If I could get my hands around Bill Gates....

Well not him personally. And I really don't want to harm anyone. But I just had an issue with Windows 10 and it has left me scratching my head.

I upgraded for free (Grand Dad said you get what you pay for) to Windows 10 a while back. Now I wish I had never heard of Windows 10.

It seems that there is a hidden admin with password that prohibits me from fixing my wireless printer. We had a millisecond of a power outage the other day and after that I couldn't print on my wireless printer. The laptop said it was offline but the printer was working fine. After a half day on the phone with Brother and my laptop maker(who wanted to sell me "unlimited" support for only $249 because I was out of warranty)  I was about to scream and pull my hair out.

You can't add a port to your laptop without being the admin and I was the admin but I couldn't do anything and it was a vicious circle.. Luckily when I added the printer I screwed up along the way and had a copy 1 of the printer so I could use that with admin powers to add the port and move on. I finally figured that out without "customer support" and it was free.

I know it doesn't make sense to vent here but my SweetiePie doesn't understand anything computer related and couldn't understand why I was so upset. His words of advice was to call someone. What does he think I was doing with the phone stuck to my ear for 4 hours?

I do believe I used every variation of every curse word that I have ever know or even thought about and then I probably invented some new ones. Thank goodness there were no little ears around to hear my rant. The cat was napping. I guess that's what  you learn when you work with 25 mechanic guys for 19 years.

I apologize to the universe and anyone who heard me rant and rage on. My blood pressure probably was through the roof.

But the problem is fixed and I can print again.

I had two packages to mail and I had to hand print labels and take them to the post office. I know, I could have probably done it from my phone but I didn't know how (I do now) and I didn't have time to figure it out. And it was only two packages.

If I drank I would surely finish off the bottle on this one.

As the customer support person said cheerfully before he hung up, after not fixing the problem...

Have a nice day!!! I'm glad he couldn't hear my response.......

You may be a shipping nerd if....

you use your ebay tape sparingly so the package isn't too busy.

You may be a shipping nerd if...you MUST spell ebay when you seal an already sealed package on the back.

Extra shipping nerd points for spelling ebay on the front with the ends of the tape.



Are you a shipping nerd?

Buyers Don't Care....Stay Positive

I recently sold a silk scarf to a buyer in NY. It was a vintage Bill Blass that was 100% silk.
 
 Or so you would believe if you actually read the tag. The reason for return was too thick that it didn't feel like silk. Boom!! Not as described. I politely and professionally wrote back and stated that there was a tag on the scarf that said "All Silk". (I'm pretty sure that all means 100%). He replied and said    "the fabric is thin & semi transparent, therefore it does not work for me."
   After a few calls to ebay it was determined that it was buyers remorse and there was nothing wrong with the scarf. But the problem is not that.

The buyer opened a not as described case and that automatically charges me the return shipping. I have no choice but to approve the return or face the wrath of ebay for not handling the return and according to ebay once I agree to the return and the return shipping, they can't change that.

Now its just $2.45 for return shipping but after a while it grates on me that the buyer got away with this crap once again. And ebay let them. I did refund in paypal and charge 20% restocking fee.

This is what the package looked like when I received it in the mail.
If you think that the end of the poly mailer is open you are absolutely right. Thank goodness he wrapped it back in the tissue that I shipped it with. If not the scarf would have slipped right out of the mailer. Once again the buyer just doesn't give a damn.

Staying Positive!!...??

June wasn't the worst month for me, just not the best. July isn't looking good at all. I was prepared for slow sales over the week-end but not no sales. I had one sale on Friday night, no sales on Saturday, two sales on Sunday and one sale on Monday. Then I thought things were going better on Tuesday when I woke up to the cha-ching. But that was it. I looked at my week and I was all the way up to $224 but my total for the last 4 days was $124. That means that my sales for the other 3 days were only $100. That is sales, not profit.That is miserable and means that it doesn't even pay ebay store fees for the week. My goal is $100 a day. It seems I'm a bit off.

I don't like to talk about sales, money or stuff like that but it's hard staying positive when nothing is selling. Oh, I could have sold a couple of things but 50% off with free shipping is worse than no sales. Losing money is worse than no money. I don't like to price sky high and then take 50% of what I have the item listed for. I just think it sets a bad example for sales. I do accept reasonable offers, I just had an offer not 2 hours after it went live for a cycling helmet for half list price. What? If I wanted $50 for the helmet that is what I would have listed it for. Do buyers just look up something and go down the list making ridiculous offers (on the same items)until someone accepts?

Well, some good things have happened with all this "free" time. I have gotten more listed. Of course I didn't get the house clean, laundry done or the grass mowed, but I did get more listed. Doing everything yourself sure does suck, you can't blame anyone for the slow sales but ebay. Throttling and all that seems feasible about now.

Keep listing, it WILL get better.