Sandra's Acre Store & Auctions

Organizing Your Life on Ebay

Welcome.
Have you discovered that your life is getting more disorganized the more time you spend selling on Ebay? The day speeds quickly speeds by and you find that your house is getting more cluttered each day, kids are home before you know it, dinner is not ready, and you finished posting, shipping, or done all your feedback on Ebay,  And the more items you list on Ebay the more difficult it is to keep your products organized. Which  merchandise needs pictures taken, which ones needs posting, which ones need mailing, or which ones need re-listed or discarded. You find that your family and your own life are taking a backseat to Ebay. You have found that Ebay is swallowing all your time and then some.

This Review will change your life.

It will help you: 
 Unclutter your life and get organized
 Get organized
 Create a cleaning system that works
 Improve your relationship and self-esteem with your family
 Improve your diet and health.

Unclutter Your Life and Get Organized

First off, we have to sit back and view the whole picture before we can ever begin to unclutter our lives. That may sound scary and depression may set in. But if we don’t get into our minds exactly what our plan is we will never know where to start. A lot of people start this process upon arising after they have gotten the children off to school.
It’s a challenge to stay motivated and to keep your life organized. It is a challenge to figure out whether what we are doing is too little or too much each day.  To keep your head above water, take a tablet and go through each room in your house.
• Write down everything you would like to do in each room.
o For example, your bedroom: make bed, change sheets, wash mattress pad, wash blankets, dust, vacuum, shampoo carpet, wash blinds, wash windows, etc.
• Next to each of these items write down whether they are daily, weekly, monthly, bi-annual, or annual chores.
o  Do this with all your rooms in your house.
• Now, take another sheet of paper and write Daily at the top.
o Group all the daily chores on that page.
• Take another sheet of paper and write weekly, another sheet for monthly, etc.
o Write down each shore under each topic.
With this information I put it on a calendar, like a yahoo calendar. Each item, for example, the daily topic list with all the daily chores are listed on the calendar and every day it pops to my email and I print this out and mark off each chore I get finished.
You can do this for selling on Ebay, also. Write down everything that you need to do for Ebay. For example, scavenger for items to list, take pictures of merchandise, post wares on Ebay, send invoice to winner, package commodity, mail package, send feedback.
This gets the whole picture in perspective. It is broken down into little chunks.

Get Organized

Now that was a relief…everything is organized into your calendar. It will pop up on your email and you can print your list of chores. It will have only the day’s chores on it. If any new chores, appointments, or other things come up, put them on this calendar and look at the calendar every day.
The first habit to form and the hardest habit to learn are “we need a schedule.” Most of us hate schedules. We had to follow a schedule for at least twelve years during our school days. But it is an unfortunate fact, “we need to follow a schedule, or we won’t get our days accomplishments finished.”
A lot of people start this schedule or list right after the children are off to school. However, I have found starting your day with a “Nightly Routine Reflection” helps in setting goals. Have a tablet in a handy place. Write down everything you would like to accomplish the next day. This is in addition to what you will print from you calendar. Don’t try to enlist these accomplishments to memory. A written list encourages us as we see the chores marked off.
Write a schedule with times on it. It can be hour blocks of time or half hour blocks or fifteen blocks of time. Whatever works for you use that plan in your schedule. In the first block of time, write what time you will get out of bed. Are you showering, cooking breakfast, waking the children, feeding the children, getting kids on the bus. Write down any appointments. Write down anything that will keep you on your schedule.

Creating a Cleaning System that Works

If we let cleaning our homes to chance it becomes a burden and a hassle. But, if we have it on our schedule, we just automatically do it and it becomes a way of life.
 
The laundry has always been one of my biggest catastrophes. It is a never ending job. If one item is left in the laundry room, it multiplies in no time. What has helped me the most is to get out of bed, get dressed, wake the kids, and then immediately while the kids are dressing, start the washing machine. If you only wash one load a day; everyday, which would be seven loads a week or 28 to 31 loads a month. This helps; however, I have more laundry than that. I start a load in the morning, then another at lunch, and then another at supper. That is about three loads a day.

