» 2009 » October

What I had to say could simply NOT be put into words. So I figure some moving pictures work better.

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Atlanta Fall Immediate Delivery Show
11/3/2009 – 11/5/2009
240 Peachtree St. N.W., Ste. 2200, Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: 404-220-2234; Fax: 678-686-5188
A cash & carry show with all product accepted.

The International Gift Exposition in The Smokies
11/5/2009 – 11/10/2009
P.O. Box 9412, Toledo, OH 43697-9412
Phone: 800-430-7608; Fax: 800-430-8448
This is the show that buyers from every state attend to find new products and new vendors. For the wholesale trade only.

ACC Craft Fair – Charlotte
11/6/2009 – 11/8/2009
72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012
Phone: 800-724-0859, 212-274-0630 ext. 252; Fax: 212-274-0650
Craftspeople from throughout the country display handmade items such as ceramics, glass, jewelry, leather, metal & wood. This venue also open to public.

San Antonio Wholesale Jewelry, Gift & Accessory Show
11/6/2009 – 11/8/2009
206 Lido St., Austin, TX 78734
Phone: 512-261-4223; Fax: 512-261-3503
This is a For Trade Only show of the finest in costume and genuine jewelry designs. Held four times a year.

Dickens Christmas Show & Festivals
11/12/2009 – 11/15/2009
P.O. Box 332, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577
Phone: 843-448-9483, 800-261-5991; Fax: 843-626-1513
19th Century Holiday Marketplace with 350 period clad vendors having everything from fine arts & crafts, imported gifts & much more!

Norton’s Gatlinburg Gift & Variety Show
11/14/2009 – 11/16/2009
P.O. Box 265, Gatlinburg, TN 37738
Phone: 865-436-6151; Fax: 865-436-6152
This show features Ladies’, Men’s and Children’s Apparel, Fashion Jewelry and Accessories, Fine Jewelry and Gifts from all over the world. Wholesale Only, Writing Orders, Immediate Delivery and Cash-and-Carry. Business License Required.

Smoky Mountain Fall Gift and Souvenir Show
11/14/2009 – 11/17/2009
P.O. Box 50, Gatlinburg, TN 37738
Phone: 800-441-7889, 865-436-4418; Fax: 865-436-2878
This super show, geared to the souvenir and gift industry is open to the trade only. The longest running gift show in the Smokies. This show has drawn national and international gift show buyers to the Smokies for 43 years.

Ocean City Resort Gift Expo
11/15/2009 – 11/18/2009
1690 Roberts Blvd., Suite 111, Kennesaw, GA 30144
Phone: 678-370-0342; Fax: 678-285-7469
Gift & Resort Merchandise Show.

New York Gift Cash and Carry Show
11/19/2009 – 11/21/2009
10 Bank St., Ste. 1200, White Plains, NY 10606
Phone: 914-421-3227; Fax: 914-948-6493
A Trade show featuring giftware items available for immediate purchase and delivery.

You got to give credit where credit is due (even if it is OVERDUE). But the decision by eBay to launch a webinar to aid its sellers on the Best Match changes is pretty AWESOME!

Best Match: Best Practices
Wednesday, November 4, 11:00 AM, Pacific Time
Space is limited so register now!

Now I have no idea what the actual content is going to be, but my hope is that these guys will FINALLY champion an effort to really "educate" it’s seller base and not bore them with time wasting fluff ala eBay Town Hall or eBay Radio …. Zzz Zzz Zzz – Ooops, sorry I dozed off there just thinking about em, LMAO.

What is NEEDED is some strategy, tactics and techniques and if that is what we are in for, then this is a FANTASTIC move on the part of Gene Cook and his team on Global Search. Space is limited so register now!

Attention sellers:  As you know, changes to Best Match, originally announced in July, launched earlier this month. You’re invited to participate in a free live webinar with eBay experts to learn how to get the best possible exposure for your listings since the changes:

Best Match: Best Practices
Wednesday, November 4, 11:00 AM, Pacific Time
Space is limited so register now!

In this 90-minute session you’ll find out what listing practices are working for other sellers, and how to determine the right strategy for your business:

• What’s different in Best Match today?
• Key factors influencing your position
• Tips for improving your listing performance score (sales-to-impressions ratio)
• How to use the new Search Visibility tool to evaluate your listings
• How to write relevant titles
• How some sellers are now using Featured First
• And much more

This will be a great opportunity to put your own questions to the experts and hear what other sellers are doing. Don’t miss it! Again, space is limited so register now!

Gene Cook
Director
Global Search

P.S. If you can’t make the webinar in person, check out these best practices available now in the Seller Information Center.

