One of the best pieces of advice I can give you about drop shippers for ebay is don't use them. As a buyer, I want my seller to have the item in hand, ready to go when I pay them. I don't want slow shipping or items to get lost in transit. For ebay suppliers, I'd advise people to look in their own home towns. There have to be estate sales, garage sales, thrift stores, people selling abandoned storage sheds near you. If not, use google, use other auction sites, just don't go and ask others for their suppliers. I'm just an around the house seller and I know that.

How cute. This woman is selling bears made from your own old clothes- like a quilt, but cuter. My mom keeps and preserves the old family quilts, and one quilt is mine- my mom personalized it by using some cloth I was going to use to learn to sew to patch the holes. (yes, I've been trying to learn to sew for years, and never have gotten the knack for it. Maybe this summer will be the summer). I'm glad I had the chance to remember that.

Click the pic, and you can own this lovely piece today.

Ms Cobblepots is supposedly closing. Where will I get my bows now? I hope I won't have to make them myself.

Also, I have two bead auctions ending in less than twenty four hours. There's more where that is coming from as I am cleaning out my bead collection.

Do you have a gothic lolita related business? Contribute to the Lolita Snap link pool.

While I'm blogging, I'd like to mention my mailing list Members get sales, special deals, contests and lots of other fun stuff. It's free to join, is only a weekly mailing, and your email address will never be sold or given to anyone else.

Now that's a smart marketing move. I usually try to avoid using names of recognized movies or companies in my auctions, because who knows which company is going to be a Vero member and get your auction pulled, but if you can get away with it, it's always good for extra exposure. One note for buyers- if a seller has multiples of a too good to be true item, it's probably not real. I don't mind sellers like this one, but what really gets my goat are people who sell fake Coach bags or fake Tiffany earrings because that means that people who sell the real deal aren't going to want to put theirs on ebay- how will they compete with $20 vinyl purses and $60 gold plated rings?

In celebration of my eBay luck, I have posted 4 pairs of earrings at the irresistible price of $9.99


Click, and get them before they are gone. Also, an explanation for the uninitiated, Gothic Lolita is a Japanese style inspired by Victorian fashion. No Nabokov here.

I'm so excited. My magnets are in. I should put up the new option to get any button as a magnet soon and also put up new designs.

I have been having a great streak of ebay luck- every single item I put on ebay sells. This is very strange since summer tends to be a slow time for sellers. I guess it all depends.

A small businesswoman talks about the travails of home parties. I've never tried home parties before, as I am still sharpening my skills, and also because I don't have a car. Maybe later.

Another venue that my items are on is the Velvet Garden. I have four pairs of earrings up.

If you want a profitable ebay business, try making lampwork beads. They are always too high to buy. I really am itching to make some jewelry, but my supplies got sent to Atlanta, so I'm taking a long time.

I posted a pair of earrings on craftview. It's only $1.50 for a 30 day listing. I'm experimenting with different venues to get my crafts seen. That reminds me that I have to find some more consignment places online to sell my stuff. More exposure can't hurt.

In good eBay news, we finally have a designer artisan category. This category is just for people who handcraft jewelry. So instead of getting the same earrings that everyone else is wearing, you get a real piece of art, and support honest crafters.

Submitting products to froogle is really slow going. I'm trying to use froogie, but it won't even let me copy and paste descriptions from my site, so I have to retype them out. It's so dull and boring, I tend to procrastinate. I'm creating new items all the time too, so it's a real hassle. Of course anything that makes it even a bit easier costs an arm and a leg. *sigh*

The latest ebay dust up is over how people will no longer be allowed to sell using just a personal paypal account. This doesn't affect me because I already sell using a premier account. I'm still of two minds about this. On one hand, it's annoying that small low margin sellers have one more reason to raise prices, on the other hand, unless you are selling items for .99 cents each, 30 cents more shouldn't dent things too much. One adaptation ebay sellers need to make is to start the starting bid at the lowest price that they would pay unless they know that the item will have a bidding war. Most ebay items get one or maybe two bids. If you sell at .99 cents, there's not much of a point in selling with all those fees, you'd be better off with a yard sale.

Another is to do research using the completed items search feature. This is easy to use- just go to advanced search, type in your item or category, and click the box saying completed items only. This will give you an idea of what keywords sell and when items sell at the highest price.

I have to admit that I was annoyed when yahoo sitebuilder kept prompting me to upgrade, but now I'm glad because among the new features is an option to quickly put in a paypal button. This makes putting new items on the site much faster. So thanks, yahoo. Also, today, my first ebay auction in a long time is ending. I have had those spiral findings for about 6 months or so, trying to find the best way to use them, and I am satisfied in how the earrings came out.

The comments on this post include a really good discussion of 'bootstrapping' versus venture capital. This of course depends on the business- I don't think any one would give me $500 let alone $50,000 to set up a jewelry company. Boot strapping is hard because you have to start on a shoe string. I do not even have a credit card so spending $1000 on ads or hiring someone for PR is out of the question. However, I also do not really owe anyone anything. If my buttons are too snarky, there is no one to tell me to tone them down, if my business fails, that's on me. I think I like that.

As a business owner, I know the importance of the media in a good business plan(although the media is woefully underutilized in mine) and one important tip is to never masturbate in front of the media. It tends to alienate.

And to celebrate, I've put this lovely pair of earrings on auction.

I'm back and business is running as usual.