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Cheri



Last Updated: 7/6/2007

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Gender: Female
Age: 57
State: MARYLAND
Country: US
Signup Date: 8/7/2006

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Friday, August 10, 2007 

Current mood:  rejuvenated

Watching The Queen of Auctions Turn...
"Trash to Cash"

I am back... sorry for not writing! It has been so busy (and hot). I have been organizing, researching, photographing, and listing my "stuff" online. As an "information hound", I am always browsing books, videos, and other resources for new ideas, and techniques.

 After viewing a video clip from "The Queen of Auctions", I wanted to share it with you. Sometime ago,  I bought Lynn Dralle's "Trash to Cash" DVD and have not stopped watching it. Even after the first and second viewing, I still find myself watch it again... and again. Believe me... the video is entertaining, inspiring, and informational!

In the video, you can follow "The Queen of Auctions" as she browses garage sales for items to sell on eBay. As Dralle searches, she explains why an item is selected or not selected for listing.  Later, she walks  (and talks) you through the steps of processing, listing, and selling her "garage sale" finds on eBay. She uses the "I Sell" inventory management system that she created to organize the items. Dralle even shares several successes as she reveals the cost and selling price of various items.

So, watch the video and discover some of the reasons
why Lynn Dralle is an eBay PowerSeller!!

Check out her website...
Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions

3:42 PM 
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Thursday, July 05, 2007 

Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Pics from
eBay Live 2007 Boston

Check out my Squidoo Lens
for more eBay Live 2007 pictures

6:18 AM 
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Sunday, June 17, 2007 

Still in Boston , I did attend...

eBay Live 2007 Boston

Have I got something to tell you.
Let me catch my breathe...
I will tell you all about it
What a week!

Technorati Profile

4:45 AM 
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007 

Are you going to...

eBay Live Boston
June 13-16, 2007


Countdown clocks at BlingyBlob.com

If you are going to eBay Live 2007 Boston
Add a "shoutout" with your departure state

1:17 PM 
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007 

Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Auction Review List...
Compiling a list of auction sites reviewed or plan to review as a seller and buyer. Feel free to post your favorite auction site (s) and brief comments.

..> ..>

Sellers and Buyers
eBay - Millions of items are traded each day worldwide.
ePier - No insertion fee, No listing fee, Final Value Fee when item is sold.

Buyers
PoliceAuctions - Source for government auctions (many with no reserve price)

 

3:20 AM 
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007 

Current mood:  creative
Any booksellers out there?
Just wanted to announce the launching of...

Cheri's Bookseller Online Network
If you are an online bookseller or interested in selling books online, you are invited to join the Network or even create your own social network.

What is the Network?
Cheri's Bookseller Online Network is a social networking community for individuals selling books online, or interested in selling books online. It is an internet-based site to network with other booksellers, promote books,  share bookselling experiences, post comments, and much more. You can get answers to your bookselling questions and new strategies ideas from various online bookselling experts.

Who can join?
If you are involved in the bookselling industry, you are invited to join. So, if you are a bookseller, author, publisher, bookstore owner, or book collector...

Join a Bookseller's Community

 

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Saturday, November 18, 2006 

Current mood:  happy
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Hello, fellow eBayers,
I know it's been a while! It's been quite busy. But I did find another great article that I wanted to share with you. Thanks to the author, Lynn A. Dralle, "The Queen of Auctions" for granting permission to use it.

"A Five-Point Plan to Fix Your Workflow Bottleneck"
by Lynn A. Dralle, "The Queen of Auctions"

My mom's first day at work was Tuesday, October 24th. The first thing we did was to take a look at my current workflow setup and realize that it had turned into a montster! It was literally out of control! I had known this for some time and was considering leasing office space. I realized that this would add too much expense to my overhead so I had started shopping around to buy a residential property that I could use as an office.

My mom and I first analyzed our work areas (of which you should have 5). Please analyze your own work areas and draw a floor plan.

  1. Staging Items to be Put on eBay
  2. Writing up merchandise
  3. Photographing area
  4. Storing auction and store items
  5. Shipping area

When I originally set up my rec room/eBay office (600 square feet) I was only handling about 200 items at a time. I did not have my eBay store going full force and our flow was just fine. As my eBay business grew and grew--(Now we handle about 4,000 items at auction and in our eBay store)--I realized that I had created a monster!


