My Favorite Quotes

  1. "Whatever you do, do it well."



  2. "Of all the things I ever lost, I miss my mind the most."



  3. "The box says: 'Shut up Steve'."

About Me

My photo
Married with six children and 11 grandchildren. retired from USN in 1988 with 30 years of active service.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

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).

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

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

Sunday, July 16, 2006

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