While the children and husband is dressing, I cook breakfast and unload and load the dishwasher. While everyone is eating their breakfast, I straighten the beds; pick up loose clothes and toys. To make it easy only change one bed a day. That way you can put that color of sheets in with the same color of clothes for a whole load of wash.

After putting the children on the bus and see husband off to work, I clean the bathrooms. I don’t do a thorough cleaning everyday. Just pick up the clothes, hang the towels, and wipe down the sink and toilet. Make sure there is a hand towel, soap, and shampoo for any guest that may stop by.

That takes care of the back of the house. Now for one more room, the living room. It usually isn’t very bad. Fold the blankets and put on back of couch. Straighten the coffee tables. Carry any items back to their proper places.

I like to start dinner at this time. Yes, in the morning. My favorite is to put something in the crock pot or in the oven or electric skillet. I am so glad when dinner comes around. Nothing to think about, dinner is ready.

And now, our chores are Finished!

Now look at your list that you printed from the calendar. Are there any chores you would like to do from it? Are there any weekly chores? Maybe like vacuuming the whole house or washing windows or dusting? You can either do it now or write the chore down on your schedule for today. I pick a certain time or I will procrastinate and then I try to keep that appointment and do the chore.

Ok, we get to do our favorite thing…EBAY.

When selling on EBay, as with any other business of sales, you must keep you customers satisfied with quality service. So, first before I ever do anything on EBay I check for messages and answer all messages promptly. Second, I check for any items that may have sold and send them an invoice. Third, I check for any merchandise that has been paid for and get it in the mail before the mail man arrives. I do all this before I post anything or surf on EBay, because if I don’t hours will fly by before I know it.

What I have found very useful is the EBay calendar. It tells what day your auction will end and whether it will be a good day to start your auction. It forecasts whether it will be a good day for a 3-day, 5-day, 7-day, or 10-day auction. It shows you whether it will be a good, fair, or bad day for an auction. I check this first thing, before listing an  item. This site has the auction calendar: auctionbytes.com/Email_Newsletter/calendar/calendar.html

When I have the calendar in mind on the day that I plan to post, I plan my week.

 I like to take pictures of my items all in one day. I feel this accomplishes more than trying to take one picture, load it to the computer, then to photo bucket, and then post it. So, all day long I take pictures. The next day, I load them to my computer and put them on photo bucket.

For items I am unsure of, I like to research them on Ebay. For example, researching helps me learn what category, title, or price other Ebay sellers are using and what works well for them. I search by “completed listings” which gives you listings that have ended within the last 15 days. For example, if you type in “silver Bowl” and then click the “completed listing” button, you will come up with items that are completed or the time was up. The green $ amounts are the items that sold and the red $ amounts are the items that did not sell.

Now I am ready to post my items on Ebay. I know the category I want to list in. I know the title I will use. This is my favorite part is describing my item. I like to post lots of pictures. I take photos of the front full length view, and then back view, a photo of the label, and a close up view.

Shipping I have found and research people like it calculated for them. Calculated shipping gives your customer an exact shipping rate and saves them time and money. It is calculated according to their zip code. I like to help people save money and use the custom button for the weight. I do not like to use the 1 to 2 lbs button. The button that scrolls down to the custom button is the one I use; it lets you put the exact weight in.

As for shipping insurance, if it is clothes or something of little value I let my customer choose (optional). However, if it is breakable requiring shipping insurance is a protection for the seller.

I keep my handling charges low and try my best to find light weight materials to ship in. This helps my customers get cheaper shipping costs. One thing that I have use for shipping material and works quite well and is free….is the plastic shopping bags that come from Wal-Mart or the grocery store. I wrap three bags around my clothes and I have had no problems with the post office or not any complaints with my customers.

It quite a chore trying to keep everything organized.

What items there is to take picture of, what merchandise there is to post, what products has sold, what stock is waiting for payment,  what needs mailing, etc.

