Where Has The Time Gone!!!

Wow!! It has been over three weeks since I have updated this blog and I really can't figure out why. Probably the biggest reason is my continuing effort to change the shipping info in all of my listings. I am convinced that people do not want to pay exhorbant shipping and handling charges and I have been trying to eliminate all reference to them from my listing descriptions. Unfortunately with over two thousand listings to change manually it is taking a great deal of time away from more pleasurable activities like this blog. I think I am seeing a positive reaction because my sales are improving and so I am determined to complete the task. I'm going to try and put some interesting articles into this blog on a more frequent basis but please bear with me.

thanks for listening Bill aka the old guy
Updated for content (06/09)

New Finds

I have been exceptionally fortunate in my search for more "Quality Junk" inthe past couple of weeks. These are some of the better pieces that I have either listed or am about to list on my Auctions:

A nice selection of Royal Doulton "Thistledown", including the hard to find coffee pot.

Several great pieces of John Maddox & Sons vintage "Montana", including several large platters in great condition.

A variety of Metlox "Woodland Gold" , includes a half dozen serving pieces.

Some Franciscan "Sea Sculpture" & "Blue Sky"

Homer Laughlin "Rochelle"

Much more great vintage dinnerware

Please check my auctions daily for more new items.

thanks for listening... the old guy

A Few Helpful Hints For New Sellers

HELPFUL HINTS
This is a short list of general suggestions that are intended to help new sellers 0n Atomic Mall.

In general, we would like to point out that each seller is different and your approach to selling will depend on many factors. These include but are not limited to: Type of merchandise, Price range, Your personal reasons for selling (Are you trying to make a living here or are you just hoping to make a little extra cash from personal items that you don’t need any more). What works for one seller may very well be a complete waste of time for others. Please try what you are comfortable with first and if that doesn’t work move on to something else.

1. Probably the first thing to remember is that Atomic Mall is an entirely different venue than Ebay and other auctions (Not better or worse, just different) . Because it costs you nothing to list on Atomic Mall, you do not get all the promotional advertising and site support that some of the other sites offer. You have to work harder to promote your own auctions and to make them attractive to the buyers.

2. Because Atomic Mall does not have the traffic that ebay has you will not see huge numbers of page views for your listings. Your items will sell eventually to someone who wants them because your offer is more attractive than the next guy. Remember that you can list merchandise as long as it takes here, while on other sites the fees rapidly eat away any profit you might make unless you can sell them quickly. It isn’t how many page views you get that puts cash in your pocket. It’s how many sales that you make.

3. Many people are impulse buyers and do not want to wait for days or even weeks waiting for an auction to close and get the item that they want. Set your price at what you want to get for your merchandise and list it.

4. While a few sellers and buyers do not want to use on line payment services like Paypal, Amazon and Google to transfer money, the vast majority prefer them and a number of buyers will not even look at your items if you do not accept some form of on line payment. This again speeds up the process and they like that. Probably the most popular system is to offer all the options. On line, Money Orders, Cashier and Personal Checks. If you want, you can add caveats that checks must clear before shipping.

5. Another major issue is shipping charges. If you are offering items that sell for less than $10.00 you will soon find that in many cases the shipping cost will exceed the merchandise price. If you want to be competitive you must minimize these costs. Use lightweight packing materials and try to eliminate extra packing fees. Use on line shipping to avoid delivery confirmation charges. It is a major plus to be able to state in your auction that you only charge exact postage with no additional charges or fees.

6. Selling on line is pretty much the same as selling in a brick and mortar store and the same basic rules apply:

Your customers are your greatest asset, treat them right and they will keep coming back. Please remember that that many new buyers come to Atomic Mall every day, the way things work is different in each site. Just like you have to learn the differences, you are going to have to help them learn them.

Promote your own store any way you can. Many helpful suggestions pop up in various blogs and forums. Try things that you think might work for you.

If you have problems with a buyer, try not to waste time with them, try and end things politely. Be extremely careful when using negative feedback, the buyers reputation is just as important as yours. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose by getting into back and forth retaliatory feedback wars that every other potential buyer and seller will read. Reputation is more than 50% of the game here especially when you are new. Non-paying offers only cost you time. They could care less about reputation. You have to care about yours.

