I am new to ecrater

[RuthsCollectibles]

I was wondering if my listings look ok. Not sure if I did everything correctly. I imported my listings and they look ok to me but I hope they are visible to everyone else. Any help appreciated. ruthscollectibles

[FoxAndFish]

[MoonwishesStore]

Ditto what Fox said.

Also I looked at this listing 'Adorable Vintage Photograph Horse & Pony' One thing that really stands out on the listing is you are charging $47 for shipping a 3"x3" photograph. Hopefully an error. Also and this may sound silly and nit-picky, you have 100 characters in your title that you can use. The most important words should come first and in my opinion, words like adorable, gorgeous, beautiful, funny, etc. have no place in a title description. If we all agreed as to what was is gorgeous, everyone would dress like Lady Gaga (ick) or maybe she would dress like me! All you want in your listings are basic facts. Like where was the photo taken, what kind of horses are they, etc. I'm not positive about this as I am not a horse person, but isn't there a difference between a pony and a colt? The thing with titles is they are the keywords that people might enter into a search engine to find what they are looking for and I doubt anyone ever uses the word adorable to search for something, but they might want to search for a colt picture, so even if it is appropriate to call a new colt a pony, you would also want the word colt in the title.

I also noticed of the few listings that I saw, you are only using one photo. You are allowed up to 10 for FREE. Try and use them, especially for things like the wood carvings. If you have to describe things that aren't seen in the picture, you really need to have a photo showing it. Especially considering how much you are asking for them (although reasonable for a hand carved item) You also need to describe it since search engines don't yet have the capability to allow searches by what a computer can see in the photo. The bear shelf, you mention the buyer can either have a closed mouth bear or an open mouth bear. You need a listing for each, because let me tell you, and I think most here would agree, you don't want to have to depend on email exchanges to finalize a purchase. A customer should be able to come to a store, choose what they want, pay and know that they will get what they ordered. This is how ecrater is set up. Also be sure that for every item that has to be made after purchase you send the customer an acknowledgement of the order immediately and update them every couple of weeks so they know they haven't been scammed.

Also just so you are aware, when opening an ecrater store, you automatically get both a UK and a AU store. If you don't ship internationally, then you want to be sure that those are closed so you don't get orders through them. I don't think that you can have a store that sells worldwide for some items and not for the other items. You can eliminate countries you won't ship to, but I do believe that if you want any international shipping, it is either all or none for each store. Is there a reason that you don't want to sell your wood carvings internationally? I realize some countries may prohibit the wood coming in, but surely not all. If it is the shipping cost you are worried about, let the customer decide if they want to pay an arm and a leg to ship something to wherever.

[theartsandlettersofmaggiethecat]

Not going to repeat what previous posters have already said but your old photo titles should start with the subject matter for example"

Entrance to Bruton Parish Virginia vintage photograph gate brick wall sepia tone

Gorgeous is not a good adjective for a brick wall.

In your description you state "Please feel free to ask questions before looking." Kind of difficult to do.

Not all your photos are antique. Photos dated 1965 are vintage but no where near antique. I'm surprised at the prices you are asking for ordinary family photos. Usually you only get that price for old photos if the subject is a famous person, photographed at an historic site or event or extra cute kids and animals.

I agree you should put the store on hold until it is ready and makes sense.

[MoonwishesStore]

Something I forgot. Sorry. Make sure you spell check and grammar check your text. In many spots you are running words together or putting a period and then not leaving a space before the next word/sentence. Believe it or not, some sites see words with a period and then no space think it is a url or email of some sort. At least I know eBay's computers used to do that if I forgot the space. This is all part of making your store look professional.

I have had sellers argue with me on this point and say that this is the way they write and the buyer's apparently should be charmed by it. I let my sales numbers speak for themselves. Not saying I don't have spelling errors, etc. but I try to correct them as soon as I am aware and I especially try not to keep copy/pasting sentences with the problem over and over.

