Now I have 1 defect out of 111 sales and the percentage is 90%. That little green bar keeps moving left - closer to above average. Shouldn't the little green bar be moving right - closer to 100%? Why is it the more sales I have, the worse my percentage? I'm totally confused......(And I'm still mad about that 3 anyway, Who leaves positive glowing feedback and wants to buy again and loves the purchase - then gives a 3 for not as described. The bar gets better as it moves to the left. Moving to the right means you are closer to the 2% defect level that would ruin your TRS standing. 1 out of 105 is .95%, one out of 111 is a lower percentage (in this case.90%) because the total is higher but you still only have one defect. The more transactions you have without a defect, the lower the percentage will be.
You can drive yourself nuts worrying about it, so just do the best you can and take it day by day. I should know, it drives me completely nuts.
Freitag, 2. Mai 2014
Check the Water Before You Brew Kona Coffee
Customers call us and tell us that Hula Daddy Kona Coffee doesn't taste as good at their house as it did on our plantation. The difference isn't geography it is the water.
Ninety-eight percent of a cup of coffee is water. If the right water is in the brewer the flavor of great coffee comes through. There are as many as 315 different minerals and chemical compounds that are distributed to consumers in city water supplies. If your brewing water contains hard chemicals, chlorine or organic matter it is going to affect that taste of your coffee.
Perfect Coffee Brewing Water
The Speciality Coffee Association of America (SCAA) recommends brewing coffee in water that contains 150 parts per million of total dissolved solids, 5 grains of hardness and a PH close to 7. Also the water should be free of calcium, magnesium, chlorine, iron, organic compounds and foreign odors and flavors.
You could send a sample of your water to a laboratory, but that isn't necessary. If you call your city water department or your bottled water distributor they will give you a written report on their water quality. The city water is going to fail because it has chlorine in it. Your bottled water should be close to the SCAA requirements.
Use a Water Filter
If you do not want to use bottled water another choice is filtered water. However, all water filters are not created equal. Check the manufacturers specifications and make sure that the filter creates water close to the SCAA recommendations. Many filter remove odors and organic material but do not get out the hard chemicals.
Reverse osmosis filters do a great job of taking everything out of the water. However, you do not want everything out. RO water, just like distilled water, tends to be flat and uninteresting. RO water does not make great coffee. There are commercial additives that you can add back into RO water to make it more like spring water.
Water softeners add salts to the water and will change the flavor of the coffee. Do not brew coffee with water from a water softener.
Taste Your Water
The simplest test for water is to taste it. If the water tastes like spring or bottled water, it should be good for coffee. If it tastes like chlorine or has an off flavor it will affect your coffee.
Good Kona coffee is expensive. Brewing gourmet coffee with bad water is a waste of money. Use great water and great coffee beans to make a great cup of coffee.
Ninety-eight percent of a cup of coffee is water. If the right water is in the brewer the flavor of great coffee comes through. There are as many as 315 different minerals and chemical compounds that are distributed to consumers in city water supplies. If your brewing water contains hard chemicals, chlorine or organic matter it is going to affect that taste of your coffee.
Perfect Coffee Brewing Water
The Speciality Coffee Association of America (SCAA) recommends brewing coffee in water that contains 150 parts per million of total dissolved solids, 5 grains of hardness and a PH close to 7. Also the water should be free of calcium, magnesium, chlorine, iron, organic compounds and foreign odors and flavors.
You could send a sample of your water to a laboratory, but that isn't necessary. If you call your city water department or your bottled water distributor they will give you a written report on their water quality. The city water is going to fail because it has chlorine in it. Your bottled water should be close to the SCAA requirements.
Use a Water Filter
If you do not want to use bottled water another choice is filtered water. However, all water filters are not created equal. Check the manufacturers specifications and make sure that the filter creates water close to the SCAA recommendations. Many filter remove odors and organic material but do not get out the hard chemicals.
Reverse osmosis filters do a great job of taking everything out of the water. However, you do not want everything out. RO water, just like distilled water, tends to be flat and uninteresting. RO water does not make great coffee. There are commercial additives that you can add back into RO water to make it more like spring water.
