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| Northlander on its final trip North (photos by Fred Schulz) |
THE ONLINE SELLING EXPERIENCE VERSUS SETTING UP SHOP! THE BENEFITS, THE RISKS, THE WORK LOAD
WE STILL SELL AND BUY ON EBAY
A WHILE AGO, EBAY THREW US A NASTY CURVE, WHEN THEY CHANGED SOME OF THEIR SELLING RULES, SPECIFICALLY ABOUT PRE-ESTIMATED SHIPPING CHARGES THEY INSISTED WE INCLUDE IN OUR LISTING INFORMATION……WHICH FOR US WAS A REAL HARDSHIP, FROM THE WAY WE HAD BEEN DOING THIS PREVIOUSLY. WHAT THE RULE CHANGE MEANT IN A NUTSHELL, WAS THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO WRAP EVERY AUCTION ITEM BEFORE ACTUALLY LISTING IT ON THE SITE, SO THAT, BY WEIGHT AND MEASUREMENT, THE COST COULD BE INCLUDED IMMEDIATELY. THIS, TO OUR WAY OF THINKING, AND DOING BUSINESS DURING THE DECADE PREVIOUS, WAS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO DO, BASED ON THE FACT WE SELL A WIDE ARRAY OF ANTIQUES AND COLLECTABLES, OF MANY STRANGE SIZES AND SIGNIFICANT WEIGHTS. AND SHIPPING HAS ALWAYS, FOR US AT LEAST, DEPENDED ON CUSTOMER DEMANDS. WE WOULDN'T PRE-PACKAGE OUR AUCTION ITEMS, TO BE ABLE TO OFFER EXACT SHIPPING COSTS IN ADVANCE, SIMPLY BECAUSE, OUR AVERAGE, AFTER ABOUT TEN YEARS OF BEING SELLERS, REMAINED AT BETWEEN THIRTY AND FORTY PERCENT, FOR EVERY TEN ITEMS WE PUT UP FOR AUCTION. WE SOLD FOUR ITEMS OUT OF TEN ITEMS LISTED. ROUGHLY. SOMETIMES BETTER, SOMETIMES LESSER. SO WRAPPING UP ITEMS THAT POTENTIALLY WOULDN'T SELL, JUST TO GET A CAP ON THE DIMENSIONS, AND WEIGHT, NOT TO MENTION DESTINATION, WORKED OUT TO A GENERAL WASTE OF TIME AND EFFORT. WHATEVER MONEY WE MADE ON THE FOUR OUT OF TEN ITEMS THAT SOLD, WAS USED UP IN TIME SPENT WRAPPING UP AUCTION ITEMS THAT DIDN'T SELL. IF WE HAD BEEN SELLING SMALL ITEMS, THAT COULD BE SHIPPED IN STANDARD SMALL PACKET CONTAINERS, THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH EASIER. WE WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE WITH SIZES AND WEIGHTS, AND PRE-WRAPPING WAS COUNTER PRODUCTIVE IN ALMOST EVERY WAY. AS MANY OF OUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS PREFERRED, THEY WOULD ASK TO PICK UP THE ITEMS THEY WON, FROM OUR GRAVENHURST BUSINESS LOCATION. SO WE WOULD HAVE WRAPPED THE ITEMS FOR NOTHING.
