New store

[handmedownheaven]

We are Hand Me Down Heaven, a 501c3 non profit resale store based in Cleveland, Ga. Our physical store has been in business 14 years. We have sold on a large auction site since 2002 and opened a premium store a year ago.

Have decided to have our own store here on eCrater. Going to take time to figure this out. Waiting for our major auction site file to upload containing 400 items.

Will say very little for a while and spend more time reading. When your old you find your still analog in the digital generation LOL

[SammysSupplies]

Hi and welcome to eCrater. Many us are "older people". When you transfer your stuff from ebay, a lot of stuff will need to be removed, like any reference to auctions. Good luck and I hope you do well. I have to say, you are set up very well already, except for products.

[maggiethehousecat]

Welcome. So far so good, however I would work on the store banner as the text is too small and you do have twice as much space as you are using.

Very interested in what grass roots groups are doing to relieve hunger in the US. Do you have your own distribution network or do you work in conjunction with established charities? Perhaps you can tell us about your organization.

Make sure you reactivate this introduce yourself topic when you have your inventory loaded.

[cosmicray]

Hi, Welcome !

In looking at the single listing that is active, I noticed this ...

[MoonwishesStore]

[thelivesandlovesofmaggiethecat]

If Georgia sales tax is included in the price that means you are charging all customers Georgia sales tax which is against the law. It is easy enough to click Georgia in the state sales tax section of your admin. Then it is added to Georgia residents but no one else.

I think more people would be searching for a cardigan sweater than a button down. I have never heard that term before. It might be colloquial and you are better off using universal terms. Button down is usually used to describe shirt collars.

Also is this a man's sweater? While it might be a unisex item, the size is not unisex. A man's medium is different than a woman's medium.

[MoonwishesStore]

Didn't even notice that the sex was missing from the description because so much was. I know Alfred Dunner makes clothing for women so I made an assumption on that which means it would have been a man's sweater. I will admit that Alfred Dunner is one of the clothing brands that I recognize as having clothing in my size and of the quality I like.

Since we sell all over I try to throw in as many colloquial names of things that I know as one thing I learned while moving so many times in my life is that there are lots of different names for the same things. And try to use the different spellings (not actual spelling mistakes) like pajamas and pyjamas. Those both depend on where in the world you live. I think anyone that sells clothing or sewing patterns needs to keep up with what other countries call particular items. One day my son was telling me a true story about some girls in England and I could tell he was a bit confused as to why they were wearing a jumper and jeans. Well here in the States that would be a weird combo, but in the UK a jumper is a sweater (pullover sweater I believe).

[handmedownheaven]

Good evening everyone and thank you for so many helpful hints. I will try to answer the questions from memory. To start with, we are a family owned non profit ministry. The reason we started this is I spent my career in law enforcement and was the youngest Assistant Chief in Ga history. Now the only reason I am alive is the grace of God, 36 pills & 6 shots a day due to agent orange exposure in Nam. According to the VA I was supposed to be gone 7 years ago according to stats so we believe I'm still here to help families.

The entire family is volunteers and after store expenses, all profits are donated to food banks in NE GA. In our bylaws we have a list of the various food banks and what percentage each one receives.

This site is an experiment. We only have one of each item being a resale store. For that reason we have the middle eBay store. $59 a month & 500 free listings. I was thinking about coming off eBay to save $59 plus they are about to undertake some policies I don't like. Namely if someone returns something for any reason, eBay will print them a return label & deduct it from the sellers paypal account. I offer free shipping so after you pay shipping both ways you lose money. We pay no listing or final value fees because we are a giving works charity.

We have a facebook page with 14,000+ likes. We were going to use facebook to market a store on this site along with our website. The one listing that I do have here was copied from an eBay sale to teach myself how to do this. Your many tips have really showed me I need to learn a lot.

Here are the links to the various ways to learn about us and once again, your tips are fantastic teaching this old duck new things. I really don't know if this is the type of format best for us or is our current eBay store. Feel free to stroll through our eBay store to see the kind of set up we are and offer advise. It is appreciated more than you can imagine.

Ron

http://stores.ebay.com/handmedownheaveninc

https://www.facebook.com/handmedownheaven

[MoonwishesStore]

First off, thank you for your service to our country and to your fellow Georgians in helping them to eat. Just so you know that you aren't alone, there are plenty of us older folks here and plenty of us pill poppers as well. Selling on line is something that can be done, in between naps and doctor appointments.

I don't sell clothing in general, but I do know that they weigh a lot more than 13 oz most of the time because of the weight of the fabric. Especially things like sweatshirts, I don't see with free shipping and ebay fees that you have been able to make much considering ebay fees and PP fees plus postage. At least here on ecrater you might have a minor marketplace fee of 2.9% and if you get good at promoting your store, you can avoid some of those. You can't get out of the PP and Stripe fees unfortunately (which I suggest you use as well as PP since some customers won't use PP no matter what). Not sure (and don't want to know) how much ebay fees run these days, but not only can you save $59 by coming here, just on that Alfred dunner sweater, you would save around $2 in fees alone when it sells. I guess what I'm saying is either raise the price or drop the price and add in a decent shipping cost.

