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Seller Returning to ecrater after long absence, any tips?

 
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ThePastLane



Posts: 128

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 2:31 pm    Post subject: Seller Returning to ecrater after long absence, any tips? Reply with quote

Hello, everybody. Does anyone have any tips for an inactive seller who is re-activating their store? It's been a few years, actually, and I've got lots of work to do. Any links to tutorials or helpful forum posts? Any warnings I need to be aware of? I just activated the ebay import, I guess that takes a few days.

And anything you can tell me about google attributes, I'd be most grateful. Most of my items are antiques or collectibles, but some are more contemporary. I struggled with it when I was active here, and am hoping I can do a better job this time.

Special thanks to moonwishes, you were my inspiration for returning. I'm going to be shutting down my store on "that other site" when the term expires after the first of the year. Can't afford to sell there anymore. Interestingly, I've been getting the same amount of sales there that I used to get here years ago.

Thank you!
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2018 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are very welcome! Sounds like we have several folks returning to a venue that can feel like home. Currently, this year, About 1/3 of my sales come from here and the rest elsewhere. This year I had a couple of refunds for buyers that double paid and didn't really want two of the same pattern. I've had way too many (as far as I am concerned) for a request for refunds elsewhere for stupid things, the worst being "I didn't know I was buying a pattern!". Yeah sure you buy a pattern that goes from boys size 2 to men's 48" chest with something like 20 different garments shown on the front of the envelope or the woman seeming to think that for the price of a designer pattern of $25 she would get the real designer coat that goes for $2000! Shocked Also request for refunds because I charged more than the original price of the pattern. and on it goes. Here I can tell people, sorry no refunds, there you have to okay any and all refunds as long as they are in the time frame and now we are in Christmas so anything bought today at the other site can be returned by Jan 31 if they like!

Anyhow, take your time getting up to speed and if you have specific questions, just ask we will try to help. And yes the attributes are still goofy because Google still likes to pretend that we all work for them and we have to fill the attributes out to satisfy them, not that it makes sense to us.
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SheilaDeesPostcards
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Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 7:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome back! I took a look at your eCrater store and your ebay listings, you have some very interesting items. There have been a lot of changes since you were here. The first big change that you will need to address is your payment options. Google Checkout closed several years ago; today we can offer Paypal or Stripe. Stripe is a merchant account service that the customer really won't see by name, they will just enter their credit card information like on any other website and Stripe processes the charge. You will need to set-up an account with Stripe which is quite easy. Money is transferred to your bank on a rolling schedule that I believe is 7 days until you've established yourself as a merchant. After a period of time, deposits are made the next day. You might want to consider both since PayPal will be quickly added to your eCrater store and funds will be imediately available (especially if you print your postage through PayPal). I've found Stripe to be a great merchant service provider and had no problems, plus it's nice to offer an alternative to PayPal for buyer's who don't want to use PayPal.

Once your items are received from ebay, you will probably want to edit the descriptions, add the Google attributes, check the global categories to confirm they are correct, add your local categories, and change the name of the my ebay category. That is a special category that can't be deleted, but it can be named anything you like. Some seller's change the name to "New Arrivals" but it doesn't matter, the eCrater system looks for the category by number which doesn't change when you change the name. We do not have any html in our description here so the amount of editing you'll need to do will depend on the amount of html that was used on ebay.

Google Attributes are critical if you want your items to appear in Google Shopping (GS). The feed is done for free by eCrater, but you do have to add the attributes. There are 2 major GS attribute categories you need to be concerned about; Product Identifiers and Detailed Product Descriptions. The other categories of attributes are submitted by eCrater based on the information we provide when we list an item. One change you'll find on the item listing page is Condition which has had 2 additions, new other and refurbished. The new other works well for NOS, but remember it will show as New in Google Shopping.

GS - Product Identifiers - if your item is new GS expects to see 2 of the 3 attributes of brand, mpn and/or upc. If your item is used or hand made you only need the attribute name identifier_exists with a value of false. You can add this in the table or at the end of the description when you are listing. If you add it at the end of the description, it will be entered below your description as [!identifier_exists:false!]. I mention this because it appears you'll use this one alot and I think cut & paste is quicker than typing. If your item is new or new other, it may not have a brand, mpn or upc in which case you would also use the identifier_exists attribute. GS will complain and you'll a red flag message from eCrater that GS complains, but GS will show them if your information is correct.