WHAT WE HAD BEEN DOING FROM THE BEGINNING, WAS A SIMPLE, UNCOMPLICATED, WORKABLE PROCESS OF SELLING, GETTING THE INFORMATION ON THE MAILING ADDRESS FOR THE BUYER, WRAPPING THE ITEM (SOMETIMES WITH MATERIALS REQUESTED BY THE WINNING BIDDER), AND THEN USING THE CANADA POST SHIPPING GUIDE, TO CALCULATE THE PRECISE MAILING AMOUNT TO PASS ON TO THE BUYER. WE NEVER CHARGED A HANDLING FEE, AND IDENTIFIED THIS CLEARLY TO AUCTION BIDDERS. WHEN BUYERS COMPLAINED ABOUT SHIPPING FEES WE CHARGED, WE SENT THEM TO THE CANADA POST SITE WITH THE INFORMATION WE USED, ON THE PARCEL'S SIZE AND WEIGHT, AND THEY COULD DO THE CALCULATIONS THEMSELVES. THEY LIKED THAT, BECAUSE MANY SELLERS DO ADD SUBSTANTIAL HANDLING FEES…..WHICH IN MY OPINION, IS HOW THEY ARE ABLE TO OFFER THEIR WARES SO CHEAPLY AS AN OPENING BID…..AND TO SOME DEGREE, HOW THEY CAN OFFER STANDARD SHIPPING AMOUNTS BEFORE THEY EVEN KNOW WHERE THE PACKAGE WILL BE SENT. PADDING THE HANDLING FEE CAN OFFSET SHIPPING COST SHORTFALLS. WE ALWAYS COMPLIED WITH OUR CUSTOMERS AND POTENTIAL BIDDERS, WHEN THEY WOULD ASK FOR A SHIPPING ESTIMATE, TO SEE IF IT WAS AFFORDABLE TO MAIL TO THEIR PART OF THE COUNTRY OR ACROSS THE POND. FOR SOME REASON, IT WAS DECIDED BY EBAY MANAGEMENT, TO FORCE SELLERS TO PUT SHIPPING COSTS OUT THERE, EVEN BEFORE THE ITEM FOR SALE HAD AN OPENING BID. FOR US, NOT HAVING ROUTINE SIZES TO BASE SHIPPING ON, IT BECAME A NIGHTMARE TO MEET THEIR REQUIREMENTS. WE WEREN'T PREPARED TO CHANGE THE WAY WE HAD BEEN SELLING FOR MOST OF THE PREVIOUS DECADE, AT ONE HUNDRED PERCENT APPROVAL BY THE WAY, SO WE SIMPLY BUT REGRETFULLY DROPPED THIS AS A SALES VENUE. OF COURSE, WE STILL BUY FROM EBAY AUCTIONS, BUT WE ARE WATCHFUL OF THE SHIPPING CHARGES BEFORE WE PLACE A BID. YES, WE ALWAYS CHECK THE SELLER'S FEEDBACK, AND WE WILL DEFINITELY RESEARCH THEM, COMMENT BY COMMENT, IF THEY HAVE LESS THAN A 100 PERCENT RATING. WE HAVE ALWAYS MAINTAINED A ONE HUNDRED PERCENT FEEDBACK, AND WE WERE PROUD OF THAT ACCOMPLISHMENT, HAVING SHIPPED THOUSANDS OF ITEMS AROUND THE GLOBE FOR A DECADE.
WE OFTEN SOLD OUR MUSKOKA COLLECTABLES ONLINE, WITH A PICK-UP OPTION FROM OUR BOYS' GRAVENHURST VINTAGE MUSIC SHOP, ON MUSKOKA ROAD. THIS WAS A GREAT COST SAVING BONUS FOR BIG PIECES THAT WOULD HAVE COST HUNDREDS TO SHIP, AND IT WAS CONVENIENT FOR MANY OF OUR BUYERS WHO HAD NEARBY COTTAGES ON THE MUSKOKA LAKES. WE HAVE SOLD HUNDREDS OF ITEMS ON EBAY THAT REQUIRED NO SHIPPING WHATSOEVER, AND THAT WAS A REAL COST ADVANTAGE ESPECIALLY FOR SUZANNE, WHO WAS THE HANDLER AND SHIPPER. I GAVE HER LOTS OF HEADACHES, WITH THE ITEMS I LISTED, LIKE CREAM SEPARATORS, AND THE MOST UNUSUAL UMBRELLA STAND YOU'VE EVER SEEN. IT WAS MADE OUT OF DOZENS OF HORSESHOES, WELDED TOGETHER, AND THERE WAS NO BOX BIG ENOUGH TO HANDLE IT, (AT THE TIME), FORCING SUZANNE TO MAKE HER OWN. I WAS IN THE DOG HOUSE FOR A WEEK AFTER THAT ONE.
