Great tips for those running a creative business.

The Tools We Use on Whip Up

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

Thomas Jefferson

I think it’s easy for people to look at others who are doing well selling online and say that they are “lucky”. When you look at others like, you miss all the time, effort, and plain old WORK involved before they ever got “lucky”.

Once in awhile, someone may hit the jackpot on some item and perhaps be “lucky” but without research, learning how to sell, and setting up their business that “luck” wouldn’t have been there.

My tip for the day?

Don’t look at the business of other sellers and say they’re lucky. This could keep you from bettering yourself and your own business because you’ll either wait around to be “lucky” or you’ll think it was a fluke and you could never be “lucky”.

Selling online or building a business anywhere takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of research. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of trial and error. It takes a lot of mistakes and changing things.

Being successful isn’t luck~it is work.

Here’s the list of what was listed in April and shipped out the same month.

Cycling Jerseys x2

Green Bay Packers Plush Bear

Manhattan Toys Cowboy Puppet

Daytrip Top

SAS Women’s Sandals

Plush Nemo

Hanna Andersson Women’s Dress

Women’s Banana Republic Top

Cherokee Girl’s Rain Boots

Cailliou DVD

Dansko Shoes

Boys Jeans

We’re Back DVD

Plush Pinkalicious Doll

Where’s Waldo Flat Twin Sheet

New Oral-B Electric Toothbrush

Born Shoes

In my Etsy shop, I sell mostly vintage items, my photography, and supplies for other crafts–once in awhile my knitting!

What about you?

Don’t get me wrong, all of the above are important, but here’s my experience:

For a year straight, I kept between 1,000 and 1,200 listings at a time in my store, and had consistent sales, averaging $2,400 a month all of 2011-mid 2012.

I decided to move cross country and liquidated inventory. I went from 1200 down to 400 items in about 7 weeks.

Immediately at 400 items, my sales dropped, I hadn’t listed very much during that time period as I was shipping and packing for the move.

In the last 9 months, I’ve been listing and selling as much as I can. Christmas season generally takes care of itself no matter how much you have listed, it’s the other months that I really have to be strategic about.

My sales have been about 50% of what they were last year, and my inventory is about 50% of what it was last year.

I notice that every time I get to the next 100 items in my store, my sales increase. There’s more drawing the customers in, there’s more to choose from, and more items available for people to buy. The more I have listed, the more chances that I have that an eBay customer will pick MY item.

I’ve been listing like crazy the last two weeks. Last week, I finally got it to about 750 listings (I had been hovering at 700) this week, I’m pushing for 800 and am almost there.

Low and behold, I’m almost to my next 100 items in inventory, and my sales are UP.

There are millions of customers out there, and they’re buying.  If you want to make money selling online, it’s up to you to find what they’re buying and get it listed so they can buy it from you.

The majority of the time when a seller is saying their sales are slow, it’s because they don’t have enough items listed and/or they don’t have the right type of items listed.

My aim for the end of this summer is to have 1000 items listed so I’m stocked up and ready for this Christmas season.

Offer free shipping or to charge for shipping?

Sellers go back and forth on this.

Some sellers offer free shipping on light items only.  Some offer it on everything and build it into the price of the item.  Some accept best offers, so they feel like charging the customer for shipping is the way to go.  Others charge shipping on everything.

Sellers discuss back and forth, what’s the most effective way to handle shipping charges?  How do shipping charges affect your DSR’s, your search ranking, your Top Rated Seller status, your monthly sales and other countless angles of this topic.

I’ve tried charging shipping on everything.  I’ve tried free shipping on everything.  I’ve tried building shipping into the price of the item, and none of those really work for me.  When I had free shipping on everything in my store, my sales actually went down……..hmmmmm………it’s taken me awhile to come up with this idea, but here’s what I’m doing lately and it seems to be working:

I charge partial shipping for my items.

What I decided is that by charging partial shipping for items, it makes my items look more competitive.

For instance, on a plush toy, some sellers might have $6.99 listed for shipping, and while it might really cost $6.99 to ship it, when I list the exact same item, I list it as $3.99 shipping.  That way, the sale price of my item covers part of the shipping and the shipping charges cover part of the shipping charges, and when the customer looks at it, they feel like they’re getting a deal on shipping.

Keep in mind that eBay charges you final value fees based on the selling price of the item and the shipping costs, so when I price items, I’m looking at the total amount of the item plus shipping.

I noticed that I could get about the same price for an item whether I charged $3.99 shipping for it, or whether I had it listed as free shipping, so I decided that I might as well put a partial shipping price and get a little bit extra to help with the shipping, and it makes it look like a deal to the customer.

On lighter clothing items, I usually put $1.99 shipping, most of my plush I put $2.99 for the shipping.  Even if it doesn’t cover all of the shipping, that little bit extra helps with shipping costs.

Please let me know what shipping strategies work best for you.

I’m still in my rebuilding phase and am having a difficult time keeping my inventory over 700 items.  I know that’s a good problem to have, but I feel like I’ve been working toward 800 items for a long time now.  I started selling for a new consignor, so that should help increase my numbers some.

