Christmas in July

We often see the saying Christmas in July and I wondered what it means to you. For many that sell items or own a retail store it's a way to promote a month for sales of a very popular selling time. We all know that everyone buys gifts for Christmas and July is often a slower selling time for retailers.

According to Wikipedia there are a few different ways this started. One is that winter falls in July in the southern hemisphere. Therefore in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in order to have Christmas with a winter feel Christmas in July events are undertaken. However, Christmas in December, the usual month, is a far more common practice, despite it being summer.  

We decided to get together this month and have a big celebration of Christmas in July and also quite a few sales on our items. We all love Christmas items and many of us sell them and are always looking for unique Christmas gifts for the people we love. What better Month to look for sales and get a jump on our Christmas Shopping then July? 

So follow our blog this month as we share our items and sales for the month of July.

How Do You Promote Your eBay Items?

I am part of a wonderful online group this is working together to promote our eBay items. We started by sharing our items and liking them when eBay had the like, want and own buttons showing on our listings. They now are showing up some of the time for some of us and not for others so I started to look at other things we could do as a group.

We all are store owners and so I thought it would be a great idea to post our store link and have the group promote it. I post 2 stores in the morning and then we promote each other in various ways like Twitter and Facebook. eBay gives us traffic reports which is a great tool and where we can check on our store front traffic.

You can find me at the Book Corner Cafe and I sell a wide variety of vintage items including racing and Christmas items.

Beth can be found at the Depression Glass Warehouse who also sells a wide variety of vintage items including Depression Glass.

Elaine is quite the expert on vintage antique books and art prints and can be found at the Phoenix rising 2000 store.

Katarina has a great store name The Very Desperate Housewife and sells many beautiful fashion items along with many other things.

Marion's Store can be found at  This N That Freeland Enterprises and has a large variety including both Avon products and vintage items.

Suz is the place to shop at if you love books and other vintage items. She can be found at My Mom's Books

If you love Cross Stitch items Susannes Little Corner is the place to shop.

I just wanted to share with you what some of my friends are doing to help promote our items and increase sales so what are you doing to increase your sales?

How Do You Promote Your Business?

If you have been around as an online seller for a long time you remember the early days of eBay. Do you ever yearn for those days or have you moved forward with the times and learned new ways to promote yourself?

It was so easy years ago when eBay and online selling was new and different. You could list things with very few rules and see sales and even bidding wars. If you sell online today you know it is very different and we all need to adept and change with the times. I am not saying it is easy but it can be done and one way is to promote your items and your business.

So the question of the day is how do you promote your items? One way I promote my items is by using Twitter  and in fact I really enjoy Twitter both as a business and a person. My Twitter friends are people I know or who I have met on  Twitter and we re-tweet each other items. We also have quite a chatty conversation going about all kinds of things.

I can Tweet from my phone, my Kindle, my laptop and yes my desktop computer so I check in regularly too keep up with my friends. If you would like to follow me and join in the fun you can follow Bookcornercafe

eBay gives us traffic reports to show us how people find our listings and month after month Twitter is in my top 5. I know it helps me promote both my items and business name and as any online seller knows that's very important.

So I ask the question of all of you where to do you promote your items?

Is Selling Online A Science or an Art?

Yesterday, I was talking to a store manager about buying some of his old inventory at a deep discount so I could flip it on eBay or Amazon. He said that he’s already got someone working on developing the science of eBay so his current employees can learn to do it.  So he’s hanging on to the outdated items as they accumulate in his already over crowded warehouse.

My knee-jerk reaction was to say: “It’s not a science, it’s an Art!”  Well, he thought that was some kind of sales pitch, so it ended the useful part of the conversation.  But I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I guess baking a cake is science – 2 cups of this and a tsp of that, stir, cook at 375, etc.  But it doesn't give me the sense of having accomplished something that I get from finishing a good listing a rare and interesting one of a kind old book.  There’s so much room for individual taste and preferences.  Experience certainly shows through.

So, I started to wonder:  what’s the difference between a science and an art?   For one thing, I think it’s a lot easier for a scientist to get a job than it is for an artist to find work doing art.  Scientists don’t get to have wine and cheese parties.   There’s certainly an overlap with both technology (the science part) and creative both required.   Here’s where I stopped myself as I recognized the vicious cycle of the chicken or the egg sort.

I’d like to hear any other thoughts on this question.  

