Believe it or not, we’re heading into another holiday season. I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by! Despite all the economic gloom and doom, 2009 has been a very busy year for me. Between the release of The eBay Marketing Bible, a wonderful trip to the Las Vegas Radio party, and the launch of The Web Sellers Circle – no wonder the time flew by….
In case you are caught up short and forgot this week is Thanksgiving – LOL – here’s a quick recap of the holiday selling season.
Important Dates:
Black Friday: November 27, the Friday after Thanksgiving, is traditionally the largest shopping day of the year.
Cyber Monday: November 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is the kick-off of the holiday online shopping season.
Shipping Deadlines: Here are the last days you can offer various shipping options and have domestic packages arrive by December 25.
- Wednesday, December 16 – USPS Parcel Post
- Thursday, December 17 – FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery
- Monday, December 21 – FedEx Express Saver, USPS First Class Mail, and USPS Priority Mail
- Tuesday, December 22 – FedEx 2Day
- Wednesday, December 23 – FedEx Overnight, UPS Next Day Air, and USPS Express Mail
Good luck – I hope you are ready to rocket!
eBay Cross Promotions in Your Listings
eBay Recently started adding links to other sellers inside our listings. Hey eBay, I love you guys – but I feel like the listing page is mine, I paid for it! Its bad enough eBay drives traffic away from my completed listings – now on the active listings as well. As you can tell, I’m falling on the no thanks side here. Fortunately for me, this is an optional service and you can turn the cross promotions off. If you are like me you may wonder how to turn them off here’s a quick video.
A quick update on what is happening at the Web Sellers Circle
Congratulations to Karen Locker, Octobers blog winner. We helped Karen set up a new photo blog at:
http://www.mommysphotos.com/
check it out, her photographs are wonderful!
More from the WSC…..
We’re just starting a new training course called: The Presenters Series. This series covers how to teach others, podcast and give webinars online. We’re looking at the whole package, from how to give effective PowerPoint presentations to what software and hardware you’ll need.
There’s a new guide online that takes you through opening an eBay Store in five minutes a day. We’re just about through the basic setup. Once we have the basics I’ll cover how to design your store with HTML and some of the basic techniques that you can use to maximize your brand. And, we are giving away a Free Blog set-up to one WSC member in December. Blogs are a great way to create an exta revenue stream from affiliate income.
We’d love to have you join us. Because we know that times are tough and everyone is feeling the pinch, we’ve decided as a holiday appreciation gift we’d offer a one year membership for only $125.00 (our normal yearly rate is $300.00) – of course you can still try our monthly rate of $27.95 – but at $125 for a year you can save yourself a bundle – and afford a cup of coffee every day – LOL.
Congratulations To Rob Payer, from the Garden Sprite Store on his upgrade!
We updated his header and added a holiday promo box – check out his new look at: thegardensprite.com – and be sure to sign up for his Ribbiting News.
If you need a an upgrade for your business, I’m accepting a few new clients in December. Please feel free to contact me.
QuickBooks Help is here!
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Exactly what you need to know about setting up your
books. Done in easy to understand English.
Moderator Sheryl Schuff CPA explains what you need to know about business bookkeeping.
This set includes video demonstrations with high quality audio so you can easily follow along. Starting with CD 1 you will learn accounting basics. How to track income and expenses. What double entry bookkeeping is and how it works.
Learn what accounting system works for yourbusiness. Included is a glossary of important accounting and bookkeeping terms.
Listen to this presentation on the go! We have included MP3 versions for quick, easy transfer to a portable player. Once you have mastered the basics, watch the demonstration as Sheryl guides an online seller through QuickBooks for the first time.
1. The interview, what is important
2. Customize your chart of accounts
3. Set up inventory, vendors & customers
4. Set up taxable and non-taxable customers & items
5. Pay vendors, write checks
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This powerful CD set will be one of the most useful tools you can purchase for your business.
We’re calling it the QuickBooks Rapid Up & Running Premium CD Set and you can find out more information here.
As we get closer to the end of the year those piles of papers need to get entered into a place where you can easily access them. You’ll need to pull out important information – not just for Uncle Sam – but for yourself.
I’m sure you want to know if all this hard work is resulting in a profit!
When we put the finishing touches on the lessons, Sheryl suggested a fantastic bonus for everyone who purchases – thirty days of follow up support. That means you’ll have a place to ask questions and receive answers quickly from a Certified Public Accountant with over 30 years experience helping small businesses like yours! By itself, this bonus could save you hundreds of dollars.
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Product Source Of The Month
Getting ready for 2010 means finding new products to sell and Tradeshows are the place to find suppliers. My last word this month is: find a tradeshow in your field and make sure you attend!
Here’s a link to a list of TradeShows:
http://directory.tradeshowweek.com/directory/index.asp
One Last Word
That’s it for now,
Cindy Shebley
eBay Certified Business Consultant
Author of The eBay Marketing Bible
www.websellerscircle.com
Great find about the cross-promotions, Cindy! Thanks for the tips on how to turn that madness off… What will they think of next?
eBay is so clueless when it comes to sellers… It seems they really don’t know (or maybe care??) who are the ones that make THEM money… It would have been so much more polite to ASK if they could advertise on your listing page (and likewise put your items on other pages, of course).
To me it’s just pure arrogance that eBay did this. Par for the course, it seems, over the last 2 years.
Keep up the good work, Cindy!
Richard
On the cross-promiting, I’v heard opting out doesn’t allways work.On your computer it does, but try looking on your ebay listing from another computer/location and there it is ! But there is a fix,
on your listing discription -at the conclusion just keep hitting the enter button on your keyboard-say about 20 lines and type
THANK YOU
after that line is where ebay will put the ads from your compitor and no one in there right mine will scroll all the down to view it,
I hope that will make your day!