Water softeners add salts to the water and will change the flavor of the coffee. Do not brew coffee with water from a water softener.
Taste Your Water
The simplest test for water is to taste it. If the water tastes like spring or bottled water, it should be good for coffee. If it tastes like chlorine or has an off flavor it will affect your coffee.
Good Kona coffee is expensive. Brewing gourmet coffee with bad water is a waste of money. Use great water and great coffee beans to make a great cup of coffee.
Well in all my years I have never seen anything like this
I just sold a size 2T lot of summer clothes last week. I shipped them out last week and the box arrived today at the buyers house. This is the email I got from the woman. ""Box was damaged in shipping, and was completely empty when the postman brought it to my door. It had a sticker on it from post office saying box was damaged and no contents when it arrived in Lafayette, Indiana." I asked her for a further description and she wrote back "The bottom of the box was open and one side was torn open, looks like it was run over by a truck and exploded." And guess what everyone... I didn't purchase insurance so I'm s*** out of luck even though it's clearly the fault of USPS. Now I owe her $120.00 because she has alreayd filed a claim with ebay and they have put a hold on my funds. So no matter what I'm out of that money. I guess I am rusty at ebay.... I haven't really been an active seller in a few years. What a wonderful welcome back! Big reality check. I guess I have been lucky all the previous years becasue I never purchased insurance and never had an issue buying or receiving my items. Live and learn.
I'm guessing you sent it Parcel Select instead of Priority? Had it gone Priority, you would have automatically had $50 worth of insurance ($100 if TRS).
This is not just one of eBay's edicts from on high, but it is an actual commerce regulation or something like that. Your chosen carrier is your hired transport agent. As such, you the seller are held responsible for any loss or damage that occurs while the product is in the care of your agent. Since this happened before the delivery scan was made, and the agent made a note of the package damage that happened in transit, all you can do is refund your buyer the full amount paid.
I'm guessing you sent it Parcel Select instead of Priority? Had it gone Priority, you would have automatically had $50 worth of insurance ($100 if TRS).
This is not just one of eBay's edicts from on high, but it is an actual commerce regulation or something like that. Your chosen carrier is your hired transport agent. As such, you the seller are held responsible for any loss or damage that occurs while the product is in the care of your agent. Since this happened before the delivery scan was made, and the agent made a note of the package damage that happened in transit, all you can do is refund your buyer the full amount paid.
What Our Clothing Standars Are That We Sell
We take the time and make it a personal effort to hand sort all of our clothing items piece by piece. We look for any and all kinds of defects that we can get rid of so we can ensure quality with every item we sell. This is the only way to stand behind every item we sell. We do not carry inventory with signs of wash wear, balling, holes, color fading, missing buttons, broken zippers, stains of any kind, disintegrated elastic, worn out seams and broken hem lines. We consider those kinds of items damaged goods and do not get passed the trash can. If an item is something we ourselves would not wear, then that type of an item never even hits our store. When we buy our clothing we do not go through just one pair of eyes we have two of us inspecting each item. My husband and I inspect items separately to ensure quality. Trust me this can get tedious as what I think is wash wear my husband does not always agree with me and vice versa. So if either one of us sees wash wear of any kind we get rid of it. As we both have learned what one person considers wash wear another may not. We know looking good means feeling good, and that only comes from quality control.
We know style matters too so we strive to have nothing but the latest name brands, latest fashion trends, even a few retro throwback styles, and classic favorites that everyone loves to wear. We only keep in stock clothing that is new with tags, new without tags, or like new items. Any of our items that we deem pre-owned or in gently used condition is clothing that looks like it has never been worn although could have been washed once. We like to keep items moving out the door and outdated styles just sit on a store shelf. By hand selecting our inventory this helps us keep in style items available directly to you. With us having strict standards that we inspect our items for we keep a smaller volume of inventory, although we are always on the lookout for too good to pass up deals.
