It’s a new year, and I just finished writing an article about saving money in 2012! One thing I didn’t mention, however, was the USPS Priority Mail Padded Flat Rate envelope. I use this envelope to send jeans and other pieces of clothing that are too heavy to be sent via First Class mail.

Jeans weigh between 1 pound and 2 pounds when boxed. A 2-pound package to the East Coast can cost more than $9. If I shove that same pair of jeans into a padded flat-rate envelope, the cost is only $4.95. Wow!

I’ve also been using these envelopes to send smaller pairs of women’s shoes such as sandals and boat shoes. I wouldn’t, however, recommend using this method of shipment to send designer brands. I once received a pair of Ferragamos in a padded flat-rate, and I was not happy.

I used to worry that sending clothing or shoes in a padded flat-rate would look unprofessional. But eBay buyers are so price sensitive that they don’t seem to mind. In addition, a super fashionable friend of mine, who often orders clothing online, told me that online companies send clothing in envelopes all the time. So I guess the general public is used to it!

The padded flat-rate envelope can be ordered online. Just know that the USPS only allows you to order one small box of them at a time. But nothing is preventing you from getting online and ordering a box a day, until you have enough to last you a few months. Try using the padded flat-rate envelope in 2012. It’s a great way to save on postage!

The third week of December was a nail biter.

I listed a box set of Beatles albums that was in prime condition, with only minor blemishes from aging and a little dust from being stored for years. It was another score from the storage unit auction we had attended.

When I initially researched the albums’ value, I was happy to learn that similar sets—that weren’t in the same pristine condition—had sold for more than $100. A few had gone for more than $200.

I figured ours would sell for about $130. And sure enough, after starting our auction at $39.99, the album set was up to $100 before we knew it. Then it hit $200. Then $300. We (me and Product Analyst Rebecca Miller) were ecstatic.

Rebecca had reviewed my listing before I posted it to make sure it would attract as many buyers as possible, and she had helped me price the set.  Having her help made me feel confident I had done everything right.

Then I got a bid from an overseas buyer.

Being subtle proves problematic

I had decided against selling internationally to reduce the likelihood that the albums would be lost in transit, potentially resulting in negative feedback—which would be a giant setback for a new seller with only a few feedbacks. So, on the One-Page Lister, I selected only the U.S. among my ship-to locations.

However, I did not explicitly state in my listing that I would not ship internationally, and though the listing showed this in the shipping details, I had received two inquiries from buyers in Europe asking if I would mail the records to them and how much it would cost—plus that bid from a buyer in Israel.

With only minutes left in the auction, this buyer was the top bidder. I started to worry.

Rebecca—being the straight shooter she is—asked, “Didn’t you specify that you didn’t ship internationally?”

I explained that I had not explicitly stated this in my listing. “Big mistake,” she told me, adding that buyers often won’t check the shipping details to see where you’ll ship to. They’ll just email you to ask, or place a bid.

Lesson learned

Anxious, I sat at my desk counting down the minutes. I tried to get as much information from Rebecca about what I could do. Should I end the auction early? Could I tell the foreign buyer, if he or she won, that I didn’t ship internationally and then contact my highest bidder in the States and offer him or her the albums?

I also started to prepare myself for negative feedback, just in case. I told myself that I may have to ship the box set internationally and that the records may get lost in route. I was sweating, big time.

No one else seemed to want the albums anymore. No bids were coming in.

Luckily, with less than two minutes left, another bid came in from a buyer in the States. I was saved! I just needed time to run out, quickly. When it did, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I did not have to ship to Israel—and from now on, I will state within my listing that I only ship domestically, and I may block international bidders on eBay, just to make extra sure I won’t have this problem again.

I want to avoid heart attacks at all costs. And I want to build up a reputation as a good seller, so the farther I keep negative feedback from me, the better.

How were your Cyber Monday sales? Things were looking fairly grim for me over the Thanksgiving weekend, but when Monday hit, the sales started—and they haven’t really stopped since.

Like many other sellers, I’ve been taking advantage of the frequent free or discounted insertion fees for auctions on eBay. Instead of listing 30-day Good ‘Til Cancelled listings, I’ve been using more auctions, most with a Buy It Now option.

It’s been working pretty well. Sales have been steadily coming in, and I’m becoming a familiar face once again at the post office when I drop off my armloads of packages.

If this pace keeps up, I might actually get to see the top of my desk again! I’m going to be ending my selling activities for the season on Dec. 15, so these next couple weeks are going to be list, list, list!

Why stop listing in the third week of December? Well, about five years ago, after dealing with yet another unrealistic buyer who purchased something on Dec. 22 and felt it necessary to threaten me if the item didn’t arrive by Christmas, I swore off selling so close to the holiday. I will miss those last-minute sales, but I won’t miss having to deal with threats from procrastinating buyers.

