Projects Possible

As Earth Day (04/22) approaches, the city of Seattle is making the news with their announcement this month of a PLAN to begin taxing paper and plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores.  The plan calls for a $.20 cent tax on each bag that you use.  The idea being that with the money raised Seattle would be able to provide everyone in the city with a reusable grocery bag and perhaps other recycling programs.

I’m all for making the environment a better place for everyone but really $.20 for each bag you need?  Surely there must be a better plan that could be put into place.  I know when I head to the grocery store for my weeks worth of shopping the 1 bag that Seattle is going to give me isn’t going to even come close to what I need to get my groceries out of the store. And the reusable bags… our local grocery store charges somewhere in the neighborhood of $.99 for each of them.   For me not an issue - but what about those (think fixed income, and poor) that don’t have an extra buck laying around… not to mention an extra $10 or $15.  Every penny counts when you live paycheck to paycheck.

Why can’t we go down the road of personal choice instead of taxation?  Have the stores give me a rebate each time I bring my bags in for re-use.  $.20 seems rather extreme but even a few cents each time provides me with the incentive to bring them from home and to remember to bring them into the store when I get there.  Another tax is not the solution.  My current grocery store is doing this now and while I don’t know the success or how the program is funded I certainly made the choice to purchase the reusable bags.

Another question I have about this tax… who administers it?  Are they going to create a whole new department that has its set of overhead?  Perhaps that is why it needs to be $.20, they need to pay for the administration and enforcement of the program.   Not to mention the burden on the merchants for reporting, and payment.

Final question… you ever drive down the highway and notice how many pop cans, and beer bottles there are tossed out the window?  If you want to make a serious dent in recycling why doesn’t the state require (as other states do) a deposit on every bottle and can sold?  If you have to pay an extra $.60 for a six pack of beer you are much more likely to save the cans so that you can get your $.60 back… and if you don’t someone will.

"Green" is a great idea… but I think this tax goes too far too early in the "go green" mentality that is starting to make inroads not only with individuals but with corporate America.  Taxing people turns them off.  I don’t see this tax as doing anything different.

With the latest break in our weather - We’re actually seeing 50+ degrees which is quite nice since we’ve had like the 10th or 11th worst winter on record. - I’ve been looking for a new pair of hiking boots.  Now I must say that clothing and shoes are not something that I purchase much via the Internet but I did come across the Cavender’s website where you can not only purchase all types of western wear, but for me the draw was in their boot and shoe selection.   I’ve always liked Justin and Ariat boots and they’ve got a perfect pair of hiking boots on their site.  To really set the hook they also offer FREE shipping on orders over $50.00 AND on their footwear FREE return shipping if I need it.  I’m ready for a nice mountain hike…and I may be purchasing my first pair of boots from the Internet!

I never could quite grasp the concept of sending our children out to pawn candy bars, wrapping paper, tea, etc… just so they could earn money for the latest and greatest “program” at school.   I must say I am a sucker and I will usually pry out of my wallet the $3 dollars they are asking for $.50 cents worth of chocolate.  But there just has to be a better way.

Schoolpop is a company that has come up with a solution.  As America’s #1 tuition crediting and school fundraising program, Schoolpop has built a program designed around what you already do…shop!  If you happen to shop at any of their merchants those merchants will give a percentage or a dollar amount back to the school of your choosing.   In just a few minutes of looking through their merchant list I found 3 merchants that I had purchased from just this week.  Merchants that would have sent almost $18.00 back to our local school.

To contribute to school fundraising programs all you need to do is go to the website, join, and shop.   You can certainly optimize your shopping by registering your debit cards and shopping at participating local merchants and they do have a  Schoolpop Visa card that offers an additional 1% of purchases, but none of these things are required.If your kids are getting ready to head out on a begging mission for a school project or activity, I would suggest that you give Schoolpop a look.  It may not stop the begging mission from happening but is will certainly make it so they don’t have to beg quite as hard?