Some Of The Things We Look Out For
Shirt Snag
This always happens to our favorite shirts, they catch onto something and before you know it we pull back on the material and create snag! This is just one blemish that is really not one that can’t be fixed. They are the easiest damages to spot.
Balling
Clothing Defects & Understanding The Lingo!
Balling, something that looks like small balls of lint that sticks to clothing from the previous rub wear while garment being worn. What actually is happening is the fabric wearing out, breaking down of its material layers from heavy wash and wear life of the garment. This can occur in the crotch of dress slacks, lightweight pants, cotton items, armpit areas of certain materials, and certain sweaters will shed the balling effect just after one washing. The manufacturers care label of every item really does count!
Washer Takes A Bite On Cotton
Some of the new thinner lightweight cottons are getting holes right from inside of a washer machine. All it takes is one stress line within the new lighter material and it doesn't take long for the washing machine to start to pull the material apart.
Useful Wear Life
Do you know when it’s time to retire the favorite pair of jeans or other favorite piece of clothing from use? If any of these wear indicators appear, you know what you have to do it’s time to retire them.
We retire old clothes from use if the clothing:
Is torn, ripped, threadbare or frayed around the edges (see images below).
Is stained with a flammable substance that cannot be removed through laundering (see image on right above). If exposed to flame or electric arc, flammable soil could ignite and continue to burn – even though the garment itself won’t burn.
Has had contact with bleach.
Has any kind of yellowing in the collar, or underarm areas. This is usually perspiration stains from heavy sweating and nothing gets that stain out.
Has a frayed collar, frayed cuffs or torn, open or frayed seams (see images below).
What We Do Keep
NWT & NWOT WHAT?
Any item that is new with tags is abbreviated into NWT's. Some items are listed as NWOT which is shorthand for new without tags.
Some Are Meant To Look That Way
A style that never seems to be "out" is the distressed look which can be from anything like the ripped up look to the faded vintage look. Then there is the acid wash where colors look streaked. Distressed clothing is actually made by manufacturers. Jeans and Tee shirts now have this modern style!
Gently Pre-owned
There is a lot of good quality clothing that is in gently used condition that has been worn previously. Gently pre-owned clothing to our standards are items that look like they have been worn once although not more than four times previously. The pieces of used clothing do not have color fading or appear fuzzy, they are stain free, with no missing buttons, no rips or tears, no holes, no seam wear, no snags, no wash wear, free of hem wear, and free of bad odors! Gently used clothing items that has fair use wear meaning the item has a lot of quality wear life left is something that we consider for our inventory.
We know style matters too so we strive to have nothing but the latest name brands, latest fashion trends, even a few retro throwback styles, and classic favorites that everyone loves to wear. We only keep in stock clothing that is new with tags, new without tags, or like new items. Any of our items that we deem pre-owned or in gently used condition is clothing that looks like it has never been worn although could have been washed once. We like to keep items moving out the door and outdated styles just sit on a store shelf. By hand selecting our inventory this helps us keep in style items available directly to you. With us having strict standards that we inspect our items for we keep a smaller volume of inventory, although we are always on the lookout for too good to pass up deals.
Some Of The Things We Look Out For
Shirt Snag
This always happens to our favorite shirts, they catch onto something and before you know it we pull back on the material and create snag! This is just one blemish that is really not one that can’t be fixed. They are the easiest damages to spot.
Balling
Clothing Defects & Understanding The Lingo!
Balling, something that looks like small balls of lint that sticks to clothing from the previous rub wear while garment being worn. What actually is happening is the fabric wearing out, breaking down of its material layers from heavy wash and wear life of the garment. This can occur in the crotch of dress slacks, lightweight pants, cotton items, armpit areas of certain materials, and certain sweaters will shed the balling effect just after one washing. The manufacturers care label of every item really does count!
Washer Takes A Bite On Cotton
Some of the new thinner lightweight cottons are getting holes right from inside of a washer machine. All it takes is one stress line within the new lighter material and it doesn't take long for the washing machine to start to pull the material apart.
