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Archive - July 2008 going postalPosted Jul-31-08 23:36:21 PDT ugh-grrr-ugh I just got an email from a buyer that they haven't received their item. I'm confident they're telling the truth. The person has outstanding feedback & was completely polite in their email. I mailed it July 8th- media mail from Massachusetts to Florida. I could have hand delivered it in less time than this. So I tried to check the tracking and all I am getting is " Status: Electronic Shipping Info Received" which if I understand means they have a record of me paying for the postage online and nothing more. WTF?!?!?! I am absolutely positive it was mailed- I remember the item because I needed to reinforce the package so it wouldn't get banged around. On the post office's page there was an option of requesting all tracking info be sent via email- is it possible that there is more info that just isn't available on their tracking page? That doesn't make sense, but neither does this package just falling in a black hole. is today over yet?Posted Jul-30-08 21:05:45 PDT I've had such a miserable, awful day. My car's been acting "off" for a couple of days. It's a nearly 20 year old van, I don't worry much about noises & clanks- it has a lot of those. I had to meet my ex to pick up my eldest daughter, so noises or not off we went. I took my two little ones with me (8 months & 6yos) but since it was just a quick trip I didn't bother to grab the diaper bag or anything else. I made it about 3/4ths of the way when it stalled & refused to start back up. I called my ex to let him know where I was & called my roadside assistance company. This was at about 6:30- when the ex showed up, I told him not to worry & that he could just leave- I mean the tow truck is going to be here any second & we'll be all set....right? I'll spare you the play by play but it was 10f-ing-thirty by the time the tow showed up. The driver ended up being a friend of my son's and he only got the call 20 minutes before- the freaking roadside company lost my request & tried to blame it on the driver. Four hours with three children on the side of the road is not even close to a good day....but it's over now & tomorrow's got to be better...right? Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek My first charity auctionPosted Jul-29-08 08:31:35 PDT I decided to make a donation from my first hypnosis session offered on ebay. In the spam box below it's the one that the picture isn't showing up in (no idea why that is- grr). I'm donating 50% to Heifer International (www.heifer.org) . It's a great charity that I first learned about when my church choose them for our yearly donation. To combat world hunger, they give livestock to families & communities. Reminds me of the truth in the proverb about teaching a man to fish...
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek New Listing Spam...Posted Jul-28-08 15:01:45 PDT Just a quick serving of spam & then off to the supermarket for me....
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek new listing :)Posted Jul-28-08 13:47:17 PDT Does ISDN*tek take awhile for new listings to show up? I finally finished & posted my hypnosis listing- I wanted to spam it & solicit opinions but it's not showing up. It's been a few hours since I posted it.... drawing a blank for a title....Posted Jul-26-08 11:08:35 PDT I decided yesterday that I am going to start offering my hypnosis services via phone on ebay. (Go back an entry if you want to hear me rambling on about that.) Today I am trying to fine tune the ad and hopefully get it listed but I am drawing a complete blank for the title. The first I plan to post will be for PLR- past life regression. I do a fair number of those in my practice, and they are one of my favorite types of sessions. I don't think the term PLR is common enough that I can abreviate it in my title- which means "past life regression" will be sucking up quite a few letters and I think it also needs to say "Live Phone Hypnosis session" and then I am debating if I should put "cetified clinical hypnotherapist" too- some of the items the offered when you search for hypnosis seem less than ethical to me, so I am thinking that stating my creditials right in the title may help my ad stand apart from those... should I use a sub-title & get every thing in or cut something out? thinking out loudPosted Jul-25-08 09:52:24 PDT Outside of ebay I am a clinical hypnotherapist. I have an office in my home, and have been offering my services for oh about 5 or 6 years now. It was my intention to offer pre-recorded self-hypnosis CDs in my ebay store since I opened it, but there were a couple of snaffus holding me up. One was the expense of making the recordings. They need to be professionally done, each CD master would take at least an hour to record & studio time isn't cheap. The other issue I was debating was one of ethics. Pre-recorded, generic hypnosis scripts will work great for some people, decent for some & perhaps not at all for others. I could offer a money back garentee, I do stand behind my services- but then I'd have used CDs