I sold two items on Amazon this week.  My Amazon sales tend to go in spurts, but like I always say: “A sale is a sale.”  It doesn’t matter to me what venue it sells on, as long as it’s a sale.

I’ve been contemplating making some things to sell on Etsy again.  I love sewing, and it can be therapeutic for me.  I used to sell homemade wash cloths and baby quilts on Etsy.  I might give it a try again this summer.

I’ve been doing pretty good with listing items as I buy them and getting them listed before I buy more.  Right now, I have just one large plastic bag of my own items waiting to be listed.

I hope your week has been great!

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I don’t put anything on my list that I haven’t had experience with selling myself.

Plush:

Carebears (for details click here)
Wiggles Dolls, cars, guitars, featherswords, plush characters
Build a bear outfits
Unique Build a Bear animals (not bears and puppies, I buy Penguins, Frogs, Hello Kitty etc.)
Starbucks Bearista bears and other Starbucks Plush
Talking Little Bear
Curious George
Alf
Veggie Tales
Nemo characters (Dory is an especially good seller)
Wells fargo ponies
Puppets
Backyardigans (especially Pablo)
Oswald
GIANT Fievel dolls (American Tail)
Seattle Mariner moose items
Green Bay Packer plush
Dallas Cowboys plush
Jo Jo the clown
Noddy
2001 & 2002 Ralph Lauren bears
Lamb Chop
My Buddy Dolls (vintage)
American Girl Dolls & Accessories (Including Bitty Baby)
Hello Kitty
Caillou
Rosie (Caillou’s sister)
Madeline
Plush Unicorns
Angelina Ballerina
7 Dwarfs (from Snow White)
Big Comfy Couch Clown Dolls
Thomas the Tank Engine
Original Green GlowWorm
Plush PEEPS (Bunny or Chick)
Clucking Cadburry Bunnies (small or large size)
Bozo the Clown
Steve dolls (from Blues Clues)
Steve Urkel dolls
Melissa & Doug giant animals
Giant ponies, unicorns
Lamb Chop or Shari Lewis characters (Including puppets)
Plush Pebbles & Bam Bam
Jelly Cat plush toys
Plush Alvin & The Chipmunks
Plush talking ET
Plush Bobby Jack Monkey
Pixos
The Snowman plush toys
Playmobil
Language Littles (LL) dolls
Manhattan Toy Company
Junie B. Jones Dolls
Frosty the Snowman
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Shoes:

Born
Merrell
Hanna Andersson
Ugg
Teva
Keen
Saltwater Sandals
Clarks
Dansko
White House Black Market
Tap Shoes
earth
Bass
Frye Boots
MBT
TOMS
UMI
SAS Comfort Shoes
Converse made in the USA
Mephisto
Salvatore Ferragamo

Clothes:

Hanna Andersson
White House Black Market
CAbi (Carol Anderson)
Diesel
7 For All Mankind
True Religion
Joe’s Jeans
BKE Denim
Paige Premium Denim
Not Your Daughter’s Jeans NYDJ
J. Crew
100% Cashmere Sweaters
Long, cute jean skirts
Athleta
Puma
Michael Stars
Cache
Live A Little
Lululemon
Long Corduroy Skirts (especially Eddie Bauer and Ralph Lauren)
Sweet Pea
The North Face
Under Armour
Pendleton
Green Bay Packers Jerseys (I sold several Brett Favre Jerseys at Christmas)
Pink Green Bay Packers Jerseys
Quacker Factory
Boden
Mini Boden
Peruvian Connection
Pumpkin Patch
Tribal
Eileen Fisher
Blue’s Clues Steve shirts for kids
Castelli
Joseph A.
One World
Nordic style sweaters
Ibex
Icelandic Design
Garnet Hill
Cycling Tops
A Pea in the Pod (Maternity)
Anthropologie
Harley Davidson
Juicy Couture
Chicos

Mugs:

Starbucks
Mary Kay
Mary Englebreit
Fire King
7 UP, Dr. Pepper, etc.
Sports Teams (Specifically, Mariners, Yankees, Cowboys, Packers)
Old Mugs with advertising
Debbie Mumm

Textbooks:

Saxon
A Beka Books
Bob Jones Publishing
ACE PACE’s
Piano method, theory books (unused)

Hair Rollers:

Remington Tight Curls tops my list, but almost any kind of  hot rollers sell well.  Even if they don’t have the clips, they can still be good sellers.

Misc:

Creative Memories Items
Vintage Caboodles Organizers
Pottery Barn Kids items (throw pillows, etc.)
Nancy Drew Mysteries (the yellow, glossy “flashlight series.”  I’m trying to collect the whole set.)
Costumes
Character Backpacks
Jansport Backpacks
Puzz 3-D Puzzles
Green Bay Packers Item
TalkGirl and TalkBoy
Miche Bag shells and accessories
Western Chief Raincoats/rain boots
Unused Floppy Disks
Unused Cassette Tapes

What’s on your list?

Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.
Mark Cuban