A Different Nature Trail – Lots of Bugs But It Got Better

We chose a different part of the walking trail last night.  We walked along the canal this time.  It was a much different experience than walking through the wetlands. 

We walked along the water.

 

This was pretty much what we saw the whole time.

 

Lots of pretty trees.

 

Lots of water.

 

So when the trail starts getting darker…

You know what that means as the sun start going down.

Bugs.  Mosquitoes, black flies, you name it.  Bugs.

And lots of them.

My husband said that he could get the Mohawk Valley Erie Canal Swine Flu Virus Plague from these bugs.  I’m sure he made that up.  He’s such a drama king. 

So we high-tailed it to the car and stopped at the pizza place down the road for a slice.  BTW, this was another business just like this one   that took every opportunity to cross-promote and to provide excellent customer service.  While we were chowing on our pizza the friendly owner asked us how the slices were (this is unheard of around here at a deli/pizza place) and she then reminded us that they now have ice cream too.  After she walked away, I commented to my husband, “Cross-promotion!  Good for her!”  He just shook his head.  He’s used to me saying things like this.

The pizza sure made the buggy experience worthwhile.  This was the best part though:

See the rainbow?

 

Do you brave the bugs to commune with nature?  Maybe I’ll wear Skin So Soft next time.  I’ve heard that it scares off mosquitoes.  Not sure if it works for black flies. 

Does anybody have any hints for a natural, non-chemical bug deterrent?  I’d love to hear about them.

 

 

Nature Walking on My Internet Free Day

I decided last week that I need to detach myself from my laptop for a full 24 hours at least once a week.  What better day than Sunday – the day that ‘I can’t ship even if I wanted to’ day. 

So yesterday I did not check my emails, answer questions, review my sales, or play on Facebook (ok I finally signed on at 8 PM but it was really 24 hours and not a complete day…)   I can easily ignore Twitter these days since I now have over 800 followers and get completely overwhelmed there with the constant sales pitches or internet Twitter hooker propositions.  Seriously.  Why don’t they just go away?

So yesterday I read the Sunday paper in the sun – got sunburned but as a red-headed, fair-skinned, freckled person I really should know better.  The burn didn’t carry over until today so it wasn’t so bad. 

I did yardwork.  The weed whacker was dead or wasn’t charged so I used hedge clippers.  Had rubber band arms all day long after that.  I really do need to exercise more if a pair of clippers got the best of me.

The best part was the nature walk that hubby and I took at the end of the afternoon.  I remembered to bring my camera this time.

We saw ducks swimming in the marsh.

 

I took lots of wetland photos. See the birdhouse?

 

It was serene.

 

But it wasn’t quiet. If it’s nature it doesn’t seem like noise.

 

We saw a lot of this.

 

And lots of these.

 

The forest area was dark and buggy.

 

That's why we stayed here. On the mostly empty trail.

 

After a while we could've used this.

But we used this instead and kept going.

 

 

A snake showed up here the day before. Not today.

 

 

This bird did though. He had a lot to say.

When was the last time you detached yourself from the e-world?  Was it as difficult for you as it was for me?  I admit that by 8 PM I was really jones-ing for some computer time.  And I needed something to do to keep me awake! 

Next Sunday I’ll be trying this internet-free thing again.  It was enlightening to see how this laptop in front of me has been overtaking some quality time that I could be spending with others or even by myself.  Moderation?  Not sure if one day off qualifies for moderation, but that’s what I’m willing to do right now.  Maybe it will make Mondays a bit nicer too.  🙂

 

More Sun, Cows, Some Horses, and a Cat Too

This is Day 2 of some of the most beautiful weather that we’ve had here all summer.  It was a flashback from yesterday .

There were still some blackberries left from yesterday.

 

 

I picked as many as I could reach.

 

I ate way more than just these.

 

The cows didn’t avoid me today.

They were too involved with swatting at flies.

See the horses in the background?  They were still camera-shy today but I snuck up and snapped them anyway.

This old girl  doesn’t mind haven’t her picture taken.

She’s used to it after 15 years of living with me.

She still asks me to please open the gate so she can go swat flies with the cows. Even though she knows that the answer is ‘No’ every time.