Another in my series of Valentines Day Shopping Posts…

There is a LOT that I like about Overstock.com… $2.95 shipping, incredible selection, crisp clean website, and the ease of use. If you are not sure what to get someone for Valentine’s day and your going to be doing some shopping online then I would suggest that you spend just a few minutes on their website looking through the categories.  If you didn’t have ideas before, you’ll come away with more than you know what to do with.

Just for Valentines day Overtock.com has also decided to run a contest.  Overstock.com’s “Game O Love”will begin on Jan 25th and run to February 11th. The only thing that would make Overtock.com any better for your Valentine shopping needs is if you could get that Valentine gift for free!  To enter the Game O Love click on the link and follow the instructions. Remember the contest doesn’t begin until the 25th but you can jump over early, enter your email address and get a nice reminder when the game is ready to go.

Details of the contest are still a bit sketchy on the website but I’ve already picked out a nice watch and a tungsten ring that I think I’d like to have.  If the description found at the bottom of the contest page is any indication my sweetheart will be able to win these prizes for me with “Force”.  I wonder how that will play out.   You can bet I will be checking back to find out.

Take a peek at  Overtock.com’s Valentine’s Day Game

If you are a user of Auctiva I am curious to hear your feedback about this auction management system.  I have a number of items that I am going to want to put on eBay and after searching through listings on eBay itself to see what people are using Auctiva came up quite a bit.  I can’t help but wonder if free is the reason.  

I did create an Auctiva account and for the most part things seem to be relatively simple.  They do image hosting, have auction templates and a scrolling list of your eBay items.   What I didn’t see was how the process works with your buyers and what the post auction management and reporting are like.   I’m looking for your insight folks.   In a previous post I made I was looking for seller software.  No one had any suggestions to offer.  Certainly there must be someone in the blog community that is a seller on eBay and has recommendations.

Another post in my continuing series of Valentine day gift ideas….

As Valentine’s day approaches jewelry is always on the potential gift list for your significant other. The problem that I have always had with buying jewelry is dealing with the shops. With the influx in online shopping it is quite easy to find diamond jewelers online, the question then becomes one of quality. Ciara Diamonds is in the process of launching their website and they are offering a unique guarantee that I haven’t seen on jewelry sites before. They call it their 3 year Insurance Guarantee and basically they are saying that if you become dissatisfied with your purchase anytime within 3 years of purchase you can return it at the value you paid for it. The guarantee helps make online diamond shopping risk free.  Watch for the website grand opening… you can buy diamonds online with confidence!

The convenience of online shopping is something that I absolutely love, and as Valentines day approaches I will probably be looking at making some kind of a purchase for my wife on the Internet.  There is a great website that offers online shopping coupons.  CouponChief.com can provide you with a discount coupon for some of your favorite shopping destinations - only now you can shop online. 

As I looked through the site I found coupons for roses at and even coupons for major department stores like . Perhaps you’d like to shop for something a little less traditional.  There’s a Travelocity Coupon for 250.00 shipboard credit on a cruise or a Home Depot Coupon for a discount on a Whirlpool.   The possibilities are endless.  It’s also a great place to get ideas if you, like me just never know what to get.

If online shopping is in your plan for Valentines day… Might want to check out the Coupon Chief.

I have been a seller on eBay for a number of years and have dabbled a little bit with books on Amazon.  What I am looking for now is some GOOD auction management software.    I’ve tried quite a few different things in both the online and local environments including: Merlin, Auctionwatch, Auctionworks, Mr.Lister, and Shooting Star among others.   In all cases they each had features that were great but for this casual eBay seller I was finding they were or became too expensive to run, or they just didn’t have what I needed to do the types of auctions I wanted to perform.

So lets get into that… What kinds of auctions do I run?  I think this is critical question to ask when you are determining the software that you want to run.  For example if you have an item or two and you only sell those items do you need to have the full blown package complete with inventory management?  I’d guess not but then each seller likes to run things differently.