 To keep my merchandise organized, I have a box or certain corner in my house to place all my items that need ironing. I wash and iron all my products. They look better in pictures. And, customers like it when their product arrives cleaned, ironed, and nice.

 Next, after my stockpile is clean and ironed, I place these in another place. If they are clothes, they are left hanging up until I can get their pictures taken. If they are books or collectibles these are place in a safe place, but away from the items that need cleaning.

 Now, I take pictures of all the items that are clean and ironed. These are folded and put on a shelf – marked ready to post.

 After I post the ironed and cleaned items, these are placed on another shelf. This shelf is labeled – posted. Here is where these items stay until they are sold.

 When the items are sold, I package them and place them on the ready for the mail shelf and wait for the customer’s payment

 And, when I receive the customer’s payment, print the shipping label and out they go to the mail box.

You need to keep some kind of a spreadsheet-bookkeeping system, to figure out if you are making any money or not.

There are some on Ebay that you can use [url]
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/download-sales.html[/url]/ Or you can create your own. I designed my own using Excel. I like to keep track of: Date posted, Date sold, Item number, Price sold, Ebay Insertion fee, Ebay Final fee, Paypal fee, Actual shipping/handling, Ebay Reinsertion fee, Total made, Number viewers, Number different viewers, Shipping/handling charged. This way you will see what items you are selling well and which items you may not want to promote.

Decide how much time you want to invest in selling on Ebay. Then, write this on your schedule. Try to stick to the scheduled time. In my case, I try to finish, at least a half hour to one hour before my children get off the bus. During that time if I haven’t started dinner I start it now. My children like to eat there supper right after they get off the bus. So I try to have it ready. That way they don’t get into the snacks, chips, and dips.

I try to stick to this schedule and not get back on Ebay after my children get home. They like my undivided attention and we do homework or visit.

Couple hours later, husband gets home from work. He unloads his pockets and gets comfortable. I get his supper ready and he eats it. We talk about the day and watch TV or read a good book.

Then, it is bath time and getting ready for bed. I like to have the children lay their school clothes out and check their back packs for the next days school work. It makes the morning go a lot smoother.

Improve your relationship and self-esteem with your family

By not letting the computer or Ebay take over your whole life will improve your relationship with your spouse and family. By deciding what is important in your life. What should come first in your life? By deciding how much time you would like to spend on each activity and writing it down and trying your best to follow will help tremendously. Not only will your family appreciate you, but your own self-esteem will improve. You will accomplish more each day.

When our houses are disorganized, our EBay’s is unsystematic, and when the laundry is jumbled, t makes a chaotic life. Just by a simple schedule can improve your quality of life. Remember, it begins by starting out the night with a “nightly reflection routine” and waking up each morning with a “Good Morning World” and with a plan in hand and a goal to stick to the schedule will make you a better woman or man, mother or father, wife or husband. You won’t feel stressed out to race to put out the fires. 

Improve your health

Somewhere in all this we have to schedule in some exercise. It does not have to be a lot of time. It does not have to be strenuous exercise. A simple walk, a video, a swim, or a gym is all that is needed. But we all need to schedule at least 30 minutes every other day. I like to pop in a video. I have several videos that I rotate. Some days I don’t get in a whole tape. I just stop it and pick up where I left off next time. But if you don’t schedule in exercise, as with anything else, it will get left out.

As I tell my son, the only thing that is in good shape is his fingers. He likes to play the online virtual computer games. So let’s not let our fingers get skinny from typing, let’s work on our whole bodies…

Summary…
While we try to pace our lives…we never have time for everything… we never can accomplish everything we planned to do…But we can create a simple schedule. we can create organization…we can get organized whether it be in our homes or Ebay…Hopefully some of this information can be of use to you…Just unclutter your life and get organized

Sandra's Acre

http://stores.ebay.com/sandras-Acre?refid=store
 
Sandra's Acre eBay Express

http://search.ebay.com/merchant/SandrasAcre

Sandra's Acre My World
http://myworld.ebay.com/SandrasAcre
 
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I would likt to thank you for taking your time to read "Organizing Your Life on Ebay".

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