Animals fascinate me and I could probably spend way too much time photographing them.  Especially when there’s sunshine and blackberries involved.

 

 

Do you compulsively photograph your animals?  Do they mind?  I’d love to hear about it.

 

A Blackberry in My Hand is Worth Two Cows in the Field ???

 

It is a rare sunny and gorgeous day in Central New York.  I had to get out the camera because these kind of days are so rare.

 

 

Scene from my backyard

 

 

 

 

 

Cows in my backyard

 

 

More cows but they’re not mine…

I get to look at cows and horses every day in my back yard.  The best part is that they’re not mine and I don’t have to feed them!  Next door is a cattle auction barn and the owner has two gorgeous horses that were not available today for photos.  They were too busy enjoying their day outside of my camera range.  “Those pesky paparazzi follow us everywhere” was overheard in the far field…

Barbecued outside today for lunch.  The good news for the cows is that I was cooking chicken strips today.  I always feel a little strange when I’m flipping burgers in front of curious cows that sometimes come up to the barbed wire fence and peek over to see what I’m doing.  Today they didn’t care and were far away from me.  Maybe they heard from the horses that I would be taking pictures, because shortly after I came out with camera in hand, they had high-tailed it much farther away than they had been five minutes earlier.  These cows are camera-shy.  But that didn’t stop me.

   

Cowless field

 I think I see a few reeeeallly far away.  Guess they showed me!

I got the last laugh though.  Look what we had for dessert?

I worked for it...

 

Picked a whole bunch

These didn't last long.

And I’ve got the stains to prove it.

Don't worry. It's not as bad as it looks. In fact it was totally worth it.

I dropped one of these. There's a very happy squirrel down there.

I’ll save these for later.  Maybe tomorrow.

Hope the cows don’t find them first!

 

 

Some Recent Observations About The Online Selling World

I’ve been selling items online for about 5 years now.  Currently and hopefully for the rest of my working days this is a full-time gig.  In the past it has run the gamut from part-time in addition to a full-time lifesucking corporate job, little time because it was just a hobby, to virtually no time as in listing on occasion and letting the “business” sit there until a sale occurred.

 As with most things in my life, I have learned this business the hard way.  From my mistakes, from others’ mistakes, from reading incessantly for hours, and from trying a variety of new things as I went along.  Some attempts were successful and many were abyssmal failures but all were necessary to get where I am today – a mild to moderate success with much improvement needed.  🙂

I still feel like I don’t know a lot about this business but there are a few things that I feel that I know for sure.  These thoughts have occurred to me a lot in the last few weeks so I felt the need to write them down.  You may agree with some of these things.  You might strongly disagree but this has been my experience.

1.)  Online selling is a numbers game.  All the studying, Tweeting, webinars and podcasts do NOT replace listing and more listing.  The more I list, the more I sell.  Period.

2.)  Surround yourself with whiners, complainers, and do-nothings and that is what you become.  There are plenty of capable, successful people on the internet that are more than happy to be an example of what works and will share many helpful ideas on their blogs or on Facebook/Twitter.  There is a disproportionately large number of disgruntled negative sellers that feel the need to channel all of their energy into “not selling so that I may complain.”  Avoid them.  They are everywhere.  Especially in chat forums.  Enough said, until you get to Number 4 anyway.  But first, Number 3… 

3.)  Put the Best Offer on your eBay listings and OBO (Or Best Offer) on Bonanzle.  Not everyone will be a lowballer and I can always reject any offer.  It’s also FREE, so why not?  This single item is the best thing that I’ve done for my eBay store this year.  Not every buyer uses it but many want to haggle and succeed in getting an even better deal.  Some offers get declined but I wake up to a few of these every day.  In a tough $$$ week, I’m happy to see these offers because they represent to me “money in the bank.”  If I accept an offer on eBay, it’s an automatic sale.  Craig Stark of BookThink just wrote about this feature and his experience was similar.