Try to keep everything in your listings on a positive note. If you have more space allotted to your rules and regulations than you use to accurately describe your merchandise, you are going to find that potential customers are turned off and will go elsewhere.

Once again what works for you will be unique to you. Keep trying different ideas until you find a style and modus operandi that works well for you. Be patient and take your time. Enjoy your selling experience it can be very rewarding or very frustrating. It's up to you.

thanks for listening..... the old guy
Updated for content (06/09)

New Merchandise Listings

Just a quick note to let you know what's happening in the world of "Quality Junk". I have come to realize that I have to list more than the 2000 items that were my original goal this year. Until more people realize that Atomic Mall exists and that there are a lot of good deals here, about the only way to make enough sales here to justify the enormous amount of hours I put into my auctions, is to list more items that may attract more buyers.

Although I still have a huge amount of merchandise on hand that is not listed, a lot of it is just to inexpensive to sell on the net, so I am going to try and move it in bulk at a garage sale or to the swap meet dealers I know. I have found a really good source of pottery at decent prices and I am buying whenever I can and listing these pieces in my store. Of course I still have a lot of good bears and paper collectibles and will continue to list them as time allows.

I have faith in Atomic Mall and I believe we have a great future ahead, not as a substitute for eBay but as an alternative venue to sell items that are just not economically feasible to sell on eBay. I could probably do well on eBay with many of my higher end collectibles, but I just don't have the time right now to work on more than one site.

thanks for listening... the old guy

Pricing Policies

I am often ask about my pricing policies and what criteria I use to determine prices. Since I have nothing to hide, I thought I would reveal these highly classified, top secret (LOL) details to you.

Since the bulk of my merchandise is stock that I have accumulated over the last twenty years and I am trying to reduce the pile to a manageable level, the one criteria that I pay very little attention to is my cost (what I paid for the merchandise).

I have been fairly successful in clearing out a lot of this merchandise since I started selling on line and last month I started actively seeking out merchandise that I can turn a real profit on. I am concentrating on pottery and china (mostly dinnerware) I will buy anything that I can put up at a good price for you that will make money for me.

My basic guideline for pricing is to do as much research as time allows. This includes looking at other sites on the Internet to find what similar items are selling for, looking in price guides, and drawing on the expertise of friends and associates. For the most part I will take the average value of the item as determined by this research and reduce it by 35%. This is the price I list the item for. This is pretty much a rule with me for items that I sell for $100.00 or less. Items that have a higher value are harder to find and easier to sell so I scale this percentage up as the value gets higher. In general I will try and sell items valued at over $100.00 at 75% of their average value.

I try to pass along good value to you. This usually will give me a profit margin that I can live with. This may seem high to you but please bear in mind that this is a time consuming business.

I am human like everyone subject to human error. If you ever think I have overpriced an item that you really want, just e mail me, I'll take a look at your offer and give you a polite yes or no reply.

If you are a comparison shopper as most of us are, please do not use auction starting prices as a comparison. Many sellers have a very low starting price with no intention of selling at that price. They usually have a much higher reserve and are only trying to keep their listing fees down and stir up interest. If it looks too good to be true then it probably is. Only look at"BUY IT NOW" and "SOLD" prices to compare with.

If you have any questions about my prices please don't hesitate to ask.

thanks for listening.... Bill aka the old guy

Updated for content (06/09).

Just a Few Rumbles and Rambles

It's been a long, hot and stressful day. I took the bus and trolley all the way downtown and back just to deliver a bicycle to a friend who had damaged hers in an accident and needed one to use until the broken one could be fixed. Of course I had to bring the broken one back to my house to repair as she is only allowed to have one where she is staying. I hadn't seen her in a while and it was good to spend an hour with her over breakfast.

Back to business. I am one of several volunteer moderators on the Yahoo auction sellers group. This group is focused on getting Yahoo to hear our complaints and hopefully take action on them. Half of the listings that sellers post to the group are dedicated to hashing and rehashing the negative experiences that they have had on Yahoo. I have had most of the bad experiences that they have had and I share their frustrations, but I am a believer in dealing with things and moving on. Unless I have something constructive to say or I have a new problem which I haven't seen before, I prefer not to waste my time on these negative issues. "If it ain't broke don't fix it and if you can't fix it move on".