Using the grey sweatshirt as an example if it's packed weight is more than 13 oz, with fees deducted, my numbers tell me that you might be making $1. That begins to be a lot of work for not much payback. You want to be a wise steward of your time and inventory. You really do need to watch your descriptions and titles. For this sweatshirt, rather than saying Jerzees Super Sweat...you should be saying Jerzees Sweatshirt (not sure where the super came from). I would also rethink the rest of the title too. Do you have to have the store inventory number in the title to keep track of things as that is taking up character spaces. I notice it is also one of the first things in your descriptions and technically it is only for your use so should be shoved to the bottom of the description, not be on the first line. In ebays item specifics, they have Jerzees spelled wrong and call it a short sleeve shirt when the picture shows it to be long sleeved. You need measurements, care instructions, what the shirt says on the front and back, etc. A lot of work, Yes! Worth it, YES! The better your title and description, the less people can come back at you and complain that the colors are faded. I've been hearing about weird ebay customers but that one is a joke, unless it truly was faded and you can only tell that by looking at parts of the shirt that are not exposed to wear and sunlight. To be faded also means the shirt certainly wouldn't look 'like new'. The more precise and exact your descriptions the better for you and your customers.

If you only sell clothing and as long as you are taking into account how much it will cost to ship them, there is no reason that you can't succeed here as well as you might have on ebay, especially with MORE new rules that they keep rolling out. For sure a customer coming to your listings whether in the marketplace or in your actual store, won't be seeing lots of ads, other seller's stuff coming before your listing details, etc. What a scam ebay has gotten to be. Take the time to figure ecrater out, and go ahead and double list for now if you want and if you know you will be checking in often enough that when something sells you can delete it from inventory on the other site. Some new sellers have come in with the intention of listing only 1-5 things to see how it goes here and then are disappointed to not have any sales the first week/month. their amount for sale is less than a drop in a bucket! If you do sell that quickly, it is a miracle. Always keep in mind just how many things are up for sale compared to your small bunch of listings. You have to promote here using as many ways as possible. I have several things I try to do daily and it has helped with my sales, so get into a good routine of listing and promoting because if you aren't listing, you aren't selling.

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

Welcome to eCRATER. I just checked out your store and you've got a good start. I noticed you've already made some of the changes suggested and you've gotten some really good advice from other sellers. I did notice a problem for you in your FAQs. We are only allowed to accept payments approved by eCrater and we can not add our own payment processing services. "- Do not invite the users to pay through payment methods not supported by eCRATER." You can add Stripe for a direct credit card processing in addition to PayPal. I think you could mention that you accept credit cards in your retail store in Georgia, but I don't think you can invite them to call.

You still haven't addressed the Georgia Sales Tax issue. It's quite easy to have sales tax added for sales shipped to a Georgia address. You can also select if you want tax applied to shipping (based on Georgia Sales Tax law). Otherwise, it reads like you have the sales tax included in the price, which would imply everybody is having to pay the tax.

Another big difference in selling on eBay and selling anywhere else on the internet is you need to be sure you include both good photos AND good descriptions. You must describe as if there is no photo and show photos like there is no description. While categories are very important for customers who will want to browse your store, you can not count on categories for important information because not all buyers will see your categories. Listing a sweater in the category "Ladies Clothing" does not remove the need to state in the title AND description the fact that you are selling a ladies sweater. This information is important not only for the buyer but for the internet search engines that will bring you buyers.

[cosmicray]

@handmedownheaven

Why don't you walk thru an example for us (and for you) of how the numbers will work out if you sell that sweater. Assume that a customer in San Francisco bought it. I think the various costs and fees might want you to back of a minute, and think about your pricing. I'm saying this because you appear to be offering free shipping via Priority Mail, and (possibly) absorbing the sales tax.

[cosmicray]

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

[MoonwishesStore]

[handmedownheaven]

Good morning everyone. Our clothing is donated to us so there is no cost in relation to product. It is washed & inspected, then only the genuine like new items are placed on the racks for display. Clothing not fit for store sale is sold by the pound to re-thrifting organizations that donate it to homeless. We sell our clothes for flat rates. In our store this sweater sells for $3. All adult tops, pants, shorts, skirts & sweaters are a flat $3. Jeans are $5. So, the selling price of $3 on this item is put in the pot for the operation of the store with what is left over at the end of the month being donated to food banks.

Now in terms of this sweater. We are selling it here & on the auction site for $13.99. Wost case scenario priority shipping because it weighs 14 ounces would be around $7.00. After shipping profit is $6.99. Subtract 97¢ sales tax to Ga residents and the profit is now $6.02. We have branched into online sales because the profit is better than the in store sales providing us with more at the end of the month to donate.