4.)  Chat forums are, by and large, supreme time wasters.  Hours can go by while I read about the latest “controversy” on each venue.  I use the chat rooms now as a water cooler (with time limits in place) or as a place to go to find answers.  Working at home is isolating but I don’t need to have hours of online conversation either.  Don’t even get me started on the people who spend all of their time Tweeting news stories all day…  😦

5.)  Be flexible.  As much as it pains me to constantly change and ‘roll with it, baby’, it’s a fact of life online.  Things move fast here and when you sell on many venues there is always a “major change” ahead.  Each venue is constantly improving themselves (or they’re trying anyway) and that means CHANGE.  Whether I like it or not.  Will I complain if I don’t agree with the change?  Yep, but hopefully not for hours in a chat room and not for long.  I will tell myself to get over it and plan accordingly.  It’s their sandbox and I’m not taking my toys home unless it causes me to lose a significant amount of money.  Then I’ll just leave. 

Many MANY people criticize eBay.  I have many not-so-nice opinions of the way they’ve done business over the last two years.  I’ve never left them though.  It’s where I have made a large amount of money and their traffic still can’t be beat.  When I tell people that I sell on Bonanzle, they’ve never heard of it.  This is changing and it’s why I stay even though my sales there have been poor.  I have faith in Bonanzle and the people that run it.  When I tell people that I sell online, they say “You sell on eBay?”  It’s still the synonomous word for “online sales” and that is where the average internet buyer will go to look for a deal.  So I stay there and roll with the changes, for good and for bad.  Which brings me to…

6.)  Sell on various venues.  Don’t get roped into believing that one venue is the answer.  Always have an alternative site or, in my case, many sites.  I’m not so enamored of eBay to not realize that they can shut me down in a second.  I’ve read all the stories and heard all of the tales.  If Bill Harding at Bonanzle was offered a mega-million dollars to turn over the keys to Bonanzle, would he be foolish enough NOT to take it?  Even if it happened to be from his competitor?  And I wouldn’t blame him one bit for taking it and running.  These types of things happen all the time in business.

Spread yourself around and try to stay away from trouble.  Read the guidelines of each site and try, although this one is tough, to keep up with the ever-changing rules of each site.  Don’t try to cheat the system.  Don’t give a venue a reason to shut you down.  If you get an offer on eBay, keep it on eBay.  If you’re not allowed to direct a buyer to your blog off-site, don’t post your website on your listing.  When you get a sale from Borders through Alibris, don’t tout your own site in your packing materials.  “Dance with the one that brought ya” as they say. 

7.)  Sell a variety of items.  Having a mix of new, used, collectible, and rare items is a good plan for me.  Used books are becoming harder and harder to sell for any real money.  This is the market that I started in and it is becoming the part of my business that I’m spending the least time with.  The Kindle is here whether we like it or not.  Used books donation bins are becoming a business model for more and more megasellers.  Friends of the Library sales are increasingly rare and usually picked over by the libraries themselves, who have finally figured out that the books they were selling for 25 cents are worth a lot more to keep and sell on their own.  Amazon is continually hawking how easy it is to “Sell Yours Here” to anyone that pushes the button.  Anyone can be a bookseller on Amazon, just hit the button.  Many wholesalers are now competing against their retail customers too. If I stayed with the books I would be very much worse for the wear right now.

These are just a few things that I know and I have so much more to learn.  For now, I’ll be listing auctions for the rest of the day because —  8.) Blogging  doesn’t make me money despite what I’ve read on Twitter…

 

Marketing Genius in a Rural Country Store

Hubby and I went for a spur-of-the-moment drive Sunday that took us south to Cooperstown, New York, “The  Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.”  Did our day include anything baseball-related?  No, silly…  We’re not baseball fans.  We like free food so much more.

Our stop included a walk-through of the Fly Creek Cider Mill which has been in existence for as long as I can remember.  Why had I not visited there?  Did I already mention the free food?  Yup, aisles and aisles of gourmet, snacky goodness – many with samples in front just ready to be tasted.  And taste I did!  Salsas, sauces, dips, chips, popcorn, brickle, fudge, honey, cider products, cheese,  muffins, and I’ll say it again, fudge!  We walked through the two floor country store perusing all of the fancy foods then went upstairs to look at a humongous amount of crafty, cutsie, country-style knick-knacks.  I picked out a few things for upcoming birthdays.  No bargain prices here, just a huge selection of quality gifts and very delicious foods.  Something for everyone.  After we checked out at the cash register we were “funnelled” to the door at the back of the store and as we stepped outside we were pointed directly at the outside deli/bakery/ice cream stand.

