Friday 12 October 2012

Remember me .... ?

Remember me?

It's been a long time since my last blog.   Naughty, naughty me.    Have I been getting up to mischief and shenanigans, seeing as I have been too busy to even write my blog for nearly three months?
Umm ...  no.

You know that saying "When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going."

That absolutely, positively and definitely does NOT describe me.


I have been going through a boo-hoo, oh-woe-is-me, what's-the-use couple of months.

My new attempts at increasing my sales on the internet had seemed so good at the time.  I was vibrating with enthusiasm and chock-full of zealousness   

Instead of increasing my sales, all that ended up getting me was a strange feeling in my colon.


My 3 selling venues:

1)    Aaah Quicksales -  Quicksales, aka PissWeakSales.   I had been working madly, copying my listings over.   I was SO proud of myself.    The number there is now approaching 400 items.   Total sales in the last 10 weeks = 1 board game @ $9.99 and one book that ended up being a non-payer.


2)   Fishpond - the Amazon-wannabe online store where I sent in 3 huge boxes of books/DVDs.    The postage cost was nearly $20 a box, making a total of nearly $60.   This would be taken from the initial sales - so no cash outlay was necessary.   Sounded great, right?   They weren't sitting in my house, and I didn't have to worry about sending them.

They entered the items I'd send, and then from my end, I changed the prices to what I wanted for each item.

Well, at some point they decided to change the pricing structure to "generate quicker sales and cash for customers like me".     This was done without any communication to me.    This change meant that all the prices that I had put in on my items were replaced with a different price, guaranteed to move the item quickly.

You bet they moved quickly - faster than a zombie with an empty tummy - confronted with a member of Mensa.


 Here are some examples of the prices I got for items before I cottoned on to their new "pricing structure".

Serenity DVD   -   83 cents
Happy Elf DVD  -   65 cents
Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Box set   -  78 cents
Bridget Jones Diary DVD  -  79 cents
The Net DVD  -  79 cents
V for Vendetta DVD -   99 cents

Can you see why they were flying off the shelves!!!!   A lot of those were my own DVDs that I had very reluctantly parted with in an effort to try and get some more money to pay bills.  They were in Like New condition.

I WAS SO MAD!!!!    A lot of my items have sold, but my sales have only just paid off the postage and a whole $10 has been paid to me so far after nearly 3 months.    Can you hear the steam spurting from my ears????


They have a new policy now, where if any more items are sent in "you cannot ask your own price, Fishpond will set the price for you to move your stock quickly."    Did I mention that they get 17% commission for each sale - and take that out of the postage as well as the item.   So they don't really care if it sells for .99 cents.    I will no longer be sending anything there.   I had hopes for this selling venue, so I am very disappointed.


3)  eBay.  Sales still plummeting.   Then I got an email telling me that the cost of my store was rising from $29.95/month to $49.95 a month.   The email noted that eBay wanted to (in my own words) - "weed out the little man, and encourage the larger sellers" - hence the rise in fees.  The email suggested that I take a Webinar to increase my store's exposure to make it stand out from the '1000's of other stores on eBay."    Bah humbug!

I am gradually going through this video on Youtube, that was mentioned by Rachel on Ebay Underground.   This has some great tips - and I'm only about 20 minutes in so far.  It tells you how to Optimise and Market Your Ebay Store.   There are some other Ebay videos on there that look  helpful too.

I have given up on the adult clothing idea.  Didn't do so well there.    Lots of the clothing ended up having something wrong, such as a stain or tear, or pant legs that had been cunningly shortened in such a neat way that it wasn't easy to tell in the shop.    I am anal about clothing being perfect.  I was getting seriously stressed and out of my comfort zone.  So I got those clothes and took them back.   If I can't see them, I can't feel guilty.

On a lighter note.   As you know, my Mum is the clothing cleaner / ironing specialist.   When I gave her this pair of men's/youth's shorts, she cleaned and ironed them very nicely.

When I picked them up, she pointed out the tear on one leg with a shocked look on her face.





And mentioned what a shoddy job somebody had done of sewing it up.   She said she was going to have a go at doing it herself, but decided it was too hard.

Bwahahahahahaa!    I told her it was meant to look like that.

Her face was a sight to behold.


Sooo, lower sales = lower cash to spend on stock.  So my next blog will talk about what cheaper items I am picking up to stock my shop.

Until them, I am head down, bum up - listing, listing, listing !!


8 comments:

  1. Hi! Nice to see you back! Seen the mention of the hike in Ebay fees in Oz elsewhere - I reckon it will right across all countries soon...

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    1. Thanks Carol. Hopefully you won't get hit with a price hike too. They had a big re-shuffle of ebay store types here in the last update, so perhaps it will only affect us.

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  2. Fishpond sounds fishy to me. Sorry, couldn't resist. Ebay sales are down for me, too. Luckily, Amazon seems to be doing well. Can sellers in Australia utilize FBA?

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    1. Hi Scott. Unfortunately FBA only works if you have a bank account in certain countries, and at the moment Australia is not one of them. Maybe one day... :-)

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  3. You got rid of your Bridget Jones Diary DVD??? Oh my..that's one of my favorite movies of all time!! LOL

    Sorry to hear about your slow sales. I heard about Australian stores going up in front..I hope we won't see that here in the US anytime soon.

    Ebay has actually been picking up quite a bit for me, but I've also been trying to be more consistent in listing.

    wishing you a prosperous last quarter!

    Margaret @ Live Like No One Else

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    1. Margaret, thanks for visiting my blog. I must confess that I made copies of the DVDs before I sent them off, so I still have Bridget Jones Diary. A classic all-time favourite!!

      I'm glad your sales have picked up. Maybe some of your success will rub off on me.

      I'm now following your blog! Cheers!

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    2. Thanks Karin...I'm looking forward to more posts from you too...I subscribe to you via Google Reader! Have a great one!

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    3. I'm sorry...I meant Karina...I have typos everywhere...wish I could go back and edit...LOL ;)

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