How does everyone process the ebay business?

[pyang2]

Hi, my account got limited last month so I have been looking for new strategies and reviewing my old daily process since I have nothing to do at all.

- My account was given by my friend in August with a selling limit of about 1700 items. We called ebay in August to get it increased to 3200 items. Then in September I called in to get it increased to 6000 items with $60k. When I called in October I was rejected because there were too many disputes in a month. In November the account was suddenly limited because it was linked to my old bad accounts, which I created in June and were shut down before I could do anything.
- Before my account was limited last month, I didn't know too much about eBay Stealth. I only used VPN to log in and didn't care too much about other things.

- One strange thing was when I called ebay for the first time asking why my account was limited the rep told me because the account was linked to a bad account by "same machine ID". According to eBay Stealth, ebay doesn't track Mac address. So I really don't know what the rep meant by "machine ID". The second time they told me it was linked because of shared financial information. I think paypal linked my bad accounts because I used the same SSN to verify them.

- The business was generating 2K a day with averagely 200 orders before it was shut down. We are a real company and we want to build ebay as our long-term business.

Above was about my previous ebay story. But I'd like to learn/discuss more about how to process the daily sales safely.

- I received about 100 messages every day, either from ebay or members. And I had to respond to a lot of them. The way I processed them was through ebay directly. So I was logged on ebay with Chrome more than 8 hours a day. I know I should avoid logging into ebay as much as possible. But when my business involves a lot of customer services and refund/returns, I do all these steps on ebay page directly. Also the resolution center, there is just no way I can avoid logging into ebay.

Question: do you guys use outlook to respond the messages? I know some people use outlook, but for me it's too hard because I can't see the previous messages and I don't know what I told the customers before. For example, I told the customer that I would send him a replacement and then he sends me an email asking me what's the tracking number. I will be confused if I didn't sort out all the messages from him and get to know what he is talking about.

- Product listing: I used ink-frog to do all the listings. Sometimes I have to modify the listings directly on ebay because ink frog doesn't let you match the pictures to each variation.

Question: do you guys think Auctiva better than inkfrog? It was recommended on eBay Stealth. And can I use the lister to list multiple accounts without changing the IP and switching users?

- We download the paypal CSV file(complete payment) everyday to match each paid transaction with each buyer. This is because we only send out products that are fully paid. But this mechanism has a huge flaw because there was 2 days that we couldn't successfully download the CSV file from paypal and we couldn't process any orders during those days. I really don't think it a right way to do because it's so time consuming and risky and I don't think it makes sense for a big seller(hundreds of orders every day) to do as a daily process if you want everything go out within a business day. Does anyone have a better solution to process hundreds of orders every day?

- I used Shipworks to process the labels and all that. But again, before we print the shipping label we have to make sure it was paid from the Paypal CSV file.

- We always send by USPS first class mail but there were so MANY problems. Missing packages, tracking numbers stop updating its status, returned to sender without reasons... all kinds of headaches.

I have tons of inventories on hand, sitting in my warehouse now... I'm planning to purchase accounts from members here but I don't know how it will go, especially when it comes to SSN verification... Can anyone suggest me with other platforms to dump my inventories? Maybe I should try wholesale? Right now I'm trying to build a website of my own with bigcommerce. I'll work every possible way to revive my business.

I don't know a lot about ebay, but if there are anything I can help with I'm willing to share my ebay experience, which is only half an year...

[Omgoozle]

Originally Posted by pyang2

- My account was given by my friend in August with a selling limit of about 1700 items. We called ebay in August to get it increased to 3200 items. Then in September I called in to get it increased to 6000 items with $60k.

These limits are insane.

When I called in October I was rejected because there were too many disputes in a month.

Sounds like you had bad selling practices.

In November the account was suddenly limited because it was linked to my old bad accounts, which I created in June and were shut down before I could do anything.

Doh!

- Before my account was limited last month, I didn't know too much about eBay Stealth. I only used VPN to log in and didn't care too much about other things.

Doh! Doh!

- One strange thing was when I called ebay for the first time asking why my account was limited the rep told me because the account was linked to a bad account by "same machine ID". According to ebay stealth, ebay doesn't track Mac address. So I really don't know what the rep meant by "machine ID". The second time they told me it was linked because of shared financial information. I think paypal linked my bad accounts because I used the same SSN to verify them.

