charge. Overstock has a nice interface for selling. The length of auctions is usually 5 days, although you can change it for free. I also like the free gallery. I find the ratings slightly confusing, and really dislike the whole 'friend' system. What's it for besides getting spammed? The fees are lower to insert. I'm running a test auction right now. I am also still selling on ebay. A lot of auctions are ending today.

If items don't sell, they will be relisted on the place they were on, and if they don't sell a second time, jewelry related items will be placed in my store. I am using a vendio store right now. On one hand, I like the ease of inserting items, on the other hand, I don't like the fees and lack of customization ability that I have. I'm thinking of making my own site.

The reply after this is an example of how not to act in a public forum. Now, for the rest of us, it is obvious that she took the price of her materials, labor costs, the price of shipping and added in a bit of profit. That's how it works. The girls selling on that community aren't just selling things out of the goodness of their hearts- they want to make money.

On a cheerier note, I distributed most of my intial batch of flyers today. I hope local publicity will drive sales. I also got a text ad on Let's Talk Honestly. I am trying different approaches to see what sticks.

You know, I really don't get the point of toddler bracelets.

Sweet action! They have a sneak peek up for my sampler contribution.

Some eBay sellers are having a Fee Buster Clearance Sale. Everything starts under 9.99. Search under FBCS to see whether there's any good deals. Just be mindful of the shipping.

I really love these. I made one pair for myself and one pair for my store  

The fact that overstock doesn't charge for gallery makes it convenient to charge less. This bracelet starts at one cent as it is a test auction. The duration is 5 days, which I like. If I had more inventory, I'd be turning over items in 3 and 1 day auctions.

EEEEE! My stuff is going to be in the sampler for February! I am always too tired at the beginning of the month to get organized and on the list of subscribers, so it's always full by the time I look at it, but hopefully I get a discount or something for next month if I try.. Of course, I could always send some more buttons down there. I love jewelry, but buttons are so much cheaper- and I have more button designs than jewelry designs anyway.

Panic Doll has a custom shirt builder. I don't do customs. They are good for money, but I'm always been worried about the time commitment, and what people expect versus what I can deliver. Underpromise and overdeliver is always the best way to do things, so I try not to bite off more than I can chew.

I did a bit of wire wrapping for commerical use. I'm selling them  

Today I finished a pair of Valentine's themed earrings. The day is getting close, and although I'm a confirmed quirkyalone(i.e. I don't get all jazzed up about Valentine's Day) I have a lot of heart pendants, even though finding matching ones can be slightly difficult. I wonder what a polite way to say you don't take returns on earrings is? They pierce through the skin, so it's not very sanitary to take them back..

Now I mostly use eBay for junk auctions, although I might adjust my strategy to include eBay when I have my supplies in. I have been ordering a lot of nice stuff, that will make fabulous earrings and bracelets. I got some nice gothic lolita type charms- so there will be some cute earrings coming down the pike in a few weeks. To help raise money for the new school year, I'm selling my old USB camera, and some To Heart manga- check it out.

It seems that Livejournal is back online, and some people aren't happy with ebay's fee increases. I'm not much happy either, but I'll hold back on the idea of whether I should take volume over pricing. On ebay, you can move volume, but usually at low prices. I might use fixed price listings with prices adjusted to absorb the listing fees. Another problem with volume is that I'm slow. I'll make stuff, but I'm not making like ten bracelets a week. I guess I could bite the bullet, and buy a shit load of stuff, but school will be busy.

I understand it's unfair with one part of myself, but I'm trying to think of how to overcome the unfairness with the other part. Then again, I think that the people acting like worrying about fees going up is just for losers may be in for a bit of a surprise. When people sell on ebay, they buy on ebay. When I sell on ebay, it's pretty convienant for me to go and buy more stuff, recycling money here, but when I sell on my website, I'm not going to be on a site where their objects are displayed. Also, general price increases all over the site to cover the new fees may drive away customers.

Of course there is the simple fact that not everyone has the same profit margin- it sounds good to say just sell things that go for $100 a pop, but the odds that you're going to find something cheap that goes for that much is crazy, so it's probably better to adjust to the reality of 99% of people, than the other way around...

Sweet. I was looking for cards with black themes, and I found this site, which is black owned and operated. It's always good to be able to support your community. If a woman or a man is able to create wealth through their business, not only may they actually hire a young person from the neighborhood, they also serve as a good role model for kids. Hallmark is good and all, but is Hallmark going to care about pulling up roots and leaving people's jobless or whether our neighborhoods are presentable?

Another good point of buying from small businesses is that many of the business owners may be women trying to be able to stay at home with their kids. Support them, and their kids get more quality time. I'm merely a poor college student, but the extra money from my business is pretty helpful for school expenses.

Also, a forum for blacks in business. In addition, here is a mailing list for minority entrepreneurs.

It seems that ebay is raising its fees. I'm slightly glad that I have scaled back on ebay selling. It helps with volume, but what is volume if you lose money?

