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Saturday 19 May 2012

May is Most Merry

I must complain about the rain in the UK. No, not really as we do need it but it's stopping all the luvly juvly car boots from running cos they're outdoors. Needless to say I have not managed to build up my stock level. Was hoping to go from 350 listings on ebay to 500 but it's slow progress. Whilst we add 2 new items daily, we sometimes sell up to 5 daily so it just puts stock down and down. So our increase of stock has not happened yet.

However, our sales, thank goodness, have increased. April was pretty dismal for us but so far May is proving to be Merry for sales. Keep it up please! We are also improving the quality of our stock which inevitably means higher prices for better items. We're gradually attempting to get rid our shop of the stuff we purchased at the beginning, that we're still left with. Yep still have some stock from 3 yrs ago. This also means we often walk past a lot of car boot goodies now, as we slowly go a weeny bit more upmarket.

On another negative note, we lost our Quality Seller label on ebay. We know not why as customer feedback remains annonymous. Yes I know this sounds like a sellers moany moan BUT we have had nothing but good feedback. One customer complained he got his deliver late (it was 1 day later than it should have been!) so he gave us a low postage grade. I'm still convinced it could be other sellers purchasing low value items just so they can get to do some nasty feedback. I know, I know I sound desparate but we really do not know what the problem was and ebay just accuse us of not contacting our customers to sort out any issues. Don't know how we could do this when we have no idea who the customer is.  On a good note, 99.9% of our customers are kind and seem to like us so we decided not to let this upset us and just continue to do our best as honest sellers.

Due to constant increases in Royal Mail we also decided that rather than constantly changing our postage prices, we would add a small amount to the listing price. Hence we now include postage in the bidding price and that is what you pay, no extra for postage. Now our customers know there are no extra hidden charges (other than overseas customers). Not sure it it's working yet but will report in a future blog how this progresses.

Dresses have really taken off but I will be doing away with jewellery once my present stock is gone. Also going to try ladies shoes, so again I will report back on that one. Problem with clothing is you do need lots of choices and lots of different sizes so you need the wardrobe space. Not sure where I'll store the shoes yet!? 

Ok half way through May but my next blog will probs be a pottery history one as I try to alternate. Sunday tomorrow and off to --- yes you got it --- A CAR BOOT. It's a local one run by a school so there shouldn't be too many traders running stalls. I suppose it depends on the weather how many stall holders turn up. I went to done today (showery weather) and hardly anyone was there but still managed to get some stock. Gosh we're nearly half way through 2012 - where did it go - Oh I became a grandma so time has flown by. Happy May everyone