My items include:  flea market and estate sale items, collectibles, home decor (50-60 items that can be stocked, ordered and drop-shipped), overstocks and returns, basically a real eclectic mix of things.

For me the critical things are:

1.  An inventory management system.   I have many items that I have in multiples that can be re-ordered, and others that are of the one time purchase variety.  Because I am a “data hound” and I never know when I might be able to get the items again I want to be able to keep track of all of the inventory and then list to the auction sites from my available inventory to sell.  I also want to be able to run a “storefront” for the item that I currently have in stock.

2.  Seamless integration with the auction site’sg checkout including integration with Paypal.  I don’t want my buyers to wonder what is happening in the checkout process.  I don’t want them to be redirected to some OTHER place and wonder if they are being spoofed.  

3.  At a glance status or dashboard would be nice.   I want to know how all of my auction are doing… Not only the ones that are running, but the ones that are complete.  Am I waiting on payment, do I need to ship, am I waiting for checks to clear, do I need to post feedback, has feedback been posted for me, etc??

4.  Scheduled listing.  I don’t want to have to babysit the process of listing items.   If today I want to list 30 items for sale I’d like to be able to schedule which of those items I would like to list and on which auction venues and just forget about it.  

5.  Financial reporting.   I need to know what the items cost (from my vendor) , the listing fees (auction venue) , the selling fees (Paypal, auction venue), the selling price (buyer), shipping charges charged, shipping charges paid, packaging materials, insurance, etc. etc. etc….  I need to be able to know if after all is said and done with an item whether there was any profit made on the item and if so how much.   An export of this P&L information would be helpful to other accounting software like Quickbooks as well.

6.  Image management.   I don’t necessarily care if there is hosting of images but the ability to upload, delete, and include image links in the auction listings would be important.  For any item there could be any number of pictures and being able to tell the items story with pictures is extremely helpful.

7.  Flexible auction templates.  I would like my auctions to look professional and include a lot of “standard information” like return policy, shipping policy, terms and conditions, etc.. but I would also like the flexible information to be fully integrated so that the auction as a whole looks like one complete “flyer” of information.

8.  Storefront.  I’d like to run my own based on what is in my inventory.   Just because it isn’t on auction doesn’t mean I won’t sell it.  I’d like to make all of my in-stock items be available to buyers.  Preferably as part of my auction management solution, not as part of the auction site.  (ie.  Not a fan of eBay Stores)

So what have you all found that can help me out here?   I’d be interested in links to reviews, your own personal choices and observations, any information you have at all..

On eBay, sniping (the act of bidding on auctions at the very last minute) has become the normal mode of operation for many buyers.  A sniper will use an automated program to swoop in within the last few seconds of the auction to place a bid.  The practice has been debated on the web many times and certainly eBay could stop the practice quite easily but the fact remains that it still exists and depending on your bidding habits you may want to jump on the bandwagon.

The gixen.com website allows you to jump on the sniping bandwagon and it is absolutely free.   They do offer a subscription “mirror” service which will virtually guarantee that your bid will be placed but in my test the bid was placed just fine and while I didn’t win (more on that later) I found Gixen to be one of the easiest sniping services that I have tried.

Basically you go to their site, enter your eBay credentials, enter the item number to bid on and your bid and you are done.  It is that simple.  You can then forget about remembering to place your bid… Gixen will do it for you within seconds of the auction close.