It’ll give me a little peace of mind and motivate me to keep listing away until then.

I’ve been buying a lot online, too. Last year was the first time I relied on the Internet to find specific gifts I couldn’t find locally. This year I didn’t even shop on Black Friday until 9 a.m. It was the first time in about 10 years I didn’t venture out in the dark to snatch up bargains.

There were so many deals online, I figured my sleep was more valuable than saving $5 on a toaster oven. And thanks to so many stores opening at midnight Thanksgiving night (or earlier) the crowds around here were much smaller. No waiting in line at Kohl’s was priceless!

The smaller crowds let me rest over the Thanksgiving weekend, and now I’m ready to keep focusing on my sales. How are the holidays shaping up for you? Are they busier, slower or about the same compared to last year?

I like dough. Not just plain bread dough but also sweet dough for cinnamon rolls or sugar cookies. I love kneading dough, rolling it and getting it ready to make delicious treats, especially during this time of year. But I like rolling in a different kind of dough a little better.

You know the kind I’m talking about: the kind that helps me add new inventory, access tools to make my eBay listings stand out, and buy the shipping and packing supplies I need to keep my shoppers coming back.

So what can help me, you and other eBay sellers bring in that kind of dough this holiday season? Good inventory and a few Auctiva tools to help you attract buyers, stay organized and create listings quickly.

Festive listing templates: Auctiva has more than 1,800 listing templates and tons of holiday-themed ones to catch shoppers’ eyes as they’re looking for the right gift this holiday season. Templates help you “snazz” up your listings by not only giving them a professional look, they also help break up your listing’s information into easy-to-read segments so buyers find all the information they need quickly. Templates also reassure buyers that you’re a serious seller since you’ve put in some extra effort to make your listings stand out.

Did someone say schedule? Another great Auctiva tools is our scheduling feature, which helps you stay organize—and ahead of the game. With it, you can create eBay listings in advance, save them in your Auctiva account, and launch listings on the day and time of your choice. This means you can knock out tons of listings this week in advance for the busy Cyber Monday, which is quickly approaching, and launch them just in time for that day. What’s nice is that if you have any of Auctiva’s paid plans, including the $2.95/month Basic plan, you can use this feature as many times as you want for no added charge.

Images, images, images: Quality photos are always important. They can help buyers see every detail of your items, and, as you know, buyers want to know exactly what they’re buying, especially during this time of year. Luckily with Auctiva, you can post up to 24 super-sized images at no extra charge to show shoppers your products in their truest nature. Just be sure to still provide quality photos that are sharp and uncluttered to really entice shoppers to buy from you.

Listing profiles and creating similar listings: Auctiva’s Listing Profiles make creating new listings a snap! With them, you can easily add the information you use most often like your payment and shipping information with just a few clicks. You can also create similar listings from your saved Auctiva listings. This is very helpful if you sell a lot of the same types of products, like books and DVD. That’s because by clicking the “Create Similar” link in the Listings tab of your Auctiva account, you create a duplicate listing of one you already have, then you can make a few changes, like the listing title, price or etc., to list the new item.

Integrated shipping: You can also ship quickly by using Auctiva’s new integrated shipping feature, which allows you to print postage right from your Auctiva Sales page, upload the tracking information automatically into eBay and give buyers the fastest service possible. You can even purchase Auctiva Shipping Insurance when you print your labels to protect your shipments.

These are just a few of the ways Auctiva tries to make your selling faster and easier. You can use these features year round, but during this week, you might find them especially helpful as you prepare for the selling season. Here’s to wishing you a very busy selling season—filled with lots of dough!

The United States Postal Service’s current financial situation and speculations about its future have got me a little worried.

I worry we’ll end up paying more and getting less from USPS—and that the recent post office closures will have huge impact on all online sellers who use USPS for their shipping needs, especially during the busy holiday season.

Where eBay is concerned, this could ultimately hurt a lot of sellers’ bottom lines.

Just from my personal experience, USPS has had pretty good service over the last few years. I understand that some might disagree, especially if they have seen their local post offices shut their doors. That makes it more difficult to ship packages quickly.

In the past few months, I have noticed more of my First Class and Priority Mail packages take two to five days longer to arrive at my buyers’ doorsteps. Still, I consider myself lucky to live in a city with two post offices within a mile radius, and near a mail “hub.” When I drop off my prepaid packages in the early afternoon, I will often check the delivery confirmation information online, and see that packages have already arrived at the hub in Sacramento, and are being readied for the next leg in their journey. From there, though, anything can happen.

With delivery times being part of the Detailed Seller Ratings on eBay, having the post office work so efficiently (for the most part) has helped me keep my Top-rated seller status.