Also using 'old' as well as vintage or antique is redundant as vintage and antique imply that something is old.

[jonunscloset]

Welcome to eCrater. I agree with all that has been said before. One other thing, I saw one title as Antique vintage... Which is it? antique or vintage?
Best wishes on sales.

[RuthsCollectibles]

Hi, my problem is that these listings were imported from another site. I did not realize that anything was running together. Also at other site there are item specifics which tell age of each and every photograph. I use antique and vintage because that was my template and also so that when searched both come up. I sell hundreds of these photos at other site at same prices but I was hoping to leave that site because it has become very controlling and also very expensive. Not sure what happened with shipping prices but i will take a look. I think there my be some errors from the import. I don't sell large or expensive items international because paypal requires delivery confirmation in order to protect your item. If international buyers says they did not receive item, they can collect their money from paypal. A lot of scams are like that. They wind up getting item and keeping funds. In order to get delivery confirmation on international items the cost is just outrageous. No one would buy the item. On other site I just sell small expensive photos that go in letter size envelope. I take a chance when sending to another country but I do because the loss is not so great. I sell on this other site and have done very well for 16 years and have a very high feedback score. I will have to review my listings but I do have thousands that I want to send over but not sure if I have to time to adjust all these listings.

[MoonwishesStore]

[RuthsCollectibles]

The customs number is NOT the tracking number and paypal will NOT accept that as delivery confirmation. It has to be a tracking number that can be visibly seen online otherwise they will not honor this. I have been selling online and using paypal for 16 years and have been burnt many times. I had proof from postoffice with insurance and tracking in their system and it would not be honored by paypal. They said it was not procedure. You can do this all you want but when there is a problem and someone international says they did not receive, paypal will not honor unless they can go online and see tracking number which could cost the buyer hundreds of dollars to get.

Just spoke to paypal and a customs number is not a tracking number that they will accept as proof. They can not always see online. It is very expensive to get the necessary tracking so that it is accepted by paypal. I would be very careful selling international without paying for the necessary tracking. Many may have used it , but it is not a problem until something gets lost or someone claims to have not gotten package and you will be out package and money.

[maggiethehousecat]

Ruth I use www.insurepost.com and it is $1.50 insurance for up to $100 in coverage and covers loss, damage, and shipping costs. Surely paying that by adding it into international postage is worth more than scaring off all potential international buyers.

I've sent a lot of items off shore over the years and the only two that were returned to me as non-deliverable were due to buyers not having updated their addresses with PP.

Truthfully you sound like a paranoid eBay seller who wants to leave eBay but doesn't want to do the work involved in adapting to the new site. Unless you are selling naughty pictures I don't think you have to worry about fraud from your international buyers.

***If you intend to restrict international shipping to photos, you need a separate store for heavy items you won't ship overseas. You can't separate some items that can go abroad and others that won't in the same store.

[RuthsCollectibles]

paypal does not care if you have insurance or not. If buyer says they did not get package, paypal gives buyer money right back and you lose package and money. I am not being paranoid but must be aware of all the scams out there. Many international buyers know that you can't get tracking and they play on that. I am selling to make money not to be scammed. Insurance means nothing to paypal. Unless you have visible online tracking, which costs a fortune they will give buyer a refund. You have no proof you sent item. That is why ebay has global shipping program so that you send to a US spot and they are responsible for it internationally. That also costs a fortune. It is totally unaffordable. I do sell internationally for inexpensive items but ecrater does not allow you to only sell internationally on select items so I can not sell internationally here.

