Buying and Selling on eBay: Tips, Tricks, Problems & Questions

[capnwes]

Hey guys, have you shipped anything to any US soldiers on base? I had one win a BIN and the shipping is a base in afghanistan. The address doesn't look like any address I've seen and I wouldn't care, but ebay says the address is invalid and will not let me print a label. WTF??? anyway, let me know if you've had anything like this.
He may have bought stuff from someone here, his feedback history has all kinds of menswear.... c&j, alden, BB.. etc

Yes, it typically doesn't track well though., but I haven't had any issues. For the paypal address you may need to move some of the address onto the second line to get it to work.

 

[dubcbadass]

there was talk of accounting or bookkeeping a few pages ago. how do you serious sellers keep track of all that business when you have so many streams of inventory and your assets/expenses are all kinda mushy, etc? have any of you incorporated or anything like that for tax purposes? i would love to hear some sanity brought to this topic.

 

[capnwes]

there was talk of accounting or bookkeeping a few pages ago. how do you serious sellers keep track of all that business when you have so many streams of inventory and your assets/expenses are all kinda mushy, etc? have any of you incorporated or anything like that for tax purposes? i would love to hear some sanity brought to this topic.

I use the ebay app Outright. I can track everything I need from there. There is an iphone app for it, but it is not as powerful as the one on your ebay page.

Don't know if this link will take you there or not.
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewEApp&appId=outright.com

 

[Mox C]



Hey guys, have you shipped anything to any US soldiers on base? I had one win a BIN and the shipping is a base in afghanistan. The address doesn't look like any address I've seen and I wouldn't care, but ebay says the address is invalid and will not let me print a label. WTF??? anyway, let me know if you've had anything like this.

Yup. If you get an address like this:

PSC 111 BOX 222
FPO AE 09333

then "PSC 111 BOX 222" would go where the street address goes or split between street and apt/box #, AE goes in the state field, and 09333 goes in the zip field. You will also see AA and AP, which also go in the state field, depending on the zip code. If I remember right, the FPO/APO/DPO filled in automatically. I haven't tried this with eBay though.

And like Wes said, I was told that tracking stops once the package enters the military system.

 

[green_machine]

Thanks for the info. I'm just going to ship at the post office because ebay won't let it print out.

 

[Mox C]



Thanks for the info. I'm just going to ship at the post office because ebay won't let it print out.

I somehow dropped "at the USPS website" while editing that post. It works there. But you still need a customs form, so you might want to drop it off at the counter anyway to make sure it is scanned correctly.

 

[capnwes]

The Thursday to Sunday listings are working great! I'll have another progress/comparison report in a few weeks.

On the down side, I potentially have 42 packages to process tonight for one day handling.

No pain..no gain. And there was a lot of gain this week

....so a little pain is to be expected.

 

[barrelntrigger]

The Thursday to Sunday listings are working great! I'll have another progress/comparison report in a few weeks.

On the down side, I potentially have 42 packages to process tonight for one day handling.

No pain..no gain. And there was a lot of gain this week

....so a little pain is to be expected.

Wow! Got 99 problems but Ebay ain't one! I wish I had your problem, Wes...Sigh

 

[suited]

Just added this app. I still use a spreadsheet to track the locations of where I found each item, etc, but this will make things easier. thx

 

[capnwes]

Just added this app. I still use a spreadsheet to track the locations of where I found each item, etc, but this will make things easier. thx

Once it gets fully populated with all of your historical data, you can use the reports to see a lot of interesting info. Entering your receipts and mileage is a breeze, and it does all of the rest. Any purchases you do with paypal, or on ebay will show up there and you can easily categorize them with the drop down arrows, or remove the personal expenses that do not apply. If you need any help let me know.

 

[suited]

Try spicing up your photos with a bit of color from Batman and Robin:

 

[capnwes]

Try spicing up your photos with a bit of color from Batman and Robin:

Wait...is there poo on the collar?

 

[capnwes]

Does anyone else use the ebay store traffic reports? If so, has anyone noticed that it is not tracking correctly? I assume it may be due to the rework of the site, but if it's working correctly for the rest of you, let me know.

 

[mjt73106]

Does anyone else use the ebay store traffic reports? If so, has anyone noticed that it is not tracking correctly? I assume it may be due to the rework of the site, but if it's working correctly for the rest of you, let me know.

I have noticed that the traffic reports have been suspicious for quite a while, maybe eBay is trying to rework some numbers or I suspect some data feeds that do not seem to work correctly at times.

As we work through all of these issues with problem buyers please do not forget to update the black list. It actually does work. A few weeks ago I received a message from a would be bidder that told me that they were having trouble entering their bid on one of my auctions. You guessed it! They were on the black list and I had added them to my blocked bidder list. Since eBay has taken the approach that sellers are defenseless in regard to bad buyer behavior the best way to defend ourselves is to have great intel.

 

[capnwes]

I have noticed that the traffic reports have been suspicious for quite a while, maybe eBay is trying to rework some numbers or I suspect some data feeds that do not seem to work correctly at times.

As we work through all of these issues with problem buyers please do not forget to update the black list. It actually does work. A few weeks ago I received a message from a would be bidder that told me that they were having trouble entering their bid on one of my auctions. You guessed it! They were on the black list and I had added them to my blocked bidder list. Since eBay has taken the approach that sellers are defenseless in regard to bad buyer behavior the best way to defend ourselves is to have great intel.

I had significantly less traffic for the last two months. At first I thought it was due to fewer listings and different handling times...etc. I noticed the other day I still had super low numbers...even with a listing featured on Put This On. The 1000+ PTO hits are not even showing up at all.

I noticed that someone had added a buyer to the black list a few names after I had listed the same user. Be sure to cut and paste the list once a month or so to avoid any problems.