One of the major problems that sellers have on all auction sites is folks that bid on auctions and than never pay or for that matter never even talk to you. These folks waste every one's time and cut into the cash flow by forcing the seller to keep merchandise sitting on the shelves where no one can buy it until he is certain that the sale is lost. The downside of these NPB's (non-paying bidders) is that there really isn't much that anyone can do about them. The upside is, as long as you don't send the merchandise until it's paid for, you don't lose anything but time. They are a pain in the rear but really shouldn't affect business unless you chose to continue to waste time bitching about them.

I really am rambling here, but I am on a crusade to get as many sellers as I can to deal with these folks quickly and then move on. Once they realize that people aren't paying any attention to them they will go away or move on to find an easier target to upset and aggravate.

I know this blog is read by more buyers than sellers, but if you know the amount of frustration that these NPB's cause you will realize why sometimes a seller may seem a little overly cautious in dealing with you even though you are as honest as they come.

Enough for now. thanks for listening..... Bill aka the old guy

Where have I been!!!

Well I have really neglected this blog for the last couple of weeks and I can't seem to come up with a reasonable good excuse so I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to apologize to everyone and try and move on.

As is usual for the summertime the auction business has been a little slow and this is giving me some time to catch up on a few areas that I hope will improve my service to you. As you can see I have reached my goal of 1000 auctions and now I am going to start culling out some of the not so quality junk. I figure if I haven't had any interest in an item in several months then it is time to move along and return it to the dumpster from whence I may have got it in the first place.

With all of the merchandise that I have, I have occasionally had problems locating a piece when it does sell. This tends to aggravate everyone so I have finally came up with a system (LOL) that allows me to eliminate most of this problem. If you have ever wondered what the cryptic numbers and letters are at the bottom of most of my listings, they represent listing dates and Merchandise locations here in my home which has now turned into a warehouse.

I have also been working on a sales database so that I won't go crazy at tax time next year. I was unaware last year that yahoo simply deletes old files after about six months and if you don't keep your own records you have one major headache trying to reconstruct your sales activity for the year.

I'm not going to swear an oath but I am definitely going to try and update this blog more often in the future. I am adding it to my signature link in hopes that more of you good folks will read it.

thanks for listening, the old guy

Two Years Before the Yahoo Mast!!!!

For the first time in what seems like weeks My auctions and my e-mail box are both silent and I thought I would take advantage of this time to say a few words about where I,m at in the wonderful world of Yahoo auctions.

In a few days I will have been participating in Yahoo auctions for 2 years. For the first year I was preoccupied with closing down my brick and mortar store and trying to stabilize my finances which the store adventure had nearly destroyed. I was able to get a few listings on and was at least learning how things worked.

The big turning point for me was in April of 2005 when Yahoo did away with all of their fees and became a totally free site. This was crucial to me because most of my merchandise shares two distinct characteristics that make it important that I have as low an overhead as possible. First, it is almost all very inexpensive which means that even small fees take a big cut out of profits. Secondly, more than 50% of my auction listings are replacement china. This is a line where a dealer must assume that he is going to have to wait 6 months or longer to find a buyer who needs the particular pattern that you are selling. Put these two factors together and you have a situation where you are selling an item for under Ten dollars that you have to pay around 35 cents every 7 days (on e-bay) for six months before it sells. That equates to $9.00 in listing fees paid to sell a $10.00 item. Then when you add in the final value and Paypal fees you have probably worked 6 months to lose a buck or two and this doesn't even take the cost of your merchandise into consideration. It's a no brainer. You are paying the auction site to let you lose money.

When Yahoo took away their fees (which I have to admit were much cheaper than the E bay group), I was able to start listing all of the rest of my merchandise and eventually sell it at a fair profit. I am now running about 1000 auctions with my only expense being my time (I'm retired) and Paypal fees. In the past year I have sold more than 1000 auctions with many of them for multiple units. A side benefit is that I have made dozens of new friends among my repeat customers. I admit my methods are a little unorthodox. I am of the rare breed (at least on the auction circuit) who believes in the old adage "The customer is always right!!".

It seems to be working well for me and I am looking forward to this next year with anticipation of many more good deals and a lot of new friends to add to my growing list.

thanks for listening.... the old guy

Another Word About Shipping

I have been wanting to say a few words about my shipping policies. As we all know shipping is an integral part of the cost of anything you purchase on line.

