As sales seemed to have slowed down so have the payments for items won.  It seems to be a trend during Spring and Summer that winners are slow to respond with payment.  I can appreciate their need to keep finances going but I also need to pay my bills so lets everyone keep up the economy: bid, buy, pay.

If selling wasn't slow enough, I just received word of a new wholesale price increase beginning July 1 for some of my products that I normally carry for both auction and store plus for my online full-time store www.whitebearstudios.com.  These are increases in addition to several others over the last year and remind me that price stablity is now a thing of the past.  It is like re-living the 1970's all over again with constant price increase for fuel and consequently for everything else we have to buy.  Those days of high demand for collectibles and buy anything because you can sell it for a higher price are gone.

It was fun while it lasted but now it is a challenge to remain in a profitable business.  Of course, we can look forward on May 14 to higher postal shipping costs to add to the overhead and the new increases that credit card companies are charging for processing cards in our merchant account (high processing fees).  UPS and FedEx among others have constantly charged more for fuel sur-charges over the past months so there is nothing to do but pass on the increases as much as you can or fold your tent and find some other way to pay your way.  I am opting to re-invent my business model and hang in there because it is the journey not the destination that yields the most satisfaction.  Can I get an "Amen"?

Bill

 

 

 

Decided to use the Markdown Manager today for a Mother's Day Sale that is weeklong.  The Cinco de Mayo sale was a bit too short, so I opted to go long on this one.  The sale includes nostalgic wall clocks and some decorative ceramic piggy banks, so here's hoping.

 

The Markdown Manager (http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/items_on_sale.html) makes it very simple to set up either a fixed percentage off or you can chose other options as long as you have fixed price items on sale.  If you haven't used it yet check it out.

Bill

Time to check the final sales figures for the month of April and check off the expenses and wouldn't you know the last sale I had for April, I ran the card and the Address Verfication Service returned "address does not match the billing address of the card".

I am amazed that how many people do not understand that the "bill to address" may not be the same as the "ship to address".  When I notify them that the billing address did not match the usual response is "it has never happened before."  Our policy is if the billing address does not match the one held by their bank or credit card company we will not complete the transaction.

Why?  The reason we do not complete the transaction without address verification is that of trying to reduce identity theft and fraud.  Since our transactions are done without the physical card in hand we need address verification and the cvv number (three digits usually found on the back of the credit card-exception is that of American Express-four digits on the front of the card); if you use PayPal or another processor this is done automatically.  If you have an additional merchant account (we have one of our own (Quickbooks) in addition to PayPal) this are factors you must be aware of to help you avoid charge backs and/or fraud.

Bill