[RuthsCollectibles]

I don't mind doing extra work to fix up these listings and I will be doing just that. It will take me some time though. Thanks for all your help. Ruth

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

Hello Ruth and Welcome to eCRATER. You'll find many of us came from eBay and some of us still sell there from time to time. I've followed the conversations here but didn't have time to chime in until this evening. First, regarding tracking on International shipping, I always go to the primary source for my information. I've been using the USPS Domestic Mail Manual and the USPS International Mail Manual since the early 1980s when you had to get your answers from the actual printed manual. It's so much easier with the internet. According to the USPS International Mail Manual, tracking is available to select countries when using First-Class Package International Service as long as your package meets the weight & size limits and the article mailed is "otherwise acceptable and not prohibited by the Postal Service or the country of destination". Your postage must be purchased online from a "USPS-approved PC Postage vendors". I know it is available from Click-N-Ship on the USPS website and from Endicia. I would assume it is available through PayPal Postage and Stamps.com.

The price of tracking is included in the price and tracking is viewable online at the normal Track & Confirm page on the USPS website. The countries currently covered are: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, and Switzerland. Here's a link to more information in the manual. http://pe.usps.com/text/imm/immc2_016.htm

Now some sellers feel the cost of First-Class Package International Service is too expensive for their customers and only offer the cheaper First-Class Mail International Letter or Large Envelope, however neither of these services include tracking.

Second, there are several things to consider on eCRATER before deciding to ship international. Shipping in an eCRATER store is "all or none" for international shipping. Either you offer international shipping on all the items in your store, or you don't offer international shipping. Also, if you decide to ship to the UK and/or Australia, you need to decide if you only want sales in your US store OR do you want your store duplicated on the UK and/or AU site. If you ONLY want to ship from your US store, you will need to go to Account > Options in your admin section and place a check in the box "Do not auto convert prices in other currencies" BEFORE you add the UK and/or AU to your shipping zones. Otherwise, as soon as you add those countries to your shipping zone, your UK and AU stores will be activated and items with prices will be added to those stores.

[MoonwishesStore]

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

I took a good long look at your store and have a few suggestions that might help. We have a feature called Global Editor that might help you a lot. I noticed most of your items have "Please feel free to ask questions before looking. International buyers pay higher shipping costs.I do combine shipping to save you shipping costs so feel free to buy on more than one item if you like.Item will be shipped from Milford, PA." The strange wording came from the import that appears to have changed the word bidding to looking, changed "feel free to bid on more than one item" to "feel free to buy on more than one item" You could use the Global Editor to either change a sentence OR remove a sentence.

It appears your shipping is currently set for "Fixed Price" shipping which means you add the shipping to each item. This works for the short term, but you have to change your prices everytime the Post Office changes their rates. Also, it appears you only have the US mainland postage completed. The rules at eCRATER requires we ship to all 50 states. Currently it seems that you have $0.00 shipping charged for Alaska and Hawaii (probably part of the import). You can use the Global Editor to add the Mainland postage to the box for Alaska and Hawaii. (It would be 2 seperate actions.) You seem to be wanting your customers to order multiple photos. When a customer does that, they will be charged the fixed rate for each item and there is no feature to adjust an invoice. Your store is designed for payment during checkout, so you would have to issue a refund for those items. Using the shipping matrix would allow you to do what you want to do for photos, which is how I do shipping in my postcard store and my sewing store. Many sellers have more than one store so they can use the type of shipping they want for different product types. One of my stores has china, glassware, flatware, and other collectibles where I use the USPS calculated shipping to give my customer's the break on Priority zone rates. Just something to consider as you decided how you want to design the shipping for your store.

You stated you had gotten a lot of hits in your store. The hits shown in your store counts every time you view the item, some types of search bots, plus views from the members of the forum who are viewing your store to see if we can help. Also, the hits reset to 0 on the first day of each month. I would strongly suggest you set up Google Analytics for your shop. In your Admin, go to Account > Options and click on the ? for a link to Google to set up an account, then come back and enter the number plus check the box. You will get a ton of information regarding browsers to your store and the stats don't re-set. I have data back as long as I've had the stores. You can set a filter in GA that will block your visits so you'll know it's really other people.