Check out the mess!
  1. My Staging area for new merchandise was not in one place anymore. I had 3 large racks of new items in my rec room office, 5 boxes on the floor of my dining room and another 120 boxes in the garage.

My brother was visiting and said, "It has finally happened. You have become Grandma and your family is living in the antiques store." Yikes! My worst nightmare. I knew then that something must be done and quickly.

  1. My area for writing up merchandise (formerly a table in the rec room office) was now my dining room table.
  1. My outdoor photography studio was still just perfect! A girl has to get lucky sometimes.
  1. My storage area for items currently at auction or currently for sale in my eBay store was no longer in my rec room office. I still had items stored in the rec room office but also all over my golf cart garage and in an old empty freezer in the other half of my garage. Not a good thing!
  1. My shipping area had slowly moved from inside the rec room office to the golf cart garage. Maureen was constantly running back and forth from the rec room office (where her computer was) to the golf cart garage. Now, my house is not small and this was taking hours of valuable time.

After doing an analysis of each work area, my mom and I came up with a Great Five-Point Plan.  I encourage you to do the same for your work areas.

  1. Staging area for new incoming merchandise would be moved out of the rec room office and out of my dining room and it will now take over the entire golf cart garage. This made perfect sense for us because when I come home from garage saling, I can just roll up the garage door and set the boxes inside on a super long table that we purchased.
  1. Writing up merchandise will no longer be done at my dining room table. We are not living in an antiques store anymore--Thank Goodness! Writing up of merchandise will be done in the rec room office (where it belongs). We have designated three shelves and a work table for this task.
  1. The Photographing station remains the same!
  1. All inventory (either up at auction or listed in my eBay store) will be stored in the rec room office. To accomplish this, we knew that major changes would have to take place. I had my desk and computer and my assistant's desk and computer in this area. We realized that my desk, all my reference books, my greeting card company items, and all my paperwork did NOT have to stay.

Because of my Dralle Method of listing items, I don't have to be anywhere near the merchandise and I could actually list from another part of the house. The reason I had purchased such a large house (4,000 square feet) was so that I could work from home and be near my kids. We have 5 bedrooms and two of them were being used as guest rooms. Guess what? One of the guest rooms was soon to become my very own QUIET and clutter free office. What a revelation!

My mom and I started searching for office furniture and went all over town. It was quite pricey. There was an ad in our local paper for a beautiful 11 piece set but it was located in Yucca Valley and they wanted $3,500. Yucca Valley is about an hour away, so we called the gal and she sent photos and measurements. It appeared that it just may work. And I kept telling my mom, "I have a feeling about the Yucca Valley set". Anyway, we ended up getting the set for $3,000 plus $50 delivery. As you can see from the photo, it was like the set was made for my room. I am so excited to be working in a clutter free "executive" zone. Life is great!

My new office

  1. The shipping area had to move from the golf cart garage and we wanted it back inside in the rec room office with all the merchandise that was being shipped. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it? To accomplish this, we got rid of a couch and added a long table in front of the hearth. My dad and brother were out visiting so we got them to help install our Packing Peanut Holder and a bar to hold bubble wrap. Check it out! It is an awesome improvement.

The new wrap station
(The pink stool in the photo came from my grandma and was a fixture in the shop for probably 50 years! It is dangerous--please don't step on it!)

I encourage you to analyze your working areas and come up with your five-point plan for improvement. Saving hours every day in wasted footsteps can add up to a lot of money in your pocket. Good Luck to you!

This article was used with the permission of the author, Lynn Dralle.
The Queen of Auctions and eBay Power Seller, Lynn Dralle, publishes "eBay Tips & Tricks", a weekly ezine with 8000+ subscribers. If you're ready to jump start your eBay business, make more money and have more free time, be sure to get your FREE tips at www.thequeenofauctions.com .
 
 
Check out "The Queen of Auctions"...
She knows how to sell stuff!
1:43 PM 
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Monday, September 25, 2006 

Current mood:  creative
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

"What Do You Sell on eBay?"