Terapeak has an exciting new release this week. Tuesday morning saw the official release of the free Terapeak Keywords app — an application available exclusively on the eBay Selling Manager Applications platform. You can check it out at http://applications.ebay.com/selling?ViewEAppDetails&appType=1&appId=titlebuilder.terapeak.com.

Here’s some info on what you can expect:

Key features

Each FREE Terapeak Keywords search gives you:

• 20 suggested keywords, related to your search
• Average, maximum and minimum prices for each suggested keyword
• A self-refreshing suggestions list as you select additional keywords
• The ability to build your title until you’ve exhausted all 55 characters
• All data based on 100 recently-closed eBay listings

Description

If you’ve ever sold on eBay, you know the first step to creating a listing is coming up with a title. The first step to creating a great listing? Come up with a great title.

Terapeak Keywords is a free tool that helps sellers optimize their listing titles. Powered by the marketplace leaders in eBay research,Terapeak Keywords asks users to type an item’s name/description into a search field. It then samples 100 recent eBay listings that have also included the specified search term(s), and automatically produces a list of related keywords accompanied by average prices and other metrics.

By clicking the most valuable relevant keyboards and adding them to your listing, you can continue to build your title until you’ve used up all 55 characters… And as any eBay seller should know, every character counts!

It is done and over, and right now it is 2:30 am. After a midnight showing I am a little lethargic to say the least. I wanted to get home and go to bed, but of course I hear Michael still playing in my ear. So here is my honest opinion on the flick.

I give the Movie an enthusiastic A! It would have got an A+ but Mike did not do my personal favorite song "Remember The Time". Actually he has NEVER done that song live to my knowledge, except the following Soul Train Awards performance where he was injured in rehearsal and performed from a chair. WOW, that was a great performance too. With a swollen ankle, he sat in that chain and killed it during the dance sequence.

What mad this move so good, despite the posthumous nature of it was how good Michael really was. So yes go see it! I am not ‘the biggest Jackson fan’ and I loved it. Singing all the favorite songs along with the great dancing and performance production the world was going to encounter a renewed Michael.

For that, I was happy to see. I feel this movie, for all its controversy, doubts, hype and sadness really was a GREAT curtain call for one of the greatest entertainers of all time.

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Over the year that I have been blogging I get a lot of people asking me (a) if I have met Griff and (b) if Griff likes me. I think the answer to those 2 questions are probably the same, but I can only definitively say "NO" to the first one and assume no to the second, LMAO.

However there is a core group of eBayer’s that listen to his show and follow his commentary religiously. He serves a demographic akin to the "old school eBay" methodology of that garage sale platform, from the late ’90’s. A recent listen to his show a couple of weeks ago when John Donahoe (eBay CEO) was a guest. I was in the office and actually listened to it live for the first time in about a year.

What struck me was the constant stream of "newbie" questions and commentary along with the lack of any real usable strategic knowledge. I was also left with this uncomfortable feeling that Griff (who has sold on this platform for years) had a muzzle on.

I can’t quite put my finger on it exactly, but I almost felt he wanted to say some things or make a commentary about eBay’s changes, but his corporate "job" would not permit him any freedom of thought. God what an AWFUL position to be in. Especially for a guy like me, with a fat mouth, it would drive me insane. And it actually DID, that is why I started my own business to leave corporate America.

Is Griff between a rock and a hard place? I don’t know, but what I do know is that there does not seem to be any synergy between the average "fan" of Griff and the eBay Radio Show and the new directive of eBay coming down from the CEO.

Please Rate My Video with 5-Stars DSR’s

Step #1 — Bend Over

Step #2 — Repeat Step #1

Step #3 — See Steps #1 & #2

Ok, that is admittedly a RANT. Here is the communication I got from a buyer on eBay to my sweet, young, female assistant. Let me set up the scenario for you please. This customer ordered a single $8.00 hat on Saturday, October 24th.

This email came on the following day Sunday October 25th (note, the USPS does not pickup mail on Sunday’s). This order has not shipped yet and of course it is less than 23 hours old from the weekend.

I have removed SOME of the expletives…

Email #1: WHAT THE F**K HAVE YOU DONE????????????????????????????? YOU SHIP TO THE F**KING WRONG ADDRESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Email #2: I TOLD YOU NOT TO SHIP TO MY PAYPAL ADDRESS!!!!!! DONT YOU READ YOUR MESSGES???????????????