EBAY IS A GOOD WAY TO SELL, BUT YOU'VE GOT TO CONFORM
The reason we opted to sell via ebay, in the first place, was that our inventory at the time, represented old books and ephemera which was hard to sell locally, because of content, and easy to ship internationally. Suzanne loved these assignments which often meant stuffing envelopes, and at the very most, a five minute wrapping job on books and the occasional vintage photograph or painting. On one occasion, in the beginning of our online auction experiment, I sold twenty vintage cruise ship menus, from the 1930's, all individually, and all ending their auction time, mere minutes after the other. Suzanne thought I had run them as a grouping, or small collection. This meant hours and hours of work, dealing with all the buyers who, of course, wanted shipping costs immediately, so they could settle the account online. I did get better over the years, and spaced out our auction listings by a few hours each, but occasionally, such as with a large estate we were asked to disperse, we went through about two months of absolute craziness with ephemera listings. It's true that we made a lot of money in a short time, but the work load shaved years off our lives. It was nuts around here, and the house was a complete disaster for two months even after we were finished. There's a lot of collateral damage when you're in full scale online selling, and most of it comes down to supplies needed for shipping. We had acres of cardboard in storage in every room in the house. Suzanne could fashion a box out of single sheets of cardboard, and this is exactly what she had to do for at least half the materials we sold. Many times during this period, we had multiple buyers, who would purchase a range of items with greatly differing sizes. This would have been fine, if the buyer hadn't insisted on us shipping them all in the same box, to save on the cost of shipping separately. I'm not sure they saved any money, but they made us go through the process anyway.
A lot of the ephemera involved materials that required an international audience, such as turn of the century letters sent from a missionary family in China; First World War, and Second World War letters home, and military sanctioned Christmas greetings, that needed the much wider exposure, of an online auction to get the attention of an audience specifically in paper heritage. In a store setting, these materials would have sat in showcases for years on end. This has always been the advantage to us, because we are pretty good at coming up with ephemera, suited to an international audience of collectors. Often times, in the cycle of our own business, we come upon items that are odd sizes, heavy, awkward, and hard to package easily. We just couldn't justify wrapping them before they could be sold at auction, due to time restraints and the potential waste of packing materials which could have been ruined, after being cut and taped to suit one of these odd shaped pieces…….and then have it not sell, forcing us to scavenge the packaging for other parcel construction. We were spending far too much time on packing and unpacking, and while this might have been fine for sellers, offering standard size materials, needing typically small packets, our ability to conform and what was available out on the antique hustings, didn't mesh with ongoing selling through online auctions. Many sellers had similar complaints, back then, and quite a few quit at the same time as the new rules prevailed.
We have considered selling on ebay again, but only on a "pick-up" basis……with no shipping or handling involved. This would work handsomely with Muskoka related collectables, as is our specialty. I'd break Suzanne's heart honestly, if I started listing like a madman, as I once was famous……auctioning off huge and heavy paintings, that required packing skills of an art conservator. She's a pretty good sport about this stuff, but that ten year haul, while teaching during the day, was too much to continue…..especially with more obstacles being placed in the way. If Suzanne had been retired and this was the route we had both selected, instead of opening a small shop, with our boys, then we would have fashioned a more industrial approach to item handling and shipping, than we had been able to get away with, in our fledgling years.
As for online buying, we do it all the time, and our success rate, getting exactly what we paid for from sellers, is also steady at one hundred percent. It pays to buy according to the seller's track record and feedback score.
Thanks for joining me today. I'll take a closer look at online selling in coming blogs, just in case you feel in the mood to go international with your collectables. We'll let you in on a few trade secrets on how to buy and sell with confidence……and make good buys instead of those "oops, I bought a fake" moments. Please visit again.
Check out my Muskoka As Walden Blog site here: http://muskokaaswaldenpond.blogspot.ca/
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