Folks are always asking... "What do you sell on eBay?"
Yes, the answer is different for each seller, or potential seller. It was so well stated in a recent article, "What to Sell on eBay - 7 REAL Tips for Finding Successful Products" that I have included the entire article below...

What to Sell on eBay -
7 REAL Tips for Finding Successful Products
By Matt Blasses

This question has become one for the ages. There are many answers to it, few of which will actually help you. Today we will give you 7 tips you must keep in mind when you search for items to sell on eBay.

The problem with asking the question "What can I sell on eBay" is that you're likely to get one of a small group of boilerplate answers. These answers get repackaged and dispensed as brand new answers, however they are still the same, reworked, difficult advice.

The most common answers you will find are:

  • Look for items at garage sales, flea markets and estate sales.
  • Speak to manufacturing corporations and ask them if you can sell their products on ebay for them.
  • Buy from wholesalers.
  • Buy cheap items from retail stores.
  • Negotiate with stores to sell their overstocked items.
The problem with all of these things is they just don't work, they are too complicated, or they are just overdone.

How to Settle on a Product

There are 7 necessary tips to keep in mind when searching for a product that will sell well. To find the best product it must meet a number of guidelines.

  1. Keep it small. Larger items bring with them a host of issues, from storage to shipping and everything in between. Unless storage is not a problem for you, keeping more than a few large items around can cramp up your extra rooms, basement and garage. The problem is that you need to be able to keep a large supply of items that you're selling to make any real money. Making $100 on a sofa is great, but it hardly pays the bills. If you have any ideas about quitting your job or supplementing your income, you will need to be selling a lot more of these. Heck, 3 or 4 sofas in a room should fill it up. So where are you going to put 10 of them? Keep your items small, and you can use shelves, drawers and closets for storage.
  2. Can it ship easily? I know we covered the size issue in the previous paragraph, but it comes up again here. Even if you find the perfect product, you must be able to ship it easily and cheaply. You may find a great deal on rocking chairs, but how are you going to get a box around them? Not to mention, the shipping costs on large, heavy and bulky items can be in the hundreds of dollars. Look for products that can ship for a minimum amount of money. Anything from toothpicks to books fit the bill nicely.
  3. Find a niche! If you try to sell everything to everyone, you will end up selling nothing to anyone. The more specialized you become, the better your chances of being able to offer unique items. For example, there are thousands of people on eBay selling DVD's. Prices have been cut down to nothing, and profits along with them. The only way to make money as a DVD seller on eBay is to be one of the few sellers who have huge volumes. Starting out that way is very tough indeed. On the other hand, if you sell a specific type of DVD, like old horror movies or cartoon sets, you will likely have better profit margins. The large DVD warehouses just can't move enough of them to make it worth their while. Come up with a few niches, and you should do pretty well.
  4. Beware of seasonal items. Christmas decorations may sell well from October until December, but no one will be buying them in April. If you will be selling seasonal items, make sure you know when their season ends, and don't get stuck with a lot of leftover products.
  5. Fads can be great money-makers for short periods of time, but after that, good luck getting rid of them. Think of Beanie Babies, Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids. All of these fads enjoyed phenomenal sales due to their intense popularity. After the boom, however, sales (and prices) dropped immediately. Ride the waves of popular items, but beware of their life-cycle. Prepare for the end of the fad, even as you are beginning the selling.
  6. Bring something unique to the marketplace. This seems difficult - and it can be. If you have access to something unique, such as a specialized book, health product or computer program that other sellers don't have license for, your products will be in demand. This tip is worth putting some time into. Think of ways to obtain such products, or modify existing ones (But be sure of your rights to do so!).
  7. Sell what is in demand. Coins, stamps and other collectibles are always in demand. They are easy to buy and easy to sell and ship. If you spend time researching the ones that sell the best, for the most profit, you can do very well in this area. Try to come up with unique ways of presenting these items as well.
Hopefully these tips will get you started. Always keep in mind that uniqueness seems to be the key to eBay success. Even if you're selling existing and plentiful items, come up with a unique way of selling or packaging them, and you may just find the next winner.

Good luck, and happy selling!

©2005 Matt Blasses

Matt Blasses is the author of the groundbreaking ebook "How to Get Rich Buying and Selling Stamps on eBay - Even if you don't know anything about stamps". This ebook is available for immediate download at http://www.stampebook.com

You can reach Matt Blasses at: mblasses@comcast.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_Blasses

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Wednesday, August 09, 2006 

Current mood:  busy
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Bookselling Online...

