Auctiva’s graphic design department has been busy creating new templates to give you a variety of choices for the upcoming holiday season.
Our new “Thanksgiving Dinner” is the first in a series featuring a vector-illustrated modern woman who knows how to celebrate the holidays in style. The series will include Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day and Halloween templates.
The wind has turned crisp, the Yankees are headed to the World Series, the NBA season starts tonight and NFL football is in full swing. Yes, sports are all around.
The holidays aren’t too far off, either, which means now is the time to get your hands on some sports memorabilia and merchandise to make a profit. If you’re as enthusiastic as some of Auctiva’s own, you know how passionate people get about their favorite sports teams. And if you’re not, let me just tell you: People go crazy. I’ve seen it firsthand.
So why not take advantage? Here’s a little advice from our own Product Analyst and Oakland A’s fanatic Rebecca Miller to help you get started.
1. Buy items at the end of the season.You’ll be sure to find the best prices then as people get engulfed in other sports and stores try to clear their racks. The baseball season will soon be over, and it already is for all but two teams. So now’s the time to look for baseball gear. Browse through the clearance section and see what gems were left behind.
Black Friday is a few short weeks away. Will you be ready?
If you’re like me, you look forward to Black Friday and all the bargains that come with it. I have a mental list of all the stores where I shop each year during the Black Friday madness, and I’ll make an actual shopping list on Thanksgiving Day.
Thanks to the Internet (and likely to the dismay of retailers), many Black Friday sale ads are posted days before the big day arrives, so you can get a good sneak peak at the deals to be had. You’ve got to be quick, though—retailers are very aware of the “Black Friday” sites and have used their muscle (aka attorneys) to have the ads immediately removed.
Black Friday isn’t what it used to be, though. More people buy online than ever before to avoid the stress, long lines and pushy crowds that can mar the whole shopping experience. Retailers are extending door-buster sales through the Thanksgiving weekend, and even creating new ways to offer super deals on other days, as well as online-only bargains.
I might not spend less this year, but I am planning on spending smarter. Retailers are desperate to get you to spend your holiday budget in their stores, and price wars are already breaking out. So this year, I’m going to do my research and make sure I’m getting the rock-bottom, out-the-door best price! If that means getting up at 3:30 a.m. instead of my usual 4:30 a.m. to start the Black Friday shopping frenzy, so be it.
Here are some ways you can prepare for that shopping frenzy, too:
It’s been almost a month since we’ve rolled out our new Auctiva Shipping Insurance Auto-Purchase feature, and we’ve received a lot of great feedback from our users. Now it’s your turn to vote on which one of the three most-requested rules you would like to see us release next.
The top three requests are:
1. A rule to auto-purchase insurance only if the item price reaches or exceeds a certain dollar amount you set. Currently, shipping and handling costs are calculated into the total insured value of a shipment, and many of our users don’t want to include that in the coverage. This could keep your insurance cost down, but the trade off is that you would not be reimbursed for the shipping and handling costs if a package is lost or damaged en route.
2. A rule to auto-purchase insurance for packages shipped via UPS or FedEx only if the value of the shipment exceeds $100. These carriers already offer up to $100 of protection, so sellers could set a rule to buy insurance after the first $100. For example, if you bought insurance for an item worth $150, your Auto-Purchase Rule would buy $50 of insurance since UPS and FedEx already cover the first $100.
3. A rule to auto-purchase insurance if the item is sold in a specific category. For example, if you occasionally sell fragile Depression glass items, you could set your Auto-Purchase Rules to only buy insurance for items listed in the Pottery & Glass category.
Please visit our Community Forums and let us know which option you would prefer by taking this poll. We’d love your input.
Rebecca Miller
Product Analyst
Why do so many people go nuts over owning a piece of a celebrity? I mean an actual piece— whether it’s a lock of hair, a used Kleenex or even nail clippings (ewww!). This week’s auction of a large bunch of Elvis’ hair clippings reminded me of a dirty little secret I have kept stashed away in a drawer of my desk.
Yes, I have fallen victim to the “own a piece of a celebrity, no matter what it is” syndrome. In a small folded envelope I have a nice collection of hair clippings from a very famous director.
How I got these clippings is amusing, but would probably get me fired if I was still working at the hotel where I acquired them in the mid-’90s.
This particular celeb was giving a speech at our local university, California State University, Chico, and needed a place to rest for just a few hours. Unfortunately for him, our hotel was booked (as were all the other hotels in town), but we switched a few people around and made a room available to him for a few hours. He was hobbling around on crutches when he arrived because of a recent knee surgery. His entourage escorted him up to the room and left him to rest.
A few hours later, the same entourage came back through the lobby, carefully escorting their famous boss out the front and they were gone. I immediately got busy loading up some housekeeping supplies and hurried up the elevator to clean the room. We needed that room available, and because our housekeeping staff was gone for the day, I took charge of that task.
Just because you use another listing service doesn’t mean you have to pay the retail price at the post office to insure your packages!
There’s a cheaper and easier way to protect your eBay items, even if you don’t list with Auctiva. Just create a free Auctiva account and select our Free Plan.
Why Auctiva Shipping Insurance?
It costs up to 30 percent less than USPS and you can buy policies and file claims right from your computer. Just deposit at least $5 into your Auctiva account or set up PayPal or a credit card for automatic billing. Then enable Auctiva Shipping Insurance in your account. It’s that easy.
You can purchase insurance manually after an item sells, or set up Auto-Purchase Rules to have your policies automatically generated based on rules you make. Read our tutorial for more details.
Are you unsure if you added a return policy and/or handling time to your Good ‘Til Cancelled listings on eBay?
If so, you might want to check out eBay’s Oct. 12 announcement. eBay has begun ending GTC listings that do not specify the required return policy and/or handling time noted.
To help sellers determine if they have listings that still need to be updated, eBay has created a site to find listings that are not in compliance with the new requirement. You can find that site here.
You can even download a spreadsheet of your listings to make the process easier.
Auctiva recently added its Bulk Live-Listing Revision Tool, which allows you to edit your active listings and add the required return policy and handling time without leaving your Auctiva account. You can also edit your listings directly on eBay.
Don’t wait until your listings are abruptly ended for non-compliance. Check them today!
Practical Ecommerce recently featured Auctiva Commerce as its Cart of the Week. You can read the article here.
Auctiva Commerce’s product manager, Chris Eckland, discussed the software in detail, and Auctiva Commerce user Bob Heitner talked about his experience with the shopping cart.
Getting eBay’s certification is a good thing—but it’s definitely not easy.
Last week, Product Analyst Rebecca Miller, the Quality engineers who work on Auctiva.com and I took eBay’s Certified Consultant exam. At the same time, several of our software developers took the Certified Engineer exam.
Certified Consultants must pass a proficiency exam on eBay features, policies and best practices. Certified Engineers must pass exams on eBay technology.
Our examinations are different from the Certified Business Consultant designation, which is awarded to third-party eBay educators who meet the requirements. Unlike Certified Business Consultants, we aren’t certified as eBay educators. Instead, passing our examinations is a major annual requirement for Auctiva to maintain its official status as an eBay Certified Solutions Provider.