Useful Wear Life
Do you know when it’s time to retire the favorite pair of jeans or other favorite piece of clothing from use? If any of these wear indicators appear, you know what you have to do it’s time to retire them.
We retire old clothes from use if the clothing:
Is torn, ripped, threadbare or frayed around the edges (see images below).
Is stained with a flammable substance that cannot be removed through laundering (see image on right above). If exposed to flame or electric arc, flammable soil could ignite and continue to burn – even though the garment itself won’t burn.
Has had contact with bleach.
Has any kind of yellowing in the collar, or underarm areas. This is usually perspiration stains from heavy sweating and nothing gets that stain out.
Has a frayed collar, frayed cuffs or torn, open or frayed seams (see images below).
What We Do Keep
NWT & NWOT WHAT?
Any item that is new with tags is abbreviated into NWT's. Some items are listed as NWOT which is shorthand for new without tags.
Some Are Meant To Look That Way
A style that never seems to be "out" is the distressed look which can be from anything like the ripped up look to the faded vintage look. Then there is the acid wash where colors look streaked. Distressed clothing is actually made by manufacturers. Jeans and Tee shirts now have this modern style!
Gently Pre-owned
There is a lot of good quality clothing that is in gently used condition that has been worn previously. Gently pre-owned clothing to our standards are items that look like they have been worn once although not more than four times previously. The pieces of used clothing do not have color fading or appear fuzzy, they are stain free, with no missing buttons, no rips or tears, no holes, no seam wear, no snags, no wash wear, free of hem wear, and free of bad odors! Gently used clothing items that has fair use wear meaning the item has a lot of quality wear life left is something that we consider for our inventory.
I am already marked up 10 to 20 times my cost depending on the competitiveness of the items
There are hundreds of sellers selling the same items. Most of them are fairly lax in there approach.
The reason my numbers jumped this month is because I did an aggressive promotion using the Increase your order size tool. You have seen listing where it says Buy 4 and save an additional 25%. This is the tool that I used. I also created a flier that is printed on the back side of the buyer packing slip, which has also resulted in many buyers coming back for more purchases.
At my starting prices I am neither the lowest price or the highest, but I am very fairly priced. So I do get a lot of single item orders, because well if they took the time to find my item, open it, read anything in the description, then it is worth it just to buy it at this point. I do not oversell it, but I do provide some info that no other seller of the items are doing, which lends itself quite well to the buyers of these items.
What I was trying to do and had some success is turning those single item buyers into multiply item buyers. I changed some wording and formatted listings better for mobile devices. Used lots of bullet points, added internal links to similar items, explained to them different ways to use the product, all of which was designed to give the potential buyers a reason to buy now.
The reason my numbers jumped this month is because I did an aggressive promotion using the Increase your order size tool. You have seen listing where it says Buy 4 and save an additional 25%. This is the tool that I used. I also created a flier that is printed on the back side of the buyer packing slip, which has also resulted in many buyers coming back for more purchases.
At my starting prices I am neither the lowest price or the highest, but I am very fairly priced. So I do get a lot of single item orders, because well if they took the time to find my item, open it, read anything in the description, then it is worth it just to buy it at this point. I do not oversell it, but I do provide some info that no other seller of the items are doing, which lends itself quite well to the buyers of these items.
What I was trying to do and had some success is turning those single item buyers into multiply item buyers. I changed some wording and formatted listings better for mobile devices. Used lots of bullet points, added internal links to similar items, explained to them different ways to use the product, all of which was designed to give the potential buyers a reason to buy now.
May I Say His Stinking Thinking Has Turned Ebay Into What Is Today Feebay...
Hoarding Billions Out of the Country...Now Paying Billions To Bring It Back...
Shares Are Down...New Sellers Policy Is Nothing But a Criminal Act...
Giving The Power To Bad Buyers... And Unsuspecting Buyers Just Asking a Question...
His Mantra Is "If You Can't Dazzle With Brilliance" "Baffle Them With BS"...
I've Been On a Thinking Quest As Well John And I'm On To You...That's a bizarre article. Isn't he supposed to be working rather than writing puff pieces to stroke his ego. The only reason he wrote it was to check daily the comments and monitor how many people kissed his pitoot.