Cookies. Flash cookies. Obviously linked through SSN. This sounds like a disaster and I have no idea how you were pushing $60k/month. Also - I thought your 2nd account was your friends? But you put in your SSN?

- I received about 100 messages every day, either from ebay or members. And I had to respond to a lot of them. The way I processed them was through ebay directly. So I was logged on ebay with Chrome more than 8 hours a day. I know I should avoid logging into ebay as much as possible. But when my business involves a lot of customer services and refund/returns, I do all these steps on ebay page directly. Also the resolution center, there is just no way I can avoid logging into ebay.

Question: do you guys use outlook to respond the messages? I know some people use outlook, but for me it's too hard because I can't see the previous messages and I don't know what I told the customers before. For example, I told the customer that I would send him a replacement and then he sends me an email asking me what's the tracking number. I will be confused if I didn't sort out all the messages from him and get to know what he is talking about.

As with anything new, you get used to it. All you'd need to do is an Outlook search for his user name to find all previous correspondences with that member. That said, I don't use outlook, but I was planning on moving over to it in the near future.

- Product listing: I used ink-frog to do all the listings. Sometimes I have to modify the listings directly on ebay because ink frog doesn't let you match the pictures to each variation.

Question: do you guys think Auctiva better than inkfrog? It was recommended on ebay stealth. And can I use the lister to list multiple accounts without changing the IP and switching users?

If you are listing on multiple accounts with inkfrog, the picture ID's and the URL of the "Additional Items" banner that inkfrog puts in your auction can theoratically be linked because they have your inkfrog account name in the pic id's, and in the "Additional Items" link information.

That said, I never had a problem using inkfrog. But some users on these forums avoid it like the plague for that reason.

Auctiva has it's pros and cons. It's definitely a better application, and their auto-responders and auto-feedback are tools that are unmatched by competitors. However, it sucks having to pay for every account that's hooked up to auctiva.

- We download the paypal CSV file(complete payment) everyday to match each paid transaction with each buyer. This is because we only send out products that are fully paid. But this mechanism has a huge flaw because there was 2 days that we couldn't successfully download the CSV file from paypal and we couldn't process any orders during those days. I really don't think it a right way to do because it's so time consuming and risky and I don't think it makes sense for a big seller(hundreds of orders every day) to do as a daily process if you want everything go out within a business day. Does anyone have a better solution to process hundreds of orders every day?

Paypal multi-order shipping label tool. Up to 50 at a time.

.
- I used Shipworks to process the labels and all that. But again, before we print the shipping label we have to make sure it was paid from the Paypal CSV file.

This sounds like an absysmal system. Seriously. You need to overhaul your processes big time.

- We always send by USPS first class mail but there were so MANY problems. Missing packages, tracking numbers stop updating its status, returned to sender without reasons... all kinds of headaches.

I have only had these problems when I was shipping things that did not meet the criteria for proper USPS 1st class parcels, ie not 3/4ths of an inch thick with tracking.

Most of my items are under $15 so I eventually just started shipping without tracking altogether unless the item was over $50. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most people are honest, and I had very little complaints.

I have tons of inventories on hand, sitting in my warehouse now... I'm planning to purchase accounts from members here but I don't know how it will go, especially when it comes to SSN verification... Can anyone suggest me with other platforms to dump my inventories? Maybe I should try wholesale? Right now I'm trying to build a website of my own with bigcommerce. I'll work every possible way to revive my business.

SSN?
Other platforms with the same traffic as eB?
Wholesale sounds like an opportunity, IMHO.

I don't know a lot about ebay, but if there are anything I can help with I'm willing to share my ebay experience, which is only half an year...

I say this with your best intentions in mind - you know nothing. I'm really serious. You really don't know much about the process of running a multi-hundred item/day business through ebay. The good news is that you're in the right place to learn. You need to bury yourself in these forums for 12 hours a day for the next 2 weeks, and when you re-read this post after that you'll laugh at yourself. Just navigate to the first page of the eBay forum, and start reading every post made for the last 6 months. Then move on to the next forum, and the next. At the end of 2 weeks your life will have been changed drastically.

[rsot]

Long post but props to Omgoozle for the breakdown

One line: Right now I'm trying to build a website of my own with bigcommerce. I'll work every possible way to revive my business. - Best of luck.