An Easy Way to Learn eBay Selling

Why? You might ask. Well, books are . . .


. . . EASY TO FIND ALL YEAR LONG - you can find them at yard sales, church sales, library sales, thrift stores, antique stores, online auctions, book swaps, by advertising in the paper and other ways limited only by your imagination.

. . . A LOW COST WAY TO START - books can be purchased for as low as 10¢ at yard sales or $1 at library booksales. That $1 can be turned into $20, $50 or $100 on eBay if you know which books to buy. If you are selling or want to sell children's books, I recommend that you check out Mo$t Valuable Children's Picture Books for more information on which children's books will bring in $50 or more.

. . . EASY TO STORE - only a small space is needed for inventory. Books are relatively small and do not take up a lot of space compared to other products. They are best stored in your house on bookshelves that can be purchased inexpensively from your local office warehouse store. Have a spare wall? You can easily store hundreds of books.

. . . EASY TO SCAN/PHOTOGRAPH - single books can be scanned for high quality images and groups of books can be photographed without the need for a photo dome or other expensive photographic equipment. With a little knowledge, you can get top quality images quickly for your eBay auction.

. . . EASY TO DESCRIBE - books all have the same features: title, author, publisher, etc. and parts: cover, spine, binding, pages, etc. You can build a template with these elements, and then just fill in the blanks. I have found that listing books (single or bulk) can be done quickly with the highly recommended multiple venue listing service, The Art of Books (AOB). Plus eBay offers a free listing program called TurboLister.

. . . EASY TO PACK - they don't break! Just wrap your book in a couple of layers of bubblewrap, place it in a tyvek envelope, and place on a label. You are good to go. Many eBay booksellers use online postage and have their mailman pick up the packages at their house.

. . . CHEAP TO MAIL - the United States Postal Service has a special rate for all media (including books) which is much lower than Priority. You can ship a one pound book for $1.84.

. . . NOT SEASONAL - books are purchased all year long on eBay. Different kinds of books will sell better in different seasons, such as gift books at Christmas, textbooks before school starts, etc. but there are books that sell anytime.

. . . USUALLY SEARCHED FOR BY TITLE - no need to try to determine how folks will find your book auction on eBay. Added keywords are beneficial, but in most cases the title of the book is the best thing to put in that all-important title.

. . . A PROFITABLE ITEM TO SELL IN AN eBAY STORE - hard-to-find and collectible books usually have fewer than twenty auctions on eBay. This means they will come up in a normal search. You will have access to the millions of visitors who shop on eBay every day. In this fixed price venue you can get top dollar for your book. Just list your book in your eBaystore, and wait for your buyer.

. . . DESIRED BY A VERY NICE GROUP OF PEOPLE - bookbuyers in general tend to be a market that is much easier to deal with than some others on eBay.

. . . A WAY TO GET THE WHOLE FAMILY INVOLVED IN AN eBAY BUSINESS. You could have an assembly line at your house - someone takes pictures, someone writes the title and description, you check and launch the auction, and everybody helps with the packing.

After you have mastered selling books on eBay, you can move on to other types of items, if you prefer. You will have learned all of the skills needed to have a successful eBay business with little risk.

You can learn the details of starting an eBay business by selling books, in Elaine Smith's ebook, "How to Sell Books Using Online Auctions." It is a step-by-step manual to successful bookselling on eBay. Click on the title for more information about it:

How to Sell Books Using Online Auctions
6:38 AM 
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Monday, August 07, 2006 

Current mood:  happy
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping

Stuff In Cheri's Closets

Okay, let's see what stuff is in the closets. My stuff includes...

  • Plush Animals. Teddy bears especially Gund bears.

  • SLU figures. Starting Line Up - Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, etc.

  • Character Toys. TV and movie characters from the past.

  • Shoes. Slightly used, and brand new shoes.

  • Handbags, and just bags. Tote bags, folding bags, bags on wheels, etc.

  • Books, books, and more books. They are everywhere.

So, feel free to check out my stuff at...

Cheri's Collectible Stuff


5:01 PM 
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