GS - Detailed Product Descriptions - must be used if you are listing clothing and accessories. Accessories includes jewelry, watches, hats, shoes, belts, etc. The current required attributes for items GS defines as clothing and accessories would be color and size for all items, plus gender and age_group IF the eCrater Global categories don't include this information. For example, if you select the Global category Clothing & Shoes and the Global Sub-category of Shoes>Men's Shoes eCrater is going to show the gender as male and the age_group as adult. If you select the Global category of Jewelry & Watches and the Sub-category of Antique & Vintage, you will need to add the GS attributes of gender (male, female, unisex) and the attribute of age_group (adult, kids, toddler, infant, newborn).

For additional information on GS attributes, check this link https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112?visit_id=636773673114862296-3871357348&rd=1. Keep in mind that not all attributes listed on this page are available on eCrater AND many of the attributes listed as required are submitted by eCrater based on the info we provide when we list the item.

To check to see other things that have changed since you were here, a quick review is to use the search feature on the forum. Leave the keywords blank, add the author as ecrater, and select the forum eCRATER sellers only. It's not perfect, but it's a great way to check since new changes and tweeks are always listed in the eCRATER sellers only.

Sorry I got so wordy, but I have a feeling we are going to be getting a number of sellers re-activating their eCRATER stores because of the problems/changes with the bay. Maybe this information will be helpful to all who may come here with the same question.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 7:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sheila, This post you made needs to be stickied at the top of the thread or somewhere where those returning or coming for the first time will see it.

For returning sellers, it might help if we knew how long you have been gone, such as June 2013 is the first time we had to pay Marketplace fees if necessary. If you left before that, that is something to learn about.
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ThePastLane



Posts: 128

PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 8:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SheilaDees, I humbly thank you. You were not too wordy at all, that is exactly the information I needed. And I agree with Moonwishes, your post should be stickied, or given a thread of its own, something like "Returning to E-Crater? Please Read this First". With all the crazy stuff that's going on at "that other site", I can see a lot of people such as myself returning and needing to get up to speed. I am so over it.

I thought I added paypal yesterday, but maybe it didn't take. Over the weekend I'll go over everything and at least make the changes I can make on an immediate basis. I will definitely look into Stripe.

Frankly, I was surprised my store hadn't been deleted, but very grateful that it wasn't.
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SheilaDeesPostcards
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Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you both for your kind comments.

@ThePastLane, your Paypal payment method is showing in your store. I didn't check an item page to see the payment methods, I just read your FAQs which you'll need to update.
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ThePastLane



Posts: 128

PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SheilaDees, thank you. I have so much updating and editing to do, hope to get some of it done over the weekend. I feel better already just getting re-started here. That other site was getting more and more depressing. I notice they've got their logo in red on the upper left hand corner, lol, I guess it's supposed to be a signal to China or something.

I think ecrater is the place for smaller sellers. Once I've got the store updated and re-established, then I've got to look into some promotion. I'm not big on social media, but I like Moonwishes suggestion about Pinterest as a place to promote. That's something I can handle. I don't do FB or Twit.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 7:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I left eBay something like 10 years ago, I felt like I was about to get another ulcer and hives and who knows what all else and I know from reading posts it has gotten worse! I do like being here. I promote on FB and have a personal page as well as a store page. There are also two ecrater pages that I know about. So I list on all of those as well as Pinterest. I don't get much via FB but I do from Pinterest.
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Chakracord



Posts: 213

PostPosted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 6:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi ThePastLane

I haven't spent enough time updating my 4 shops. But as winter is settling and a big project is almost done, I will be doing more updating and adding items to the shops.

I also don't do Twitter and Facebook, but I do Pinterest.
I have 3 accounts for my eCrater shops but I also created a Pinterest Account for sellers to do group boards.

You need a Pinterest account and if you would like to join the SellersMall on Pinterest, please do.

I have a separate thread under Sellers Only, thread : PINTEREST

Welcome back.
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ThePastLane



Posts: 128

PostPosted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you, Chakracord. I did sign up for Pinterest at one point, I'll have to see if the account is still active. I was constantly getting all these emails about "ideas", many of which were just advertisements, so I unsubbed from those feeds or whatever they were. I did appreciate that Pinterest would, from time to time, say what sort of searches were trending, I liked that.

Sigh, so much to do in the new online sales environment.
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