coming back, perhaps damaged and I would have to put a lot of blind-trust in my customers. If you buy a stop smoking CD in Texas, how am I going to know you didn't quit from Massachusetts? I had a light-bulb moment today. Kicking myself that I didn't think of it sooner- but happy it came to me at all. I can offer my services by phone. I actually do phone follow-up mini-sessions with some of my rt clients now. It solves the expense of recordings, and it addresses the concerns I had with generic CDs. In a live session I am able to adjust my 'script' to my client, if they take longer going under I can make my script longer, I can use their name to really make the new suggestion 'stick' etc.I can do all of those things with a phone session too. Now it's just a matter of calculating a reasonable fee, and determining what I should include with that fee. In my in-person sessions my fee varies slightly depending on the area the client is working on , I offer a discount for those working on multiple areas and I include a free follow-up with certain sessions. I have a good outline of how my ad should read, can't really fine tune it until I work out these other details. I have a salePosted Jul-22-08 10:00:53 PDT Pea runs around doing the happy dance- after a completely, utterly, totally dead week I have a customer! Better than that, I have a repeat customer! Hooray. My stuff is cool, I am cool & dawg gone it, people like me. Alright all done being dorky now. Check out my pendulum bracelets- everyone who has bought 1 comes back to buy more for gifts =)
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek camera dilemaPosted Jul-21-08 10:16:48 PDT blah- deciding what one wants to do with one's life or even just with this moment can be so overwhelming. I broke my camera's screen a few days ago. It will still take pictures, but I can't see the pictures until I upload them. Taking decent pictures with a working camera is challenging enough for me, trying with out the screen has proved to be a huge PITA. I've gotten an estimate of $80 to have it repaired, which isn't so very bad- although I could certainly think of things I'd rather spend $80 on. Part of the dilema is I don't know yet how long it will take to repair it- so for an unknown period of time I won't be able to list any new items. And that leads to another point to ponder- I haven't had the time for listings anyway. I opened my ebay store just over a month ago, figured it would take me about a month to get it looking right & enough listings to justify having a store- and I am no where near that goal. I have boxes of stuff to list, some pictures taken but haven't made it through more than 10% of the stuff in the past month. I have a million good/great ideas but I just can't seem to find the time to follow through with any of them. I have an apprenticeship coming up soon (I'm a student midwife)- I'll be in Virginia for 2 weeks with that. I am moving out of state this September/October and getting the house I live in now ready to rent out by then. I'm thankful that this is not my only income & I can afford to debate these things, but my other income has been pretty slow too. I could put more time into that for the moment, come back to ebay when I am settled in the fall or I could cut the time I do give to that & put that into ebay too. Blah....sorry for the whining...I'm going to clean my room & perhaps find some motivation/inspiration under my bed.... My poor Peanut...Posted Jul-21-08 08:44:05 PDT My poor little guy got sick at the drive-in last night. We've all had some summer bug for a week or two now. He just started to get sniffly yesterday, but it didn't seem too bad & we went to the drive-in anyway. He was fine through Wall-E, but started getting sick about a half hour into the Hulk. We ended up leaving then. Oh well, we'll wait for it to be released on DVD. Ed Norton in Green....Posted Jul-20-08 14:46:49 PDT Yummm.... We're heading to the drive-in tonight =) Double feature, Wall-E and The Hulk. I <3 the drive-in, and I <3 Ed Norton! The only thing that could make today cooler would be coming back & finding anything of mine has a bid on it.... hope everyone is having an equally awesome night & that hordes of crazed shoppers with high credit limits stampede your stores & auctions..... Free Shipping Spam & Penny Ante ItemPosted Jul-20-08 07:53:01 PDT I missed signing up for Rooster's Penny Ante Game this week- but figured I could just do a penny auction anyway-
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek insomnia....Posted Jul-19-08 01:17:00 PDT I ended up taking way too long of a nap today. I've had a cold for a week and my littlest one is cutting 4 new teeth; so I did need the sleep but napping from 3:30 to 7:30 isn't a great plan if you want to sleep at night too. It's 4:15a here and I'm not at all tired. I've cleaned my house, taken a bath & enjoyed the quiet my house never seems to have and now I'm out of ideas and bored out of my mind.... Penny Ante and Beatles Spam....Posted Jul-17-08 19:47:33 PDT I figured I should take advantage of the special on fixed priced listings...check 'em out please....
\Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek I can't believe I just did this...Posted Jul-17-08 15:22:10 PDT I broke my camera's screen. I bought the camera a year ago as a birthday present to myself. I've had horrible luck with digital camera's. One was stolen, one was dropped in a tank at the aquarium so I decided to splurge on this one and never-ever let anyone else (children) touch it. Now I went & dropped it out of carelessness. I just looked up having it repaired, and they estimated it will cost $80 that's about a third of what I paid for the camera. I don't have it in my budget at the moment but I can't afford to be without a camera either...ugh...I suppose it could certainly be worse, so I'll stop whining oops.....Posted Jul-17-08 10:56:18 PDT Updated Jul-17-08 11:05:12 PDT I started to write an entry, sneezed & somehow saved it unfinished...mmm...this cold is making me stupid...but it's passing, thank Bob. I just got back from my trip up north (Maine). Decided one's grandmother doesn't turn 80 every day and postponing over a little cold was silly. We had a great time despite my sniffling. And check this out...I got to go shopping in a super cool little charity-boutique-thrift shop after hours. My mom is a volunteer at this shop that benefits the local hospital, since I wasn't able to get there while they were open she arranged for me to shop after hours. It was awesome- whole place to myself, I got to poke through every thing in the place but sadly I was working with a pretty limited budget and as always I found way more things I just can't live without than things to list in my ebay store, but there are a couple nifty items I'll be posting soon. In the meantime I need to move this stuff that's been lingering in my store...don't be afraid of the make me an offer option, I'm pretty hard to insult :p
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek germs...Posted Jul-09-08 06:01:29 PDT I seem to have some summer bug. We were suppose to leave today to go to my grandmother's in Maine, but I'm just too miserable to even consider driving 3 hours. Besides I wouldn't want to risk giving my grandmother whatever I have. It started yesterday- I woke up feeling a little off and as the day went on it just got worse. I barely slept last night, and I didn't get a damn thing done yesterday. Been up for just about 2 hours now- I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday (so far/knock on wood) but I still feel pretty icky.I think I am just going to take it easy today & reschedule the trip for this weekend.
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek book spamPosted Jul-07-08 22:00:21 PDT
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek independent spamPosted Jul-04-08 11:55:41 PDT
Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek Being self-employed...Posted Jul-02-08 09:00:41 PDT I came across a blog this morning that was "warning" others about opening an ebay store. The guy's opinion basically was that it's impossible to earn a living on ebay because of all of the outrageous fees ebay & paypal imposes. I left a couple of rambling notes on this person's blog- but I really want to say more. I've read similar from other ebayers, and I just want to point out some things I think they're missing. First & foremost, I think way too many people have this idea that being self-employed is easy. That it's not real work or that one will 'get rich quickly'. I have no idea why anyone would think these things. I've been self-employed in one form or another since I was 13 and started babysitting and mowing lawns for my neighbors. Even at 13 I understood the basic premise that if you want to earn money without a 'boss' you're going to have to do some work & be creative about finding it. I loved babysitting but it was an infrequent job- I hated mowing lawns, it was harder work, but it was consistant- lo & behold grass always grows back. In the 20 years since I've both worked for others and been self-employed, and the same basic rules apply now as they did then. There are benefits to working for someone else & benefits to working for yourself, which is "better" is totally subjective and based on which benefits you value more. And there are negatives to working for someone and different negatives to working for yourself- again it's all about your opinion; but make no mistakes there is going to be a downside to everything. Being self-employed dictates that you must also be self-disciplined. I'd like to head to the beach today, it's gorgeous outside and hot & sticky in my house. But I didn't finish the projects I have going last night as planned, so no beach today (well maybe if I get a move on soon) I'll be at my sewing machine & filing paper work today. Being self-employed dictates that you be attentive to your budget. I've put in about 15 hours this week, but there is no paycheck for me to pick up on Friday- if I want those 15 hours to net me anything, I'm not done yet this week. And if this week does net a profit, I need to remember next week may not and budget accordingly. Ebay, for all it's flaws, is still an awesome tool for those who see the benefits & negatives of being self-employed as better than those of working for someone else. There is a huge potential for customers, the system is well developed & runs smoothly (compared to my brick & mortar store's trash removal for example) and if you look for it- plenty of directions, pointers & help available. It's baffling to me that some people really think that the fees here are high compared to what you get in return. The brick & mortar store I owned was a pet store. I worked in my store about 60 hours a week, and then I worked about 20 more for someone else to pay the bills at the pet store for the first year. My rent was 500, substantially higher than the 16 for an ebay basic store- for 500 my landlords didn't advertise my business, didn't set up my merchant account to process credit cards, didn't give me handy forms to fill & post for my ads etc- hell that didn't even include my utilities. I know I am preaching to the choir for those who have had an ebay store for any substantial period of time. But I am thinking more of the newbies who find there way to the blogs. It bugged me that this person's blog might be the first someone comes across. I myself just opened my store a couple weeks ago, after months of self-debating if it was a good idea. A blog entry like the one I read might have put me off completely- and what a mistake that would have been. You get out of it what you put in to it, and you'll probably have to put in quite a bit before you start seeing a return; but if you feel the benefits of being self-employed are best for you then ebay is definitely a worthwhile tool to help you succeed. |
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