Email #3: IF YOU HAVE SHIP THIS ITEM?????????? WE ALL ARE MESSED UP HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Email #4: UPDATE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WHEN YOU READ MY ALL THESE F**KING MESSAGES……

After this series of emails, my CSR agent escalate the emails to me. The item had the proper address on it, and emails were sent to the customer, but the customer admittedly did NOT read his emails! She (our CSR rep) was a little distraught cause she is a new rep and is not aware of some of bullish brutality that all of our eBay CSR’s have to endure weekly with the anonymous eBay email systems.

Editor NOTE: eBay has a system where buyers can anonymously send emails with no return email address included. Our research and pretty much all web based research data shows that people have a much different tonality when they can do things anonymously. So we believe the antiquated eBay email system from the 1900’s actually facilitates this poor uncivilized behavior.

eBay buyer emails are FULL of this, we get about 1000 eBay customer interfaces weekly versus the customer interfaces on other platforms (Amazon, Yahoo, Webstore etc.) and eBay emails are overwhelming different and often more "uncivilized".

I am personally lead to believe this is due to the anonymous nature of the "old school" eBay system that has NO ACCOUNTABILITY built in for the senders.

Email #5 (my response):

Here is your update:

Your order is CANCELLED. I do not know how they act in your home, but that language is NOT ACCEPTABLE in my business. Have a nice day.

Email #6: hy! i am really sorry for me language. i am really asshole. didn’t check my email. just saw your messages. thanks alot. and im very sorry once again. will buy another from you soon.

Now I want you guys to understand… eBay’s Top Rated Seller System would allow for ONLY 2 negative DSR (Detailed Seller Ratings) a MONTH out of the nearly 5000 we do monthly. So lets take a step back.

Pretend that this same guy came into your physical store, leaned over the counter and started to curse-out your young female counter help. What would you DO? … Yep, me too, I would tell them to GET OUT OF MY STORE.

Except in theses cases, my counter is the email box and that customer is IN MY store and I will NOT subject my employees to that type of behavior even though EBAY says they will give me a cute badge if I do.

I could be a Top Rated Seller if I was just willing to be a "Top BeRated Seller"…Unfortunately I was not built (by the Creator and the parents that raised me) to bend over for this type of abuse, I guess.

The integrity of my employees has to come into account and I simply am not going to allow anyone to speak to them in that manner. Its not civil and not acceptable under ANY circumstance. I simply can not "bend over" to satisfy a customer like this just to be included in that program. I do have some morals and they are NOT FOR SALE. I think I should have that RIGHT…Dammit eBay

This case is NOT UNIQUE, we get these types of hot head eBay communications all the time. Welcome to our world, I just needed to vent

Well tomorrow night Tuesday, October 27th we will be there LIVE for the premier here in Atlanta. I figured I would do the midnight showing.

It looks like this really could be HOT. Plus the last time I went to the premier at midnight was for the Star Wars final episode. Man oh man wish I had a Flip cam back then! LMAO

So I am getting stoked, I hope This is "IT" really is it, but I sorta doubt that. I got a feeling that they are going to continue pumping the "IT" machine of this posthumous idol for many years. Hey you played the new John Lennon (dead pop idol), Beatles Rock Band game yet? … Get my point?!?

So I am taking my flip cam and we will see what is going on, maybe nothing but the movie itself, or maybe I will catch some cool costumes, this is Halloween week. I did NOT miss the irony of his release date LMAO. Till I report my after thoughts in part 2, check out the cool intro.

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The Jump Start Your ProStores Web Store Contest was just announced on the Prostores blog  today, and will run through Nov. 9 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Here’s the logic behind it: ProStores knows it can be hard to find time for anything when you’re busy launching or running a business. The contest is designed to help existing ProStores customers get their store up and running, or to help other eBay sellers who would like to have a ProStores web store get started as well — just in time for the holidays.

We’re collecting stories from eBay sellers, asking them why they need the most help getting started with their ProStores web store. Up to three winners will receive a free ProStores Jump Start Package (retail value: $799), which is a setup and marketing service that includes:

· Setup of All Comparison Shopping Feeds – Google Base,
Shopping.com, Yahoo Shopping!, Shopzilla, etc. + general training on
Comparison Shopping Engines

· eBay QuickList and Sync

· One-to-One Live Online Training

· Assistance with Store Settings Setup

eBay sellers who would like to enter will need to post in the comments section of the blog by Nov. 9, or on their own blog linking back to the ProStores post. Sellers will need a ProStores web store to qualify, so if they don’t already have one they’ll need to sign up on their own first. The contest rules are posted on the blog, if you’d like to check them out.

Remember, in order to be eligible for the Jump Start Package, you’ll need a ProStores Web Store. If you don’t have one yet, sign up today. You can read the Official Rules here. Good luck!