Are internet sellers scientists or artist? Both?

I am part of a wonderful group of friends that support each other in all our online venues. We share and learn from each other every day and have become a family. This blog is part of our way of sharing our lives and also our listings with the world. We all sell on a variety of venues and most sell on eBay and Amazon among other places.

One of my venues is eBay and I sell a large variety of items some new and many vintage. I have listed items ranging from Dodge Truck parts to Vintage Racing Program Books.

You can find my items at the Book Corner Cafe n More Store on eBay.

Today I would like to take a few minutes to invite all my online friends to share with you one of their online selling venues.

Selling Christmas Items After Christmas

Yes Yes and Yes like Beth said we all need to keep listing and I have Christmas items that didn't get listed before Christmas so I am putting them up now.

Last week I listed some vintage Swirl lights that sold and I have many more to check out and get listed. I have found that I sell Christmas items all through the year so keep listing those items.

I love Christmas and always buy vintage items when I see them but the hard part for me is actually listing them and not keeping them. I probably have enough vintage ornaments to decorate about 10 trees and really need to list some of these. They are all so pretty and unique I have keep thinking maybe I will use them next year. I did manage to list 7 boxes of vintage glass ornaments this year and sold all of them so that is good incentive to list some more.  You can check out the items I have listed in my eBay store now and more will be going up shortly.

I have also been listing some Christmas items at auction on my other eBay id and this one ends tomorrow night. I found 2 boxes of vintage Gurley candles in great shape. They include Santa, Angels, Choir Boys and Girls and a Christmas Tree. I was so tempted to keep these but unless I am going to buy another house to decorate next year some of my Christmas items need to go. You can check out this auction of vintage Christmas Gurley Candles but you have to do it soon.

It's NOT Vacation Time...

So I've heard a lot of BS about how this is the time to take a vacation and this is the "slow" time of the year for eBay, Amazon sellers and ecommerce in general.  I"m here to say BULLSheep!!


THIS is the time of year, from  now til the bills come in at the middle to end of the month, when people have money and are spending it on themselves. They have gift cards, gift money, returns money etc. They've always wanted _____________ and they are buying it.  Are you selling it??

We've been blessed with some snowstorms and some frigid weather to keep buyers home and if you have stuff listed and are consistently editing, revising and listing more, you will get sales. This is always one of my best months of the year!!

BUT you need a few auctions consistently running to "tempt" people in. Otherwise the only offers I get are on my "ending soonest" stuff. (which just kicks the theory of "best match" to the curb in my opinion).

So... if you're not utilizing the freebie offerings. eBay gave or not the recipient of any (me? not on any account, not yet) you still have to work like you need the money.

Teux Deux List:

1. Do a couple of auctions for every day uploading, 
2. do a couple of fixed price new listings and revise your oldest stuff. 
3.  And that's besides getting your accounting done and 
4. making lists of "goals" or "resolutions" for 2013.

 NOT time for sitting and day-dreaming about when you get to be a billionaire... get busy... list more, sell more, start a new venue, start a new process (like FBA) or revisit and revise an old one like eCrater, follow my friend Elaine's example and try out Pinterst or Twitter or Facebook.... No resting on your laurels! Laurels are pointy leaves and not comfortable any way so get busy

Danni of TheDanniApp.com Speaks...EVERY week!

So this is another of our group members, and an author here, Danni Ackerman. She does videoblog on Sunday evening on Spreecast... come join!

Using the Scotty Mailer & a Priority Flat Rate Envelope for Mugs

I've been extremely hesitant, in fact down right stunned that anyone would actually ship a mug in a flat rate envelope. BUT a lot of people are. I don't recommend it but Bev England and her "supervisor" Aran, just did a "drop test" with 2 mugs in the box that Bubblefast is selling for this purpose.

Here's the video and their conclusions:

Beth

Photography for eCommerce - a replay

This post is just to remind everyone of a wonderful podcast done last spring by Kat Simpson, thatkat.com and KarenLocker (I'll get her link and post it shortly) and Ron Davison - husband of the fabulous Charlene Anderson - Ron's a Photgrapher and a true teacher because he made the subject so easy to understand.

So here is the link to the site he set up for it:

Ron's Tutorial on eCommerce Photography

Here's the link to the chatboard for that episode

Show Chatboard Here's the a link replay of the show where you can download it to keep forever. Ecomm Connections Podcast on eCommerce Photography And HERE is the show: