eBay Promotion LIST FOR 5¢ IN BOOKS, MUSIC, MOVIES & DVDS AND VIDEO GAMES—OFFER EXTENDED THROUGH MARCH 30, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

Do you have books, cds, and dvds sitting around your house you want to sell? Or maybe you even have some old VHS movies or records that have been gathering dust in your garage. If this sounds like you, you have until March to list on eBay for dirt cheap. Sell all your books, music, movies, and dvds for only 5¢. That is a good deal, and my advice for today.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gidget Goes to Rome VHS - Find eBay's Lowest Price Auction.pdf (slideshare.net)
• Laugh of the Day (dvorak.org)
• Record sales, down. Game sales, down. Video sales, down. VHS sales... up? (crunchgear.com)
• Pull Up A Chair (firedoglake.com)
• Steep Fees to Use eBay Founder Omidyar's News Site: Not So Absurd (dailyfinance.com)
• AuctionAlerts.org - Keeping A Close Watch On eBay (killerstartups.com)
• Because People Ask: Book Acquisition Details (whatever.scalzi.com)
• 5 Easy Ways To Make Money On eBay (abcdigitalbooks.com)
• VHS by Hollis Brown Thornton VHS represents outdated things... (dbg.tumblr.com)
• Treasures aplenty at giant state garage sale (theolympian.com)

EBay Translates the Auction Experience to Cellphones

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Looking forward to being able to shop on eBay from my phone. This will be great for eBay business as well. May give them a leg up on the competition. Read the New York Times article here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/ebay-translates-the-auction-experience-to-cellphones/

Related articles by Zemanta

• AuctionAlerts.org - Keeping A Close Watch On eBay (killerstartups.com)
• It's Still eBay, But on the iPad It Looks Different (gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Flapp.com - Giving eBay A Social Infusion (killerstartups.com)
• Earnings Preview: Growth expected in eBay's 1Q (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• eBay celebrates 10 years in Canada by inducting Canadians into Hall of Fame, launching Free The Children charity auction and awarding $5,000 in contest prizes (newswire.ca)
• EBay 1st-qtr report expected to show growth in marketplace, PayPal businesses (taragana.com)
• Earnings Preview: Growth Expected in eBay's 1Q (abcnews.go.com)
• Flapp.com - Giving eBay A Social Infusion (domainmacher.com)
• eBay shares down on good results (go.theregister.com)
• Steep Fees to Use eBay Founder Omidyar's News Site: Not So Absurd (dailyfinance.com)

PrestaShop

Image by Toban Black via Flickr

So I still haven't opened my store yet. It seems to be one thing after another. The storefront I was going to go with has so many bugs. The main site is down a lot and getting the csv feed to work has been a joke. I am now considering scraping the old store and starting my store using PrestaShop. PrestaShop is free Open-Source e-Commerce Software. So you have to provide the server and a domain. While that is a drawback, you get full control over how your store works and looks. I don't have to rely on someone else to fix a problem I am having with their product. If it is broken, I fix it. It does take some know how. Probably more for the moderately advanced user. Some html knowledge is probably helpful.

You should definitely check it out. If I decide to use it, I will let you know how it goes.

Related articles by Zemanta

• best multiple storefront ecommerce platform (startups.com)
• Video: Does Open Source Means Open Cloud - Panel Discussion (cloudave.com)
• VC Funding for FLOSS Dips in 2009: Rebound in 2010? (ostatic.com)
• Pentaho Secures $7 Million in Funding, Looks Toward the Future (ostatic.com)
• Magento Nabs $22.5 Million in Equity Funding for eCommerce Software (ostatic.com)
• Reimagining The Bill (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Yahoo!'s Smart Investment: The Hadoop Community (domainmacher.com)
• Video: Does Open Source Means Open Cloud - Panel Discussion (diversity.net.nz)
• PSD to Magento (ukwebsitedevelopment.com)
• SpreeCommerce.com - Open Source Solution For Businesses (domainmacher.com)

Craigslist and Ebay at War

Image via Wikipedia

I have sold items on both Craigslist and eBay so when I came across this article in The New York Times today I was kind of entertained at the idea of these to giants fighting it out in court. Interesting article even though I don't quite understand all the legal jargon. Worth a read:


http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/an-edge-for-ebay-in-its-dispute-with-craigslist/