Dear animeg3282,
We are writing to let you know that effective midnight PST, February 18, 2005 eBay.com and eBay Motors will be making changes to the fee structure.
The fee changes are as follows:
GalleryGallery fees will be raised from $0.25 to $0.35 per listing. We will also be increasing the size of the Gallery image on search and listings pages by 56%. This will make it easier for buyers to see details of the item before clicking into the listing.
Buy It Now Buy It Now fees will no longer be charged at a flat rate, and will instead be determined based on the Buy It Now price. Fees will be charged as follows:
Buy It Now Price
Fee
$0.01 - 9.99
$0.05
$10 - 24.99
$0.10
$25 - 49.99
$0.20
$50+
$0.25
10-Day Duration The fee for 10-day duration listings will be raised from $0.20 to $0.40 per listing.
eBay StoresThe fee for the Basic eBay Store subscription will be raised from $9.95 to $15.95 per month. The subscription fee for Featured and Anchor Stores will be unchanged.
eBay Store Inventory format listing insertion fees will remain unchanged. The Final Value Fee for Store Inventory items will change as follows:
Closing Price
Old Price
New Price
$0.01 - $25
5.25% of the closing value
8% of the closing price
$25.01 - $1,000
5.25% of the initial $25, plus 2.75% of the remaining closing value balance.
8% of the initial $25, plus 5% of the remaining closing value balance ($25.01 - $1000)
Over $1,000
5.25% of the initial $25, plus 2.75% of the next $25.01-$1000, plus 1.50% of the remaining closing value balance ($1,000.01 - closing value).
8% of the initial $25, plus 5% of the next $25.01 - $1000, plus 3% of the remaining closing value balance ($1,000.01 - closing value).
Store sellers will continue to be eligible to receive 50% off of the Store Inventory listing final value fees for Store Referral credit. Please click here for details.
Insertion and Final Value FeesThe insertion and Final Value Fees will be changing for items listed in certain Business & Industrial categories. More details about the changes for these categories are provided below. The insertion and Final Value Fees in other categories will not be changing.
Business & Industrial Listings in Certain CategoriesThe Reserve, insertion and Final Value Fees will be changing for select high item price capital equipment categories in Business & Industrial. Please click here to view the capital equipment categories affected by the pricing change.
The fee changes for these capital equipment categories are as follows:
Reserve fee: Lowered to $5, refundable if the item sells
Insertion fee: Raised to $20, regardless of starting price
Final Value Fee: Lowered to a 1% flat fee, with a $250 maximum charge
Additional listing upgrade fees will remain the same as for eBay.com. Pricing for all other Business & Industrial listings outside the specified capital equipment categories will remain the same as for eBay.com.
eBay will also introduce Buyer Protection covering up to $20,000 per item in these capital equipment categories this spring. eBay will offer this Buyer Protection at no cost to the buyer or seller.

So my art book auctions are ending in one day. Also, Vendio was not cooperating, and I had to edit the free shipping into all my one inch buttons by hand, and it took like an hour. I'm glad I had only 60 or so to adjust..

I've been posting a lot today, but part of the hard work I was talking about last post, was advertising my anime/manga artbooks that are being auctioned on ebay. I got my site listed on thriftychick, and to offset part of the cost, I am selling my artbooks. I really like my artbooks, but I don't really look at them that often, so except for a few special ones, they are going. I will continue to broaden my product line too. When school starts, I'll buy a lot of beads, and jump rings and suchlike, because it's a bit easier to not worry about whether you put your inventory in this or that compartment of your suitcase.

I'd like to ask you a favor. I was happy because my site was placed on spacefem they don't just put any putz's link on their site, but my site was rated down by a person who was jealous of me. Please rank it back up. Here is what the loser wrote:

http://spacefem.com/links/links.php?cat=21 <--woooo! Please rate the link between five and ten. Hahahah, they lose You're no fun, mike

He explained this stupid action by saying this: Modding you down because you mostly sell racist or LLL sh*t

By 'racist', he means that I sell buttons that say "love blackness" or noting that the real race card is white privilege, i.e. being the typical person who is jealous that people he thinks are inferior are succeeding where he is sitting on his behind, he complains about actually being against racism, because he thinks more racism would give him status, when he could actually get some status by doing some work. And I'm proud to be a loony liberal. If it wasn't for us, he would not have the time to waste putting down people who actually are doing something- he'd be working 16 hour days or be dead because of tainted food or disease.

This goes to show you that someone is always going to be jealous of you trying to get somewhere in life, even if you are not a black woman, although we do get a lot of jealous people who think they should be ahead because they think they are superior, and shouldn't have to do any work like we do while they are running their mouths. So take this lesson with you when you have to deal with the "god, your designs are ugly" lady at the craft fair(I haven't been to one, but I have heard some stories!), or the sister in law who talks about your 'hobby' and doesn't take you seriously, or anyone else who just sits on their behind and criticizes your achievement, even if they aren't racists.

It's easy to try to tear stuff down- it's hard to build things up- I am working hard, doing link partner ships, rolling out new button designs, creating new jewelry and learning new techniques, finding ways to stretch my marketing dollar. It takes hard work to own your own business- it's something you have made. What do haters have? Nothing.

Rose and Thorn is having a sale. Maybe I should have a rotating sale section, because nothing makes me look more than a sale- it could be anything, but a sale will get my attention. I'm reading The End of Marketing As We Know It. I'm going to have to find some more books on business- this book is ok, but focuses more on being part of a large company's marketing section than just you know, doing your own marketing.

The day before yesterday, I made my first sale of the year from this post in the EGL community. Today I put up some earrings, which will make a nice set with either of two bracelets. I read on Beadstyle about making sets, and since I had some extra beads, I decided to make the earrings. I'm learning a lot of new jewelry techniques nowadays, such as wire wrapping, but I haven't really put any like that on the site. I'm mentally exhausted, so I am not thinking up any button slogans. It's more restful on the mind to make jewelry.

Today I put up three necklaces with heart pendants on the website. Now that I have a necklace section, it's time to flaunt it. I also added two pairs of earrings, although one was sold within two seconds of being posted to the EGL community. That's the fastest sale ever.

I redid my mom's Christmas present. I haven't done wire wrapping before, so it doesn't look as good as it might have. Still pretty good.