The "State of My Union"

So long time no posts.  I have been struggling with this business.  May have bitten off more than I can chew right now.  But in the end "that which does not kill me makes me stronger".

Lets start with what I have been doing wrong.  

I have fallen victim to the thrill of the hunt.  By that I mean I really like the buying part of this business.  I have a pile of unlisted items, that is unacceptable. My plans to fix:

• List 5 items a day.  That is not hard and in a month can be 150 items.
• Have boxes and shipping supplies on hand.

Use what I have and don't let things I don't have stop me.  By that I mean is I started selling clothing.  However I did not list until I got a mannequin.  I could have used what I had.  Just get it out there and listed.

Buy better items.

• Use my tools.  Smart phone and scanning tools
• Learn my products better and stop buying what I am unfamiliar with.
• adopt "if i would not buy it personally why would anyone buy it from me"
• Watch youtube videos but don't buy into the hype.

Walk before I can run.

• Don't try too many things at once.  Well the cat is out of the bag on this one.  Have 2 eBay sites and joined Amazon FBA.

Things I have been doing that work.

1. Prompt shipment.  I offer 1 day shipping on eBay and I do it without fail.
2. Take as many pictures as I can.  Good pictures, well lit and in focus.
3. Accurate descriptions.
4. Professionally package items and use suffocation warning bags.  I don't have to use those but I do and has been commented on in my feedback.

eBay Turbo Lister

Have been using this free eBay application on Windows 10 for a little bit now.  Once you figure out with Windows 10 you have to wait over 1 hour for it to load the first time it is not bad.  Creating templates is an awesome feature if you are listing like items.  I personally have over 300 Star Wars auction figures.  My time is cut down to about 5 minutes an auction with Turbo Lister.  Download this app if you have been listing manually.

Amazon FBA

I have started with Amazon FBA and am in the middle of making my first shipment.  FBA is very user unfriendly until you get to know the system.  It is also hard to find the information you need to be successful from the Amazon site.  It took me a while to figure out printing barcode tags on a DYMO 400 Turbo printer.  Once I had figured this out it went a bit faster.  Hopefully I will have a shipment done by the end of the day.