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‘Time-Savers’ Category

  1. “Selling Manager Pro” Will Change Your Life

    October 25, 2011 by Webster

    Don’t even read this post. Just log back into eBay and pull the trigger on this thing. I’m dead serious. But if you’re curious as to why I’m so adamant about it, feel free to continue.

    First of all, you can try it out free for 30 days. I went ahead and decided to give her a little taste, and within a few minutes I was immediately sold. Go ahead and let my credit card roll in the very minor $16 cost per month when my trial is up. It’s well worth it. Here’s why:

    Organization – Once you enable SMP, you’ll immediately notice that your “My eBay” page has a whole new look. It’s now tailored to your role as a seller rather than a buyer. Notable features include the At A Glance Table, which shows your sales volumes over the previous 24-hrs, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, and 120 days. Hell yes. You’ll also get a snapshot of your current Sold Items standings from the previous 90 days–what’s been sold, what’s awaiting payment/shipment, what’s in the resolution center (in case someone’s dropping the ball on payment), and how your product/inventory categories measure up (in case you also have an eBay store). Also awesome. You’ll also get a look at your listing activity, to-do’s and alerts, and be able to quickly manage your eBay store–I particularly like that it shows you who actually subscribes it. All extremely handy information that you’re interested in the moment you log in to eBay.

    *Note: Most of these features are also available in the “Selling Manager” option, which is free. At the very LEAST, you should enable the basic selling manager.

    Bulk Edits – Did you accidentally set all of your listings to allow international shipping? Need to change the handling time to 3 days instead of 1? Maybe you picked the wrong Product Category for a handful of your listings? No big deal. Now you’ve got a little check box next to each of your active listings, which allows you to select multiples and then choose Edit… –> Edit Selected (#)…. From there you can change just about any aspect of those listings. Or all of your listings. Instead of taking up half of your day it only takes about 30 seconds. SHAPOW!

    Automation options – Alright, this might sound like a bit of a cop out, but once you’re selling a lot of items it will be a huuuuuge help. You can create automated feedback options for your sold items–either when someone pays you for that item, or after they hit you with positive feedback first. You can list as many different variations of “THANKS!” as you want. Before using this feature, I pretty much included the same types of responses anyway. Sure, some buyers might deserve a little more personalized message than others, but at the end of the day it’s really just about the positive feedback stamp you’re providing each other. You can also create automated emails to the buyer when payment is received and their item is shipped, as well as schedule certain listing to automatically recur or relist if they don’t sell. Sweet right?

    Sales Metrics – SMP also allows you to create business reports to analyze/measure your performance AND export your sales data to Quickbooks. When it’s time to put on your CFO hat, this information will be crucial. Now I’ll be honest, I haven’t used these features through and through (and I’m assuming PayPal does a great job integrating with Quickbooks as well), but I plan to cover this in more detail in a later post.

    A couple other things you should know — if you are planning to have an eBay Store, you will automatically get Selling Manager Pro for free with a Premium Store Account. The thing is, a Premium Store costs $49.95 a month–whereas a Basic Store is only an additional $15.95. One of the main differences there is that your Fixed Price listings for a Premium store are only 5¢, while they’ll be 20¢ in the Basic Store. Depending on how many listings you plan to make each month…well, I’ll let you do the math, but it may make more sense to just go with the Premium guy.

    Okay fine I’ll do the math. If you’re listing more than 120 Fixed Price items per month, you’ll save money with a Premium Account. The difference between a Premium Store ($49.95) and Basic Store + SMP ($31.90) is $18.05. You’ll spend 15¢ less on each listing with a Premium Store, so $18.05 / $0.15 is just over 120 listings. You’re welcome, and I need a drink.

    More to come on this topic, I’m sure. For now, just do it, and if you’re digging it, be sure to check out the Selling Manager Pro User Guide.

    Category Time-Savers | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

  2. Multi-Order Shipping Is #WINNING

    September 21, 2011 by Webster

    To quote Shooter McGavin, here’s a free lesson:

    If you’re selling a lot of items at once, use PayPal’s MultiOrder Shipping Tool.

    PayPal MultiOrder Shipping Options

    It’s super easy and a HUGE time-saver, but there are a few things you need to know to know to make the process as care-free and seamless as possible.

    MultiOrder Shipping Link

    First you need to know how to get there. To do so, just log in to your PayPal account and look on the right side of your screen (adjacent to your recent transactions on the main My Account page). It’s right there under My Account Tools. This might seem extremely obvious, but I always seemed to rush through the process without noticing it until a friend pointed it out to me. If you know me personally, this would not be a huge surprise to you (as I wander through life obliviously ignorant of many common-sense practicalities). Hopefully you don’t share this affliction, but sometimes we all need a little hand-holding.

    After you click on the link, a new full-screen window will open with a list of all your “ready to ship” items. If this the first time using this tool, you might need to import your items from eBay…but usually they just show up automagically. Also, if at any time there are items there that you’ve already shipped (which can happen), just delete them from the list. Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine–and if you accidentally delete something that DOES need to be shipped, you can just look up your deleted items and quickly re-trace your steps. No sweat.