The comments are pathetic, watching people pet his leg. Half are hoping to get a job at eBay, the other half peddling their services.
By far the most LOL moment I had was seeing where it said:
(Photo credit: John Donahoe)
I wonder if JD closed the door, mounted a Canon Powershot on a tripod, then spent an entire morning getting the photo just right. Ah, the time one can waste when he's the boss. I hope he used his "thinking day" for this silliness.
P.S. He did not say anything that inspiring. That's how you can tell all those people were stroking him. Anyone with an ounce of business sense or street smarts would have graded this article a "C" (at most).
P.P.S. I pity his staff. You just know he passed this around and asked "Now give me your honest opinion." The poor folks had to fake it, fake it real good. "Oh John, this is one of the most inspiring things I have ever read. I taped it to my fridge. And I dictated it as an MP3 file. I play it on the commute to work, every day, to and from."
Shares Are Down...New Sellers Policy Is Nothing But a Criminal Act...
Giving The Power To Bad Buyers... And Unsuspecting Buyers Just Asking a Question...
His Mantra Is "If You Can't Dazzle With Brilliance" "Baffle Them With BS"...
I've Been On a Thinking Quest As Well John And I'm On To You...That's a bizarre article. Isn't he supposed to be working rather than writing puff pieces to stroke his ego. The only reason he wrote it was to check daily the comments and monitor how many people kissed his pitoot.
The comments are pathetic, watching people pet his leg. Half are hoping to get a job at eBay, the other half peddling their services.
By far the most LOL moment I had was seeing where it said:
(Photo credit: John Donahoe)
I wonder if JD closed the door, mounted a Canon Powershot on a tripod, then spent an entire morning getting the photo just right. Ah, the time one can waste when he's the boss. I hope he used his "thinking day" for this silliness.
P.S. He did not say anything that inspiring. That's how you can tell all those people were stroking him. Anyone with an ounce of business sense or street smarts would have graded this article a "C" (at most).
P.P.S. I pity his staff. You just know he passed this around and asked "Now give me your honest opinion." The poor folks had to fake it, fake it real good. "Oh John, this is one of the most inspiring things I have ever read. I taped it to my fridge. And I dictated it as an MP3 file. I play it on the commute to work, every day, to and from."
I used to get so excited when I had a watcher or two on my auction items
When you are a new or "hungry" seller, it still takes a while to ignore watchers. Then you look at the seller central boards and learn the reason why "not to" pay any attention to "watchers. True words, some are fellow sellers, looking for sales and pricing like kind items they have to sell, some are the no $ (wish book lookers). Some are who knows what, not buyers, that's for sure.
Then, in a moment of sheer madness, when you look at your last 90 days of no sales, you will see a pattern. Some of your items, which had watchers, also had a larger than normal amount of page views. This is an important indicator.
Even though most say that "watchers" never count, when accompanied by a higher than normal page view history. Well, RELIST IT!.
i wait to relist these when there are "free" listings available. I don't have a store, so I have to ration my listings. My experience has been that 1/2of these sell within the next 6 weeks. Instead of being a part of the mess that makes you hit the "relist" button for all of your listings that did not sell after many tries. Just try to trott outthe ones with previous "watchers" and higher page counts.
Don't just keep bangin on the relist button if your item is obviously not drawing any watchers or views. That is just contributing to the mess of listings we are trying to get out from under. Group like kind items, restructure price or pull it until the season (time of year) is better for selling that particular item.
I like to share my experiences, and what is working for me. Hope it helps.
I re-list everything I have, over and over and over if I have to.
Each time I re-list, I mark down every time until it sells.
Because of that practice, I'm a power seller. I don't consider my listings that aren't getting as many views as others contributing to a 'mess' of listings. I make around 1k PLUS a month and typically sell every day to every other day.
That's not a lot to some people, but to me, it's that little extra a month I need in my pocket.