I use priority mail for all domestic shipping depending on the weight. Many people have requested that I use Parcel Post and I will normally not do this for several reasons.

1. There is really no savings involved unless you have really heavy items. I get free boxes from the Post Office for Priority Mail that are easy to pack and safely ship to you. If I ship something Parcel Post I would have to pass along the price of the box and the additional time involved in packaging. In 99.9% of the items I ship you would lose money.

2. I do not believe that Parcel Post is handled as carefully as Priority and I want to keep the risk down because most of my shipping is fragile.

3. Priority Mail gets the merchandise to you faster than Parcel Post, 2-3 days as opposed to 5-7 days.

4. Finally, and this is the most important to me, if for some reason a Parcel Post package is undeliverable, it will be returned to me and I have to pay the return postage. If the item goes by Priority Mail and it has to be returned the Post Office eats the return Postage.

---

Another issue is Delivery confirmation. I have spent around $350 on delivery confirmation fees in the past year. Up until the postal rates went up I would simply pass that along to you. When the raised the rates I decided that I would pay this fee myself and I have for the last six months. The bottom line here is that in all this time I have never had to use the confirmation system once to track a package. It's a waste of money. I will continue to use and pay this fee whenever someone buys from me the first time, but after that I am just going to skip it.

---

Finally, let's talk about insurance. As most of you already know, if there is a problem I will almost always resolve it to your satisfaction. I'm here to make friends and return customers, not enemies and bad publicity. The Post Office will only reimburse you for the amount that you paid me for the item. You are out the shipping cost, even if they accept responsibility for the breakage. Since most of my items are under $10, you will be paying $1.30 to insure a $10 or less item that I am going to reimburse you for any way. I do not recommend insurance on items under $50 and on more expensive items I will normally pay for insurance myself.

---

What I am trying to do here is minimize the cost to you for your purchase. As in off-line (brick & mortar) stores, look at the total cost and buy where you get the best value and service.

Thanks for listening.... the old guy

Updated for content 06/09.

Time Flies By Again

It's been so long since I updated this blog that I probably lost all of my readers by now. I am going to try and update every morning before I get sidetracked with the everyday maintenance tasks on the auctions. Even if all I have to say is Hi.

I have reached another milestone and completed another resolution I made on this blog for the new year. I have finally reached 1000 Auctions on Yahoo. I hope to keep things within 10% of this figure for the next few months. I have a lot more merchandise to list for you, but I find that 1000 auctions is barely a manageable number. I do not use bulk loaders so every auction has to be individually listed and re listed.

I will continue to list new auctions, but I intend to start culling some of the items that no one seems to have any interest in to make room for the new.

I think I'm making good progress toward my goal of personal service for everyone. While I am here to try and improve my finances, this is not just a money making proposition for me. I have made many friends while I have been selling here for the past two years and I hope to make many more.

Thanks for listening, the old guy

What a Weekend!!!!

This entry should be better named as ranting and raving! I have spent the best part of the memorial weekend trying to work around a major problem with Yahoo's software again. There is something major wrong with their auction clock and it is preventing us from listing or relisting auctions in the normal fashion. This is an ongoing problem but as usual (with a lot of help from the Yahoo Sellers Group) we have figured out a temporary fix and I have finally caught up with my relisting. Unfortunately the fix takes 5 times the time of the normal procedure. I probably won't be able to get new listings on until they have this problem fixed.

This may cause my newsletter to be a little late this month. I don't know where the time goes. Hang in there folks I have a lot more Quality Junk to show you so don't give up on me yet.

thanks for listening - the old guy

Poetry 101 - The Only Day

The Only Day

are you concerned about the past

be glad it's done and gone at last

or does the future make you blue

why? no one can have a clue

unless you wish for constant strife

let past nor future rule your life

look around!! What can you do

This is the only day for you

If you owe some long gone debt

don't waste your time, don't sit and fret

do what you can don't try for more

take your best shot then close the door

release your past and future hell

use your time to live life well

act here and now and please don't miss

for the only day you have is this

the old guy

11 mar 2005

Back To The Grind !!!

Well it's a fairly quiet Saturday before Easter and I am trying to recover from the trauma of having my taxes finished. As usual Uncle got most of what I had and then some. At least it's over for another year and I can get back to trying to pay off the rest of the world.