    A couple other things to keep in mind…

    If you’re using a label printer (which you should), be sure to select it from the drop-down menu at the top before finalizing the process. Otherwise you’ll waste a bunch of labels when it tries to print as though it were on a 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper. I struggled with this at first, and if you accidentally DO choose the wrong printer, you CANNOT go back and correct it. Just switch to a regular printer, deal with the cutting and taping BS for those labels, and move on. You won’t repeat your mistake again after that, I promise.

    Also, if a lot of your items end up going out with similar weight/dimensions/shipping-methods, you can create and apply presets to help speed up the process in the future. For example, right now I’m selling A LOT of items via USPS First Class Shipping, and they’re all 3 ounces (size dimensions don’t matter with First Class Mail). To print them all at once, I just highlight all of the similar items (hold the Command/Control button and click each one), and then choose the “Apply Preset” drop down option that coordinates with those items. You only need to create the preset once and give it a memorable name. It will stay there forever until you decide to delete it.

    Now, instead of taking 2-3 minutes to print out each label individually, it only takes 2-3 minutes to print BOATLOADS of shipping labels. It’s one of the most convenient tools I’ve found throughout my experience as an eBay seller, and I highly recommend using it.

    **One last note. The MultiOrder Shipping Tool also automatically generates packing lists, receipts, and what-goes-where address lists. You don’t have to print any of them out, but it’s another cool and useful feature of the tool (and keeps me from creating another nightmarish label-swapping scenario).

    Category Logistics, Time-Savers | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  3. Get A Label Printer, Now

    September 14, 2011 by Webster

    Buying a specialized label printer is easily the best decision I’ve made so far as an eBay seller.

    Let me explain why.

    When I first started selling items on eBay, I knew I wouldn’t want to waste time standing in line at the post office to send my packages. So I printed out each of my labels on standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper, cut off the bottom half of the sheet (which serves as a receipt of sorts), and taped them to each package.

    This process works fine, and you actually save a few cents on each shipment made online (it seems to be about 5 cents per item for me). Plus everything just seems to work best when you go through eBay anyway–the buyer is notified right away, it includes tracking info automatically, and the item stays accounted for in the system.

    However, taping down all of those paper labels suuuuuuuuuuuucks. If you’re in a rush to get out of the door, be prepared to spend at least an extra few minutes per package to get the labels attached (which can turn into a half-hour+). Plus you just get sick of taping and taping and taping and taping!

    It became clear to me fairly quickly that I’d be a lot happier if I could just print out sticky labels, peel them off, and slap them on each package. 1-2-3 and you’re done. No cutting, no awkward placement, no tape whatsoever.

    So I went to my favorite online resource for other shipping and logistics materials–eBay itself. I actually buy all of my shipping supplies through other eBay suppliers (bubble mailers, sticky labels, a weight scale, and the printer). It’s nice to support other sellers out there in the community, and they usually have the best prices anyway.

    The clear choice in label printers is the Zebra LP2844 Thermal Printer (or LP2844-Z). It uses rolls of 4″ x 6″ labels (which you can also buy online or get free from UPS if you have a special account–more on that in a later post), and prints them out instantly.

    I found one online (seller refurbished, with labels) for about $70 total. It was fairly easy to set up, but I did have a few issues with it…which I’ll outline now.

    First, it’s for Windows users only. This stung a little bit when I finally made this realization (AFTER buying it). I use a Macbook Pro for all of my day-to-day work and internet activity, and I love it. Unfortunately, there are no existing Mac drivers for Zebra printers, but I happened to have an old desktop PC that rarely gets used. I’ve since converted it into a dedicated print station.

    YOU CAN still use the Zebra printer through a Mac, but you need to run and print through Windows. One way to do this is through Bootcamp (which comes ready in most newer Macs and loads Windows as a partition of your hard drive). It’s like having two computers in one. Another option is to download a software package called Parallels Desktop. This allows you to install any version of Windows onto your Mac and run it SIMULTANEOUSLY, as either its own “Windows window” or full-screen to switch back and forth from. You can also share files, copy/paste between the two, etc. It’s pretty amazing, but you still need to own and install a copy of Windows to use it.

    Second, the set up process is a little convoluted. You need to set this printer as your default printer in the Windows Control Panel, and you also need to change your PayPal Print Settings so it will react appropriately when you finally click “Print Label”. You need to download the latest version of Java to your web browser, and I’ve noticed that it’s not super friendly with Google Chrome.

    Once you smooth all of that out, it’ll be your best friend for your eBay business. No longer will printing labels feel like a burden…it actually gives me the sudden urge to start giving out hi-fives. Long story short, it’s a huge time saver and WELL WORTH the dolla dolla bills required to put up for it.

    Category Logistics, Time-Savers | Tags: ,, | No Comments