Selling on the Internet - Lesson One

Selling on the Internet 

Lesson Number One - Find a Schedule that Works

It took me some time to figure out a schedule that worked for me.  Being used to working Mondays through Fridays at a full time job I did love my weekends off.  Sadly, Saturday and Sunday can be some of your the best selling days on the Interent. So after a number of years of trying to figure out the schedule that best worked for me, I came to the following schedule which I try to follow religiously - unless I am on a trip or something unexpected comes up.  

Monday  - Drop new listings onto Ruby Lane.  Process orders, switch funds from Paypal to my bank account, prepare the mail for a Tuesday drop.  Answer e-mails.  Crop photos for new listings.

Tuesday - Do the mail.  Go to one of my favorite sources for jewelry and see if they have anything new.  Come home.  Eat.  List.  Crop photos in the pm. 

Wednesday -Eat.  List.  Crop photos in the pm. 

Thursday - Process any orders that have come on.  Eat.  List.  Crop photos in the pm. 

Friday - Drop new listings onto Ruby Lane.  Do the mail.  Grocery shopping.  Eat.  List.  Crop photos in the pm.   

Saturday -If I'm feeling energetic, then go to an estate sale.  If not, copy the Ruby Lane listings to ETSY, drop a few items on EBAY, and add items to Robins Troll Market, my new website.  Crop photos in the pm.

Sunday -  Same as above.  

Again, things happen to disrupt the schedule - like telephone calls, meetings with potential clients, a heads up on getting into an estate sale early.  Changing out inventory at the one mall I am in.  Running an emergency errand.  Disruptions will always occur and you just have to roll with them.  The other thing you have to contend with is your income.  You will not be paid every 2 weeks with taxes deducted and your SDI paid.  You will get paid when your Paypal account gets paid and then you have to have the courage to separate your money into different categories and keep it there.  

Check Book 

Day to Day Expenses - Bill Paying - Internet Payments

Savings

For Emergency and Taxes

Paypal

You always have to keep some money in your account just in case you get a chargeback or a return.  Yes, you have to contend with these as well.  

Emergency Cash

Yep, the proverbial "piggy bank" in the apartment just in case you get that call about an estate sale or you see something you absolutely need to buy because you know you will be able to sell it for more.  

So, there's the first lesson you have to think about.  When I left my job back in 1998, I had exactly $16,000 in my account in cash.  I had $15,000 coming to me in my pension from one of the law firms I worked at - another $2,500 from my last law firm.  With that money I thought I would be fine while I tried being in business for myself.  It was but only because times were different.  Since the Internet was fairly new it was still a novelty and everyone was trying it out.  Dealers used to joke it was a "license to print money" and for a time, it was.  Not anymore.  

At the beginning I worked solely on EBAY.  It was the website that was making the biggest name for itself and it was the site where the action was.  Still is to a certain point but when EBAY moved out of vintage items to BUY IT NOW in terms of electronics, DVDs, CDs and cars, well, we poor dealers in antiques and vintage knew what was going to happen - our sales would suffer.  And they did.  But by that time, the new websites had come along - ETSY and RUBY LANE.

And here I will leave till my next posting.