Thanks to you good folks who keep buying my quality junk I am getting the old bills paid a little at a time.

I have finally reached 900 auction listings and I am certain I will reach my New Years goal of 1000 soon.

I am changing my format totally away from bidding and gradually changing all of my auctions back to the buy it now format. In two years I have only had three auctions with more than one bid so why waste your time and mine waiting for auctions to close. I really believe that many folks look at an item and just don't want to bid on it because there's a number of days before the auction closes. It is much simpler to just buy it now. I price my auctions at what I need to get from them and so I'm not really interested in these so called bidding wars. My philosophy is going to be this. If you must fight to spend your hard earned money, go somewhere where the sellers need your money to pay their fees. E bay is the place to be if your anxious to fight other people for the right to buy things. I always close bids for my repeat customers anyway so this really isn't much of a change.

OK enough about business. I hope all of you folks have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. I'm going to take what's left of it and put some more "Quality Junk" on the net.

thanks for listening.... the old guy!!

Updated for content 06/09

Ramblings

I thought I'd better take this opportunity to let you know where I'm at these days because I will be tied up from now until the 15th doing what I should have done months ago. My taxes. I don't know why but I have a phobia about taxes and always put them off until the last minute. They always seem to work out alright, it's just the way I am.


One of my New Years resolutions that I addressed in this blog was to reach 1000 listings this year without listing each cup and plate individually. This morning I reached 900 so I'll probably make it. It's a slow process because you good folks keep buying my "Quality Junk" and I have to play catch up a lot. (Don't get me wrong I definitely want you to keep on bidding).

Now that summer is approaching I have started taking most of my photos outside in natural light and this is giving me a much better picture quality for you. (This was another one of my New Years Resolutions).

Well I think that's enough rambling for now, wish me luck with the taxes.

thanks for listening... the old guy

Updated for content 06/09.

Gifts For Sale

I am going to start a new category of merchandise for my store called gifts. My spouse has been a preschool teacher for almost 20 years and she has been rewarded by her students and parents with dozens of gifts over the years. She loves the kids and their gifts but the time has come to move some out to make room for more. Most of these items are in Brand New condition and have never been used. I will title all of these with the word GIFT so you can find them in an alphabetical title search under the Letter "G". I will list them as I have time along with all my Quality Junk.
Keep your eyes open for these as they will be bargains compared to store retail prices.

thanks for listening...the old guy

Updated for content 06/09.

Poetry 101 - Choices

I wrote this during a period when I knew that I had to make some dramatic changes in my life and I knew that many choices had to be made. Only God knows whether I made the right ones. I certainly don't.

I apologize to anyone who may be offended by my choice of words.

CHOICES

life is full of choices
advised by many voices.

should we laugh or should we cry
should we shout or should we sigh.

shall we rise or stay in bed
live by heart or by head.

eat our food sweet or tart
suffer pain or let a fart.

do we walk or will we run
making choices is no fun.

will we sleep or lust this night
bake a cake or fly a kite.

go to school or play some pool
make wrong choices play the fool.

will we dress or naked stay
make a choice straight or gay.

all day long i strive to see
what choices are alright for me.

The old guy
11 mar 2001

thanks for listening....the old guy

Poetry 101 - The Lonely Mailbox

I wrote this for myself one day while I was on my pity pot waiting for a letter from a friend.

I now dedicate it to all of our servicemen and women and to those at home who wait anxiously for mail.

in my front yard there sits an object so forlorn
it very often wonders why that it was ever born

every day it stands & waits its door is always open
and deep inside its metal hide its heart is always hopin'

it knows that somewhere out in space a missive is enroute
someday soon it will arrive and slide right down its chute

but alas it seems as if that day will never come
But if it does there is no doubt that it will really hum

every day i speak to it and bid it not to cry
i tell it that our friend will write and that is not a lie

now the man has stopped in front he's looking in his bag
he looks at us and shakes his head our spirits they do sag

where are the words That we have waited long for
the news that she's still happy & that her spirits soar

when they do come the little mailbox sitting all alone
will sing and dance and leap about never more to moan.

More from the old guy

thanks for listening .........

Is Anyone Out There???