Fast ‘N Free

I always try to ship my items within one business day to stay in good standing with eBay and attract buyers. But eBay’s recent announcement of Fast ‘N Free icons makes me a bit nervous. eBay will add these icons to listings that offer free shipping and show a “high probability that the item will be delivered within four business days or less.”

I would love to have one of these crystal balls that eBay uses to estimate how fast (or slow) USPS will be this holiday season!

With talks of USPS possibly ending Saturday deliveries and shutting down more offices, this will slow down service times in the near future, if it hasn’t already. (Maybe that’s what happened to my slow packages).

And who will be the first to complain when a package doesn’t get delivered in the estimated time frame? You guessed it, buyers. And they may ding your stars for this slowdown, even though sellers may have no control over it. This could cause you to lose your Top-rated seller status and the discounts the designation provides.

Small delay may have big impact

Although this hasn’t been confirmed, one seller has said that, even though their local post office is still open on Saturdays, packages that are dropped off late Friday and early Saturday are being held over the weekend. Employees don’t process or scan packages into the system until Monday.

One weekend may not seem like a lot of time, but if eBay tells a buyer the item they bought on Thursday will be delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week, who is going to look like they aren’t doing their job if the item doesn’t arrive until the following Friday? The seller.

What can we, sellers, do? We could overstate the handling time in our eBay listings, so if the post office doesn’t deliver as quickly as it should, buyers might not take it out on us and our DSR scores.

On the other hand, this could hurt our status in search results—and could prevent us from getting that nifty Fast ‘N Free icon in our listings! We could start shipping via another carrier with guaranteed delivery times, but that could be quite costly. I plan on rolling the dice and hoping for the best.

I do enjoy a bit of a gamble once in a while—though I’ve never gambled with my status as an eBay Top-rated seller—but I worry that if I adjust my handling time, I could miss out on buyers. What are your thoughts? What do you think USPS’ current state will mean for you this holiday season?

We’ve seen a tremendous response to our iPad 2 giveaway so far, and it’s not too late to try our new Integrated Shipping Labels to be automatically entered to win this fantastic prize!

The contest runs through the month of October. We’ll announce the winner in early November.

Don’t need or want a tricked out iPad 2? No problem! If you happen to be our lucky victor, you can always sell it online for a nice chunk of change. See contest rules.

Why are we having this contest? To encourage more sellers like you to try out our new Integrated Shipping Labels feature and tell us what they think.

As part of the fine tuning that always occurs when we release a new feature, we encourage our customers to let us know if they had any issues or suggestions to improve the feature. One comment that has been made many times about the Integrated Shipping Labels is: “Why do we have to have a positive balance on our Auctiva account before we can print a label?”

Simply put, with the exception of eBay and PayPal, most postage services operate this way, and require users to prepay for postage. The only difference is that we don’t charge you extra fees to print your postage.

Another commonly asked question is: “How can I print labels in bulk?”

I’m happy to report that we’re working on this right now and, after testing, we’ll release it to our users. You will also have the option of printing on 8.5-by-11-inch paper (two labels per sheet), or 4-by-6-inch thermal labels with a Zebra label printer.

So keep printing those labels, and keep the feedback and suggestions coming in by clicking the orange “Leave Feedback” icon on your Sales page! You could end up with a very nifty gadget.

Last month we introduced our newest feature to Auctiva.com: Integrated Shipping Labels! No fancy name or additional subscriptions needed to use this great feature. It’s just an easy-to-use tool that allows our customers to generate shipping labels and pay for postage right from their Auctiva accounts.

Why add this feature? The main reason is to add value for you, and make Auctiva more of a “one stop shop” for all your eBay selling needs. We’re always looking for ways to save sellers time, and this was an obvious solution. It took us some time to release this feature since we’ve been spending most of our time keeping up with recent eBay policy changes, which is always our first priority. But now our Integrated Shipping Labels feature is live and ready to use.

This feature is accessible on our redesigned Sales page in your Auctiva account. Keeping the feature as simple to use as possible was very important to us. We always strive for ease of use. In fact, when you click  the “Get shipping label” icon next to one of your transactions, the details to create the label will appear and, basically, all you have to do is enter the USPS service you want to use, specify the package type, size, weight and dimensions, and labels are ready to print.

Other options are available, too. For instance, you can buy a shipping label and add our Auctiva Shipping Insurance. You can also print labels for Certified Mail and get Signature Confirmation Service. Users can also print labels for USPS First Class International packages as well as Priority International and Express International. You can even print out a packing slip at the same time as your shipping label; you’ll just need to set that up in your Shipping Preferences before you print. To access these options, go to your My Account tab then click on “Settings” then click “Shipping Labels.”

