Running a semi-busy business on ebay (need help speeding up the process)

Simon83

Hi,

I run a semi busy business on ebay, and its running very well, only doing around £2500 a month, but it's just a side line.

Now is there anything to help us speed up the process from recieving the order to the customer recieving it?

all the paper work in the middle seems alot, from keeping information for our records to making sure the customer gets what they ordered.

Is there any type of program/software that can do everything for us with minimal effort from ourselves.

hope ou understand

many thanks

StaffsSW

For £2500 a month, it is not really viable to look at a back-end sales tool such as Channel Advisor, Marketworks or NetSuite - these will cost at least £1000 to set up and an ongoing monthly subscription.

Your best option at this level would be Seller Manager, or Seller Manager Pro, which can both speed up the invoice printing, labelling as well as improve buyer notifications with custom email templates for payment reminders, payment received, dispatch notifications etc, as well as automating the feedback.

I use SMPro, and when an item is sold and paid for, I simply view the sales record (not the same as View Order details), and print it direct to one sheet of A4. If I have multiple sales, I can select all and print them all at once. Many people use the small clear document wallets, so when the sales record is printed, the address shows through and can be stuck on the front of the package.

I use a Brother QL500 label printer which is the best time saving device that I have invested in. From the paypal notification email, I simply highlight the address, right click, and send to printer. One professional label pops out ready to stick.

With SMPro, when you mark an item as dispatched, it will email the buyer with a template of your choosing to let them know it's on the way, but also copies it to their eBay messages. My communication DSR has never dropped below 4.9, and besides answering the occasional question, all I do is click buttons.

The other thing worth considering is a small time-cost analysis exercise. How long does it ake to locate your product, package it, and label it, and how much do the materials cost for this? In 2006-2007 I was selling some serious numbers of DVD's - up to 1500 a month.
To start with I was wrapping each DVD in one sheet of bubble wrap, putting it in a poly mailbag with a thank-you business card, addressing it with the document wallet as above, and sticking a return address label on the back. Each disc took about 2 minutes, and cost about 30p each.
I then bought 5000 DVD sized jiffy bags, an address stamp with my return details on it, and the label printer. This cut packing time down to about 30 seconds, and still worked out at 30p each... no-brainer really!

Adasta

Couple of questions:

* What postage do you use? If you're printing off delivery labels, does this mean you're not using paypal to print off your Royal Mail postage. If this is the case, how are you dealing with paying for postage, because waiting at the Post Office is not an option!

* Stupid question: where can you buy a stamp with return details on. Sounds like a good idea!

soolin

Adasta wrote: »

Couple of questions:

* What postage do you use? If you're printing off delivery labels, does this mean you're not using paypal to print off your Royal Mail postage. If this is the case, how are you dealing with paying for postage, because waiting at the Post Office is not an option!

* Stupid question: where can you buy a stamp with return details on. Sounds like a good idea!

You can print direct from the Royal mail site as well and you get a lot more options , 2nd class for instance. However, the busines smodel may well support a visit to the PO once a day as you would need to do that anyway even if you use online postage printing otherwise you have no proof of posting.

lastly, for a simple solution for returns addresses it is quite possible to buy a automatic inking stamp, or just use able labels or such like.

Adasta

But if you send it recorded devliery, then there is proof, no?

soolin

Adasta wrote: »

But if you send it recorded devliery, then there is proof, no?

Not unless you get the receipt bit stamped by the Post office, no.

StaffsSW

Adasta wrote: »

* Stupid question: where can you buy a stamp with return details on. Sounds like a good idea!

I've got a thing called a Colop Printy - cost me about £10 if I remember correctly.

http://www.printystamp.com/cgi-bin/pristore.pl?user_action=category&category=Colop

soolin

stevew8975 wrote: »

I've got a thing called a Colop Printy - cost me about £10 if I remember correctly.

http://www.printystamp.com/cgi-bin/pristore.pl?user_action=category&category=Colop

That's what I use as well, although 'your' link seems to be cheaper than the company I currently use...and I could do with a new slightly differently worded stamp for a new venture I am trying. Thank you .

martindow

I use these people for return labels
http://www.able-labels.co.uk/
from 7.45 per 1000 for small self adhesive labels

Simon83

Hi,

If you run a busy ebay shop, please could you give me some tips and advice on how you process your orders on a day to day basis?

From the point of sale to the dispatch of goods, what are you processes what systems do you use, etc etc, what do you print off, do you use ebay for all prints or paypal.

I really need to speed up the running of our shop.

Many Thanks for your time and help

Si

soolin

Simon83 I've merged your new post as it rather similar to your other post and it might be more useful to keep them all together so you can work through the replies.