For sometime now I have been writing feverishly and often in this blog. Hopefully putting out information that is interesting, informative and even entertaining. All of this is aimed at supporting my efforts with online sales. I have placed a link to this blog in almost every e mail I have sent in the last two months. Since most of these e mails have been to people who would almost certainly be interested in most of my rambling rantings, I have been more than a little puzzled by the almost total lack of comments. In order to try and solve this rather perplexing problem, I did the last thing that most of us men want to do. I ask a few people why they didn't seem to be reading this great blog and perhaps making constructive or even destructive comments. The consensus was overwhelming. Very few had any idea how to post their comments. I tried myself and it was very confusing to me also.

First of all not many people really want to sign up for blogger. At least not until they have some idea of what it is all about. The answer to that would be to make anonymous comments, but the radio button says clearly that they must log in and publish. Most folks, not being as bull headed as I am quit at this step and either let it go or in a few cases e mailed me with their thoughts.

The reality is that if you choose to comment anonymously, when you click on the dreaded log in and publish button It simply sends your comment directly to me by e mail and I publish it. Please don't be afraid of the log-in button. If you have checked the anonymous block on your comment page there is no log-in. Your comment comes straight to me for censorship (another dreaded word).

I have opted to check all comments before they are published in order to keep out spam advertisers who are endlessly assaulting everything and everyone on the Internet with their childish, stupid and often dangerous messages. I will not censor any comment that is pertinent to the article even if it is critical of what I said.

Hopefully this will encourage some of you to comment, if for no other reason than to let me know that someone is reading my rantings.

thanks for listening....

Updated for content o6/09.

Poetry 101 - The Watcher in Your Soul

Another one of my feeble attempts at creativity. this one was for a friend who was going through a tough time in her life. I debated over the title, I was going to use "The Guardian Angel" , but somehow this seemed more appropriate. (Don't ask me why because I don't have the slightest idea).

THE WATCHER IN YOUR SOUL

thoughts and feelings you may hide

but there is one who's at your side.

it knows you well, this loving spirit.

it speaks not words, but you can hear it.

when things you do might bring you shame,

it tries to keep your actions tame.

with love it's been there many years

through joy and sadness, smiles and tears.

it shares your pain when you do wrong

and when you're good breaks out in song.

though you can't see this guardian sprite,

it's waits down deep to still your fright.

the warmth that comes from this sweet guide

will keep you safe and turn the tide

to help you find your lifelong goal

you have a watcher in your soul.

the old guy

to the light

09 May 2005

Feel free to share.

thanks for listening.....

Military History in Black and White

Buy Vintage Military Prints at Quality Junk on Atomic Mall





About ten years ago I stumbled across a large quantity of military prints that came from a bankruptcy sale by a large military dealer. I have sold most of them over the years but still have a couple of hundred left. They were originally distributed (according to my source) by a west coast company called "Prints of Wales" right after the Korean War in the late 50's. I know from the numbers that I did get that there were probably100 prints in the set. I have never seen all of them as there were only about 80 numbers when I got them. With very few exceptions they are all in their original shrink wrap packaging. I have around thirty different left and have just finished putting them all in my Atomic Mall store. In many cases I have duplicates available but some of the more incredible shots have now become one of a kind. Almost all of these are Navy and span the period from WWI to the Korean War. Get 'em while they're hot. when they're gone they're gone.

Updated for content 06/09.

Feedback - Pros and Cons

Lately there has been a lot of discussion in various Sellers Groups that I subscribe to about buyers leaving negative feedback on sellers when it wasn't deserved. The general feeling among sellers is that even a single negative feedback causes some buyers to look elsewhere and they become very upset when this happens. Doubly so if they feel that said negative feedback has no basis in fact. There is no court of appeals on many sites to decide who's right and who's wrong. Once a feedback report is entered it stays. The only recourse that a seller has is to rebut this feedback by stating the facts from the sellers point of view. This almost inevitably leads to back and forth chain of nasty notes that definitely scares people away.

I have stated many times that I will never give negative feedback and so far I have stuck to this like superglue. I am a staunch believer in the old adage that the customer is always right, even when he is wrong. Any experienced businessman knows that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by debating issues with customers. My belief is apologize and move on. As far as people who are genuine frauds, most sellers do not send merchandise until it's paid for and lose nothing except a little time if a seller backs out of the deal for any reason. My philosophy is deal with it. Move on to the next sale.