You can print out the labels on plain 8.5-inch-by-11-inch paper, or use the self-adhesive label stock that has one or two labels per sheet. We hope to add support for thermal label printers that print 4-inch-by-6-inch labels in the near future.

Check out this great new feature and let us know what you think.

“Get over it, Beck! Let it go!” I keep telling myself this after recently receiving a low Detailed Seller Rating for shipping time. It’s just one low score, but somehow I can’t seem to let it go. My percentages are still at least at a 4.96 percent across all four criteria, but the idea that my final value fees might be higher because of this score makes me antsy.

DSRs are a tough subject for many sellers, not just me. Sometimes it seems like no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to avoid getting at least one low mark. I used to think I was pretty darn good at what I did—not perfect, but as close to it as I could possibly get. My DSRs and feedback scores proved it.

But this hit took me by surprise. Like many sellers, I ship promptly. I often drive across town during a break to drop off packages at the post office just an hour after receiving payment. Sometimes I include little freebies in my shipments to thank buyers for shopping with me. And, of course, I send out friendly and timely e-mails thanking buyers for their purchases, and letting them know their package is on its way. I did all of these things with the shipment in question. Now I find myself second-guessing my strategy. Am I missing something? Did I do something wrong in this transaction? I don’t think so, yet there’s the low DSR.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if DSRs weren’t used to determine whether I’ll get a discount on my final value fees, but it will be. [It seems unfair that buyers are allowed to leave whatever scores they want, regardless of their validity, and that this is used determine if a seller will get a discount. It might make or break a seller's bottom line].

Sometimes I ask myself why I put myself through the extra hassles, jump through the extra hoops, and bend over backward for buyers if I’m not going to get a fair rating. Should I just give up trying to be the “perfect” seller? At times like this, I feel like I should. But I won’t.

We drank the Kool-Aid. We thought we were running our own little business, when in reality it might be running us. What do you think? Let us know below.

In case you haven’t heard, Friday, Dec. 17, is Free Shipping Day, the day online retailers try to entice last-minute shoppers by offering free shipping on their purchases.

That sounds great if I’m buying something, but as a seller, I’m not sure about Free Shipping Day—or how it could affect my sales. I already feel it necessary to offer free shipping for my eBay items to get a little bit of visibility in the search results. Best Match looks for free shipping and gives sellers who offer it a boost, so I regularly offer free shipping to my customers. So to me, all Free Shipping Day will do is maybe bring a few more buyers onto eBay to maybe make a last-minute sale before I close up shop for the year.

However, that “maybe” is kind of intriguing. I wasn’t planning on having anything listed after Dec. 17, but I might go ahead and list some one-day items the day before, as a test. There’s already plenty of pressure on sellers to make sure packages get to their destinations within eBay’s tiny delivery-time window, and I don’t like cutting it that close. I’ve spent too many holiday seasons answering worried buyers’ e-mails when an item (that they purchased on Dec. 21) hadn’t made it to their doorsteps on the other side of the country within one day. So for the past few years, I have set a cut-off date to leave plenty of time for all packages to reach their destination. This also he helps me sleep at night.

But maybe I’ll extend the cut off this year to see if Free Shipping Day is a big draw for buyers. After all, more than 1,000 online merchants will be offering free shipping on Friday. It could prove profitable, and a few more sales never hurt anybody.

What do you think about Free Shipping Day? Do you think it will help your sales? Will you be participating?

Last Sunday, I wrapped up what I call “Cyber Week”—a seven-day listing, e-mailing, packaging and shipping bonanza. While Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is hyped as the biggest online shopping day of the season, we online merchants are finding new and enticing ways to keep buyers shopping, literally, from Thanksgiving Day up until a few days before Christmas. I decided to spread out my items, and launched listings throughout the week instead of focusing solely on that Monday.

I was very pleased with my sales for the week. I’m not a heavy-duty seller with hundreds or thousands of listings up at any given time on eBay, but you wouldn’t know it if you saw me carrying the sacks and sacks of packages I dropped off at the post office every day. Some items sold within less than an hour of listing them—cha-ching!

Luckily, I had prepared dozens of listings in advance, so it was easy to click a button or two and launch (or re-list) my goods to eBay. That, in my opinion, is one of the best features of Auctiva.

I played around with different formats and durations, just to see which ones fared better. To my surprise, I found that many buyers preferred to bid on items that I had listed as an auction with a Buy It Now price. In every case, items actually sold for more than I had wanted to get for them. Go figure! I’m certainly not complaining. Is bidding making a comeback?

Now that I can see my desk again, I’m trying to organize the merchandise I have on hand and get it ready for the last-minute holiday sales push.

How were your sales last week? Did you rely heavily on Cyber Monday, or did you as I did and space out your listing throughout the week? Did you notice any trends that you weren’t expecting like I did?