Post offices will handle between 18 billion and 19 billion packages, letters and cards from Thanksgiving through Christmas Day, according to news reports. With so many parcels making their way to their intended destinations, the chances of items getting damaged or lost will increase.
Filling boxes with packing peanuts and wrapping items in bubble wrap and newspaper are good practices to prevent chips or breaks, but they don’t guarantee shipments will arrive as described when they reach a buyer’s doorstep. And unfortunately, sellers will also have to worry about possible thefts during the holidays, officials say.
Dealing with either of these scenarios is not only stressful, it can also be costly. So if you don’t already purchase shipping insurance for your products, now might be the time to start.
Product Analyst Rebecca Miller says shipping insurance is always a good investment, especially during these busy times. “The small price you pay is well worth the peace of mind you get in return. And the buyer will thank you for your forethought if something does happen to their package en route,” she says.
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Over the past few months we’ve released several enhancements. These new features are sure to make listing easier and more convenient for you.
As an active eBay seller and Auctiva user, of course, I was very excited when our team of developers, engineers and programmers decided to implement many of these features.
They will save you time—and as we all know, time is money!
The first feature I campaigned for was the ability to edit most fields in a closed listing before relisting it. Our Bulk Edit feature only allows users to edit the title, price and a few other fields in a listing. But our new Advanced Relist Editing tool lets you edit the description, category, shipping details, even the template and photos. I can’t count how many times I’ve listed something with a holiday template, and it didn’t sell. Then I wanted to it with a different template but didn’t know how. Ah, what a blessing this new feature is!
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Microsoft’s Bing Cashback program (formally known as Live Cashback) has been going strong for well over a year now, and anyone who buys and sells on eBay should be aware of it. It can save buyers a lot of money—and it can bring sellers a lot of sales.
Through this program, buyers earn a percentage of a product’s price as cash back when they buy the qualifying item. This can make items that qualify for the cash back very appealing.
At one point last year, cash-back rebates on eBay were 35 percent! Of course, that didn’t last long, and the discount percentage went back down, but not before savvy buyers—and sellers—took advantage.
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There are only eight weeks left of 2009, which means now is the time to kick your eBay selling into high gear!
Auctiva has many convenient tools to help you get organized and get your listings posted on eBay efficiently—and to help them look great, too! Here are a few tips to make the best use of our tool set during this holiday selling frenzy:
1. Use Auctiva to schedule your listings. Create your listings whenever it’s convenient for you and schedule them to launch on eBay at the optimal time. Remember, you won’t have to pay eBay’s 10-cent (or more) scheduling fee when you use Auctiva to schedule your listings. Just create your listings, and specify a time and date when you want them to launch. Auctiva will take care of the rest.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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