Most of the negative feedback that I have seen leading to endless circles of heated accusations are started by sellers who (after waiting a reasonable length of time) and receiving no correspondence or money tag the buyer with a negative statement. This starts the war. A war which no one wins. My recommendation is let it go and move on.

Does this mean that the feedback system is totally useless. Not really. Sellers and buyers alike are more likely to trust and deal with someone who has a high positive feedback rating and few if any negatives. The feedback system is a supplementary communications method. If you give me feedback, I assume that you have received the merchandise and if you get feedback from me you can assume that I have received your payment. It puts a final closure on a good transaction. Please give feedback if the person has satisfied his end of the transaction. If they haven't and you are unhappy with something use e mail. 99% of the time you are going to resolve misunderstandings without going to war.

One last word, to buyers and sellers alike. Double check your feedback before you submit it. It is easy to fill in the wrong dot and put a permanent blemish on someones record by mistake. Even if a site allows you to revise the words by subsequently submitting good feedback, you have if nothing else created bad feelings. Unfortunately there are people who only look at numbers and don't read any further.

thanks for listening...

Updated for content 06/09.

Dinnerware - Use?Collect?Display?

As most of you know the largest component of my listings is what many people (myself included) refer to as replacement china. Actually this is a little misleading because dinnerware (especially china and porcelain) are bought for three primary uses depending on the buyer.

First. many people do buy pieces as replacements for broken or missing items from a pattern that they actually use at their dinner tables. Others may have purchased or been given starter sets and are trying to expand them as their families grow or they start entertaining at home. In other words they are going to use them!

The second group of buyers are of course collectors. Some of these folks collect specific patterns, manufacturers. lines, or shapes. Others are only interested in a certain colors. There are a few who are only interested in a specific item, for example, coffee cups, creamers, butter pats, etc, etc.

Finally there is a use for dinnerware that is often overlooked by sellers and buyers alike. This is display for purely decorative purposes. I am very interested in targeting this market both for homes and commercially (restaurants, offices, etc,etc). There is no question about it china, porcelain, pottery, glass or even metal dinnerware pieces are often works of art. Using them to create a certain ambiance in a room can be a very inexpensive way of decorating.

When I look for items to put in my Atomic Mall store, I keep all of these uses in mind and I weigh them all in setting my prices. Perhaps some of you will take another look at them when you are looking to buy.

thanks for listening...

Updated for content 06/09.

Poetry 101 - English Breakfast Tea

---

I wrote and dedicated this poem to a group of ladies who were living together in a substance abuse rehabilitation center trying desperately to find a new way of life. I gave it to them with the tea and hope that it made at least one day a little brighter.

---

When the sun comes up and I awake
my vision blurs and my head does ache
i know the cure, which i do need
it's warm and sweet and does the deed
To the kitchen i must drag
this body sore, face like a hag
in the cupboards do i search
moving slowly with a lurch
Then there it is, right in my eye
"thank you lord" My mouth does cry
now to the stove i swiftly stride
to warm this brew and save my hide
i sip it slow and feel the heat
my dormant heart begins to beat
a mix of love and soothing be
this cup of English Breakfast Tea

the old guy 7 May 2005

thanks for listening...

Poetry 101 - A Moment In Time

I'm afraid I feel the urge to entertain you with another of my rare ventures in creativity. This one was intended to describe my feelings about a few short moments I would often share with a dear friend after closing up the Antique Mall for the day. It was a quiet calming time that usually washed the day trials and tribulations from my mind. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

A MOMENT IN TIME

Between My work and nightly sleep
a time of comfort seems to creep.

just 30 minutes - one half hour
serves to calm and offer power.

speaking with a friend at ease
we sat together in the breeze.

we sipped hot drinks and watched the crowd.
Occasionally we thought out loud.

i talked and talked and rambled on
i would have kept her to the dawn.

i know not what i said to her
the time went by just like a blur.

i sensed her need to run and play
i knew i'd lose her anyway.

with heavy heart and racing mind
i said farewell i would not bind.

my friend she raced across the street
into the crowd a need to meet.

The Old Guy
18 Mar 2001

Feel free to share it if you like, thanks for listening.