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Hello from Canada and now it's Goodbye...

 
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 61

PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:34 am    Post subject: Hello from Canada and now it's Goodbye... Reply with quote

Although I still sell on eBay, I have closed on Etsy and in the process of taking a break from Bonanza but will leave my options open. I don't do social media so I know it's going to be a tough go on eCrater but I do see some of my eCrater listings showing up now in searches on Google so that's a good thing, as none of my 1000+ Bonanza listings could be found on Google. I have a wide variety of items so it will be interesting to see how things progress here. Many of my listings are in "On Hold" mode as I redo the descriptions for presentation on this venue, as well as adding photos, shipping,etc. If anyone sees where I need to change things, add, delete, whatever I'll be most appreciative in suggestions & ideas. I have been selling online(mostly eBay) for 16 years but every platform is different, and I just need another venue in addition to eBay, that will replace those others that no longer work for me.
This is just to update as eCrater did not work out for me and the time has come to say goodbye ...


Last edited by VandysVarietyShoppe on Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:19 am; edited 2 times in total
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello and welcome! Where about in Sask. are you from? I went to college in Regina in the mid-70's and fell in love with the area. But since I couldn't find a young man who wanted to marry me, I had to come home.

You say you don't do social media. Is there a reason for that or just lack of interest? It really helps to promote your good on Pinterest as well as Facebook. Even without the promotional aspect of Pinterest, I would be using it. A place to store all the things I like and can use as a ideas for my own crafting, etc.

I have some errands to do, so I will look into your store later.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

oops double post!

Last edited by MoonwishesStore on Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:50 pm; edited 1 time in total
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 61

PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:58 am    Post subject: Hello from Canada Reply with quote

Have spent the better part of the past 27 years, in Regina. Yes totally not interested in social media and at my age social media is not something I care to engage in, too busy enjoying life and not willing to spend the time. Selling online is not a business for me, so not trying to establish a brand or maintain any sort of business relationship, but the extra $ does help pay for things maybe wouldn't otherwise be able to enjoy.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 5:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello again. Ah Regina, I loved the little donut/sweet shop that was right at the bus stop where we had to catch our bus back to campus. They made the best Lemon Napoleons when I could afford them - I WAS the poor college kid for sure.

You site is looking good except for the script all being in a block, but I am guessing that was from a download to here as none of your other writing shows up that way.

Talking about payments, shipping, customs, etc. is considered boilerplate by Google and what they don't like they generally don't show. I'm still trying to erase it from the days we were allowed it, but that is due to the big inventory I have.

When I first started here 10 years ago and for some longer than that. sales were going gang-busters. I was making great sales and while I did some promoting I didn't have time for a whole lot, but now, oh yes I promote. I'm on disability and we depend on this money to help make ends meet. My husband now knows far more about patterns than he ever wanted to! But if this is more of a hobby than a need and you don't want to get into social media, not one will break your arm forcing you to do so. However, if you change your mind and want help go ahead and ask.

Some of us are really trying to make a big push on the handmade/crafted and to let buyers know that eCRATER has great handmade venue and you can get other things there. Etsy seems to be shooting itself in the foot and Amazon in it's paranoia, is only opening the handmade area they have a little at a time, and I think you have to be approved to sell there. This is where eCRATER can fill in the blanks. You mention that some of your baby things are handmade, but you don't mention WHO makes them. Is it you or someone else? Be sure to specify and have in the title if you have space.

When I was in college, we gave Sunday night services tot he residents at a Salvation Army run nursing home. When my sister had a baby girl I ask one of the more with it ladies if she could knit me some booties or something. I ended up with a whole set in pink WOOL. Sent them to my sister and when they got soiled she washed them in the in hot water apparently. The beautiful sweater was now a doll sweater. I had been hoping that one day I would have a little girl who could have worn that sweater made by that dear lady. My 'girl' was 10#7oz at birth and 13" inches long and he just kept growing. When I saw the size of him I was glad he was a boy. It was bad enough being as tall as I was. I have so many very fond memories of my time there. Very Happy
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lastade-designs
moderator


Posts: 2903

PostPosted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi and welcome!

I went ahead and did some pinning from your store to our Pinterest board "Handmade items for sale by Ecrater artisans."

You might wish to try this type of promoting on Pinterest if you get a chance. It is free and easy to do. Plus it does generate sales!
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 61

PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you, lastade-designs - I appreciate that.
Thank you for your comments, Moonwishes...I am still trying to figure out this site...I find it much more complicated than Etsy, Bonanza or eBay... it's going to take some time to get listings edited for this venue. Sorry all, but I am so familiar & so used to the ease of listing on eBay where I have been a seller for 16 years - eBay is still the best venue for me, but I do like to have a presence elsewhere so eCrater will be in addition to eBay, now that I have closed out both Etsy and Bonanza.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 9:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Please understand that this isn't against you, but I have found that eCRATER has always been the very easiest site to list on of all the places I have sold. I can never figure out why newbies are having such trouble listing here. When many of us 'older' (timewise) sellers came to eCRATER, the eBay download wasn't available, so instead of tweaking listings that get mangled in the download, we very directly inputting them to the eCRATER listing page. After years of selling on eBay with one picture, that was all I had for older listings. I had to learn to do more pictures and post them. I don’t know what eBay is like now, but I do remember having to go through pages to list something as Amazon has the same deal of multiple pages. ECRATER has one. Please understand that this isn't against you, but I have found that eCRATER has always been the very easiest site to list on of all the places I have sold. I can never figure out why people are having such trouble listing here. When many of us 'older' (timewise) sellers came to eCRATER, the eBay download wasn't available, so instead of tweaking listings that get mangled in the download, we very directly inputting them to the eCRATER listing page. After years of selling on eBay with one picture, that was all I had for older listings. I had to learn to do more pictures and post them. I don’t know what eBay is like now, but I do remember having to go through pages to list something as Amazon has the same deal of multiple pages. ECRATER has one. Decide on a listing template if you can and go from there. This is something you decide to use for listing your items to keep from fogetting important information.