I pay very close attention to watchers, and also views. If I notice something isn't getting a lot of views, rather than just not re-list it,
I re-think the way I have marketed that item. Is the title not broad enough, am I using the wrong keywords, etc.?
Most people who aren't getting views aren't getting views because their titles and listings need a lot of work,
not becuase the item itself isn't worth re-listing. Not to mention their photography is so awful most buyers avoid even looking.
That's my personal opinion.I guess it just depends on what you're selling.
I'm very new to this whole thing, that is to say in my first year of selling. So sort of in my 'experimental' stages trying
to find what works for me. Even though I'm in my first year, I STILL consider myself a newbie. I tried to get advice on these boards way back and ended up with nothing but snarky replies and exchanges with rude so called 'Ebay veterans' ready to snap at anything to make themselves feel more empowered I guess. Therefore, I can DEFINITELY support any sort of thread geared at helping newcomers out. I know what it's like to deal with the sharks around here first hand. But since getting in a little experience, I love to help out whoever I can, for whatever my short experience is worth.
So I'm having my hand at a little bit of anything and eveything, and its turned out alright. My real goal is to double my profits, but I realize I'm going to have to find my niche before that happens. It's a tough game on Ebay! Definitely not for every one. It takes patience, and a willingness to evolve/change and LEARN! You see many who don't even try. They just keep going the same ol' route and making the same complaints time and time again... Btw, nice to meet you!!!
Then, in a moment of sheer madness, when you look at your last 90 days of no sales, you will see a pattern. Some of your items, which had watchers, also had a larger than normal amount of page views. This is an important indicator.
Even though most say that "watchers" never count, when accompanied by a higher than normal page view history. Well, RELIST IT!.
i wait to relist these when there are "free" listings available. I don't have a store, so I have to ration my listings. My experience has been that 1/2of these sell within the next 6 weeks. Instead of being a part of the mess that makes you hit the "relist" button for all of your listings that did not sell after many tries. Just try to trott outthe ones with previous "watchers" and higher page counts.
Don't just keep bangin on the relist button if your item is obviously not drawing any watchers or views. That is just contributing to the mess of listings we are trying to get out from under. Group like kind items, restructure price or pull it until the season (time of year) is better for selling that particular item.
I like to share my experiences, and what is working for me. Hope it helps.
I re-list everything I have, over and over and over if I have to.
Each time I re-list, I mark down every time until it sells.
Because of that practice, I'm a power seller. I don't consider my listings that aren't getting as many views as others contributing to a 'mess' of listings. I make around 1k PLUS a month and typically sell every day to every other day.
That's not a lot to some people, but to me, it's that little extra a month I need in my pocket.
I pay very close attention to watchers, and also views. If I notice something isn't getting a lot of views, rather than just not re-list it,
I re-think the way I have marketed that item. Is the title not broad enough, am I using the wrong keywords, etc.?
Most people who aren't getting views aren't getting views because their titles and listings need a lot of work,
not becuase the item itself isn't worth re-listing. Not to mention their photography is so awful most buyers avoid even looking.
That's my personal opinion.I guess it just depends on what you're selling.
I'm very new to this whole thing, that is to say in my first year of selling. So sort of in my 'experimental' stages trying
to find what works for me. Even though I'm in my first year, I STILL consider myself a newbie. I tried to get advice on these boards way back and ended up with nothing but snarky replies and exchanges with rude so called 'Ebay veterans' ready to snap at anything to make themselves feel more empowered I guess. Therefore, I can DEFINITELY support any sort of thread geared at helping newcomers out. I know what it's like to deal with the sharks around here first hand. But since getting in a little experience, I love to help out whoever I can, for whatever my short experience is worth.
So I'm having my hand at a little bit of anything and eveything, and its turned out alright. My real goal is to double my profits, but I realize I'm going to have to find my niche before that happens. It's a tough game on Ebay! Definitely not for every one. It takes patience, and a willingness to evolve/change and LEARN! You see many who don't even try. They just keep going the same ol' route and making the same complaints time and time again... Btw, nice to meet you!!!
Abonnieren
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