A couple of things to keep in mind with eBay bidding and snipe tools…

1. eBay will auto-bid up to the bidders maximum so waiting until the last few seconds of an auction to bid really is no guarantee that some previous bidder has NOT entered a higher maximum bid than your maximum snipe bid.  Remember is isn’t the last bid that wins it is the highest bid and you should absolutely make sure that you always bid the maximum that you are willing to pay.  (Keep those shipping charges in mind too!)
2. Snipe tools may sometimes encounter eBay dialogs or pop-ups that they were not programmed to handle.  If you absolutely positively want to bid on an item you should do it manually.  I have read in a few places now that eBay is asking people to update passwords when they login.  A snipe tool isn’t going to be able to bid if this happens. 
3. Keep in mind the eBay bidding rules… Snipe tools have to follow them as well.  You can’t expect it to place a snipe bid for you if your snipe bid amount is lower than the current bid, or if your snipe bid is not higher than eBay’s next bid increment.  (Remember eBay requires your minimum bid to be at least one increment above the current bid and this increment depends on what the current bid amount is at the time you place your bid.)
4. Set it and forget it… at least until you win.  Remember you are responsible for all bidding even if you happen to forget that you place a snipe request and then later find a better deal but forget to cancel the snipe.  If you win the auction you need to pay for the item!

While Gixen is a great tool and increasing in popularity every day, sniping really is a phenomenon that is tied to bidder preference and education.  As I state above… eBay will auto bid up to a bidder’s maximum bid amount.  The idea behind a snipe is that you are going to swoop in at the end and place your bid before some previous bidder has time to re-bid for a higher amount.  You are basically gambling that the previous bidders either don’t know how eBay’s bidding works, or that they decide at the very end as the bidding activity increases that they should increase their bid.  

I think eBay is doing a much better job now at trying to get people to enter their maximum bid and explaining how the bidding process works.  You see it in their email, on the item pages, bidding pages, etc…  So the real value of Gixen is to keep that bidder from having time to re-think their maximum and with more and more people using sniping tools my recommendation to you snipers is to make sure you’ve done your homework and know what the absolute maximum is that you will pay.

How I use sniping (Gixen) in my eBay bidding…

• Manually bid (not my maximum) on an item to get a feel where the current bids are in price and to get it into MyeBay screen so that I get notifications when I am outbid, etc… I will usually manually bid in small increments until I am the highest bidder.
• Watch the bidding history.  Does the previous bidder jump in and outbid me?  Are there more than 1 or 2 people bidding on the item.
• Set my snipe with the maximum that I will pay based on what I know about the item, research I have done on others that are on the site, activity from the bidders, etc…  I always place my MAXIMUM bid into Gixen because you don’t get a second chance.

If it is a good day you win the item… On a bad day another sniper may jump in at the end with a higher maximum than yours… In the case of my Gixen test today I didn’t win because my maximum wasn’t high enough.

Overall Gixen has been working flawlessly.  I would put it in my recommend column as long as you use it understanding how eBay places bids.

As an eBay member for A LONG time…I have been an active purchaser of everything from my Disney Mickey Mouse collectibles to high end digital camera and audio equipment, and I have sold everything from Jigsaw puzzles to pottery.

As eBay has “grown up” and help fuel online purchasing, I have started using it less and less… The “bargains” that used to be found on the site are much more difficult to find, and the site has become much more commercial with business sellers using the venue as a place to dump excess inventory, or to closeout old stock. I think the days where the site was predominately individual sellers dealing with their eclectic collections of “stuff” are gone. I’m not saying they are entirely gone, but they are certainly the minority.

I’m sure for many of you eBay’s changes are a good thing. I know I’ve talked with a number of people that feel much more comfortable dealing with businesses than individuals. Even in my own purchasing on eBay I can honestly say that I usually have fewer problems with business sellers than I do with individuals. But buyers need to be aware… eBay sellers need to make sure they don’t lose money… after all it is a business. eBay fees are not cheap, credit card processing costs $$ (yes Paypal too), there’s the cost of the product itself and then the overhead(computers, Internet, labor, etc)…

I’ve found that for me as a buyer when I get postage added to a purchase I could probably buy the item local for the same price. I do lose the convenience of having it show up at my front door… but then I need to do something to get me away from these computers sometime.

eBay will be around forever… I just think it is going to become the largest “mall” in the world… rather than the largest “garage sale” or “swap meet” in the world. So where does someone go now when they want to find that rare collectible Beanie Baby or a 1930s Mickey Mouse Fisher Price Pull toy?