The mangled listings are why it seems that there is a complication to listing. If you had just listed each thing individually you would have found it as easy, if not easier than downloading and then tweaking them into looking right for eCRATER. I did ALL my listings, including my leftovers from eBay using Turbo Lister to help me. During it, I discovered that eBay had dropped many of my listings for who knows how long or when. I had wondered why nothing was ever selling from one box of inventory; eBay didn’t have anything in that box even listed! I think once you get used to the differences you will find it very simple to list here.



The mangled listings are why it seems that there is a complication to listing. If you had just listed each thing individually you would have found it as easy, if not easier than downloading and then tweaking them into looking right for eCRATER. I did ALL my listings, including my leftovers from eBay using Turbo Lister to help me. During it, I discovered that eBay had dropped many of my listings for who knows how long or when. I had wondered why nothing was ever selling from one box of inventory; eBay didn’t have anything in that box even listed! I think once you get used to the differences you will find it very simple to list here.
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theartsandlettersofmaggiethecat



Posts: 2099

PostPosted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 11:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome to eCRATER. I live in BC and have been on eCRATER a long time. Sales are really hard to come by. I tweet new listings and add them to Pinterest although to my knowledge neither place has resulted in an inquiry least of all a sale. Canadian shipping is a real downer for Americans. I find it is faster to get an item to any other country in the world than to the next province in Canada. I've had small packages to go NYC in two days. Vancouver to Toronto is rarely less than two weeks. Although just recently I sent something to NWT and was told it would take at least 2 weeks and it got there in 3 days.

I'd like to say you will have great sales here but I don't actually believe sales are great anywhere. But I wish you good luck. Your store looks good.
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 7:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome to eCRATER. I took a look at your shop and it looks nice. I think one thing really different here compared to other sites is the fact that your store is really your own store that uses eCrater's check-out system. Your store items are also shown in the eCRATER Marketplace and eCRATER feeds all your Marketplace listings to Google Shopping for free. You only pay a fee if you have a sale where the customer arrived on the Marketplace from the internet. If the customer came directly to your store, there are no eCRATER fees. On most other sites, when you have a "store" it's really just a grouping of your listings with your own categories. The listings are still individual listings with all the information in that one listing. There is a fee for the listing and the listing ends at a defined time. If you make a sale it doesn't matter if the customer came to the marketplace or directly to your store, you still owe a FVF to the site. Here, there is no listing fee, the item stays active until it either sales or you remove the item and you only pay a FVF if the customer arrived at eCRATER through the marketplace.

I think one reason folks find eCRATER a little more difficult is in the shipping department. On eCRATER, you are making decisions about the methods of shipping based on your whole store rather than adding the shipping to each item. While it is possible to add shipping to each item for up to 7 zones using the flat rate, you are limited to 7 zones and 3 are pre-selected (US mainland, AK & HI). When you add Canada, you only have 3 other countries you can add to the flat rate zone (which allows you to enter the shipping on each item). The weight matrix is unlimited to the number of countries. The advantage of using the weight matrix vs. the flat rate comes when the shipping rates change. The weight matrix can be changed a lot quicker than changing every item in your store.

I did find one really big problem that you need to address as quickly as possible. You have no shipping set for any country except the US & Canada. Because you selected the United Kingdom and Australia in your shipping zones, you have an active eCRATER store on the US, UK & AU sites. With your shipping set to $0.00 for the UK & AU you will have a real problem since the eCRATER terms say you can't bill for additional shipping after the order is placed. If you decide to delete the UK and AU from your shipping zones, there is a process that must be followed to remove your current items from those stores. You probably will find it easier to just complete the weight matrix for those countries.
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 61

PostPosted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 1:28 pm    Post subject: Hello from Canada Reply with quote

Thank you, SheilaDeesPostcards, for pointing that out about the shipping. When I initially set up on this site, I was truly confused about adding UK &/or Australia and how that worked. I ship so very little outside of North America that I just never followed through with adding shipping but perhaps that will be the easier solution to that situation before I add too many products I'll revise those listings I already have. To be honest I really don't expect much from eCrater but because the listings are found in Google search it's a a plus, for when my listings aren't on eBay. I needed another site for my listings as I keep losing listings off eBay as they are not stored beyond 90 days.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 6:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I ship so very little outside of North America that I just never followed through with adding shipping


The problem with that is those folks always seem to find the 'free shipping' listings in ecrater stores! And if you are willing to sell to those countries and you have no shipping costs provided, the buyer thinks and expects the free shipping. With ecrater you can not add on shipping after the fact, so you do need to deal with this ASAP.
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 61

PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 7:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you all for your comments and guidance. Many of my listings will get re-done as I have already learned from experience that importing from eBay is a waste of time - takes way too long to clean up the listings & add the pictures since only 1 picture gets imported to eCrater. From here on, my listings will be worked on from scratch and as time permits.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

VandysVarietyShoppe wrote:
Thank you all for your comments and guidance. Many of my listings will get re-done as I have already learned from experience that importing from eBay is a waste of time - takes way too long to clean up the listings & add the pictures since only 1 picture gets imported to eCrater. From here on, my listings will be worked on from scratch and as time permits.


In my opinion that is the best way! I want to laugh at times when newbies come here and get mad as they can't get the download to work and they have SO many listings, that usually turns out to be 50-100! MUCH faster to do from the beginning than correct errors. When I first came here, I had to list 5000+ listings by hand!
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