Related articles by Zemanta

• Small Cool 2010: Nicole's Perfect Pieces Little Division #26 (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Man Accused of Trying To Sell Kids On Craigslist (idle.slashdot.org)
• "I'm the Forrest Gump of the Internet." (jamessiminoff.com)
• Mobile to blow eBay and Craigslist out of the water? (startups.com)
• Conan puts Tonight Show on Craigslist (tvsquad.com)
• EBay Introduces a New Classifieds Site and More Mobile Apps (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
• eBay Inc. (EBAY) Maintains Buy Rating And $29 Price Target (benzinga.com)
• Banana museum fetches £30k on eBay! (taragana.com)
• Ebay Keeps Trying With Classifieds (paidcontent.org)
• eBay Classified vs Craigslist (lockergnome.com)

2009 Shipping Deadlines

Well the holiday rush has arrived. I have compiled the shipping deadlines by company for your convenience.

USPS:

International Mail: December 8th
International Express Mail: December 17th
First Class & Priority: December 21st
Express Mail: December 23rd

For a detailed shipping chart including Military address shipping deadlines go to: http://www.usps.com/holiday/shippingcalendar.htm

UPS:

Standard: December 15th
3 Day: December 20th
Expedited: December 21st
Express: December 23rd

UPS said people can ship items by air as late as Dec. 23 for delivery on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24
http://compass.ups.com/uploadedFiles/2009_UPS_PEAK_SEASON.pdf

Fedex:

Ground & Home Delivery: December 17th
Express Saver: December 21st
2 Day: December 22nd
Overnight: December 23rd

Dec. 17 is the last day to guarantee delivery before Christmas through FedEx Ground. Dec. 23 is the last day to ship by way of the company's Express service.

http://www.fedex.com/us/holiday/shipping/lastdaystoship.html#us

Using CSV Feeds

Last time I did the online sales thing I loaded each and every item I sold one by one. It was very time consuming and not very efficient. This time I have learned about using CSV feeds. I actually had no clue that my wholesale distributor provided a feed that had every item listed on it with all the information I needed to list it on my store. I am lucky enough to have a boyfriend who knows how to write script but I think with a little research, even a novice could learn how to convert these feeds into a useful tool for their website. With the use of script to transform the data provided by the wholesaler to the data required by my web host, I am able to upload my csv file and add 500+ products in less than 30 minutes.

Before it was taking me about 30 minutes to load one item!  More information can be found about CSV files at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values. More information can be found about scripts at: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/scripts.html. You can even use CSV files with eBay. They have a page with details of how to upload CSV data. This page can be found here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/import-csv.html.

Well this is my knowledge sharing for today. I know some of the more experienced sellers will already know what I am saying but if you are as inexperienced as I was, I hope this comes as a helping hand to you. Good luck, tis the season for sales.

Great Free Websites

I just wanted to post a quick blog about some of the really nice free website hosting sites I have found lately. I am starting my store at: http://buyitsellit.com/. This site is free for a small store and then is more for stores with a larger product base.

A great place to make a beautiful Flash website for free is: http://www.wix.com/. These sites are really nice looking. I think I may make one for fun after I get my store up and running.

If you feel secure with html and having more control over your site. Then justhost.com is a great place to start your online business. http://www.justhost.com/#ic

Well hope you enjoy the links. I will add more as I come across them. Good luck with all your e-commerce ventures.

Back in Business

So after taking a break for awhile I am going to venture back into the world of online sales. I am really debating on how much I am actually going to use eBay this time though. It seems like it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a profit on eBay selling regular products. eBay is so full of sellers, selling the same thing. Homemade and one of a kind items seem to be the ticket. I am opening my own store where I will be selling swords and blades. I will probably use eBay as a way to advertise and get business. I will also be relying on eBay to show myself as a reputable seller since I have a great feedback score there. I changed my eBay ID to Dantotsu (which is the name of my new store). Sounds more like a sword store than Toria's Treasures. I will again start updating this blog. I still believe a lot of good advice can be found in my previous posts if you are new to this blog.

Till next time...