Am I writing this to share what a great time we had?  Not really, but that’s just a by-product.  I wanted to write about the genius of marketing and how some companies have really figured it out.  Since I own my own little business I am ALWAYS looking at how successful  businesses are run.  It is fascinating to me why some companies are so much more successful than others and also how some seem to cover every angle of marketing goods to their customers. 

This “little” country store has a genius of a marketing plan.  The more I thought about it, the more it seems like they were doing everything right: 

Many road signs to get people to turn off of the main drag and go to the Cider Mill.

Many parking spots at the location and across the street.  This place was full of people and there were still empty parking spaces.

No admission fees.  Just walk in and start perusing the goodies.   

A huge variety of foods and gift items for every niche available.  Upstairs the gift items included the usual collector niches like birds, apples, bears, angels, camping, hunting, teachers, grandma stuff, Mom stuff, school theme, country towels, oven mitts, signs and more.  The foods ranged from sweet to spicy, from fudge to chips and pretzels.  Again, something for everyone.

When we cashed out our merchandise the cashier told us about their online store and gave us a coupon for Free Shipping for over $100.00 purchase, a coupon for $2.00 off our next visit to the brick and mortar store, and a 10% off coupon for the snack bar just outside the door.

Just a few steps from the cash register was a complete menu page (that we could take) showing all of the food that we could get at the snack bar AND showed all of the prices.

The whole time we were in the store the workers were very helpful and friendly and were likely to point out a special that was going on in the section you were perusing.  (Not in a pushy way either, if you know what I mean.)

As we were driving away, we saw a section to the side for children.  It was a maze that they could ride little toy tractors around.  It had several wooden boards with the faces cut out so Mom and Dad could take Junior’s picture as he put his face in the painted scenery after he rode his tractor to that stop.  Cute! 

SCORE!  Successes are made by continuous marketing and improvements, not by sitting back and watching and waiting for the money to roll in.  Do many businesses know this?  You would think so, but we all know that’s not the case.

Did I learn something from this wonderful experience?     Absolutely.

1.) Don’t gorge on a variety of free samples that may not combine well. 

2.) More importantly, don’t sit back and expect your customers to know all about what great things that you offer.  Tell them. Show them. 

3.) Sell only quality items. 

4.) Let them try the products when possible. 

5.) Don’t charge for admission or tack on silly “handling” fees. 

6.) Give something free when possible. 

7.) Be pleasant and helpful then go away. 

8.) Give your buyers your brochures. 

9.) Send them away with several reasons to come back. 

10.) Direct them to another potential buying opportunity.  Cross promote. 

We’ve already decided to go back soon (when we don’t have melting groceries in the car.)  We want to see the Farmer’s Museum, the Art Museum, do some Lakeview Dining and, of course, make another stop at The Fly Creek Cider Mill.  It’s free, we have a coupon :-), and the chances are good that we’ll want a little snack!  Of course we’ll buy something too and then we’ll just sit outside by the pond and feed the geese some corn.  (Another nice touch – especially if you’ve got toddlers.) 

I obviously highly recommend this attraction if you’re ever in the Cooperstown area.  I also invite business owners to give some thoughts about how well your current marketing plan is working.  I sure did and some changes will be made.

What changes might your business need?  I’d love to hear from you.

 

Vintage Paper Heaven

Put some grrreat stuff up on eBay this week. 

This is some of my absolute favorite paper ephemera!  I love to read, hold, touch, dream, and wonder about these old items.  I can pore for hours over a box of vintage paper that I’ve acquired at auction and put next to my lamp that is next to my comfy couch while the hubby watches TV.  When I come home from an auction I will usually set aside a mixed box lot of paper to sift through while we watch the television.  Sifting is so much more interesting…

Like this for example:

Going along with the academic theme is this nice little booklet from 1901:

These are penmanship primers from 1888:

Written way back when handwriting was important.  Did anyone else have to do “push me, pull yous” in elementary school?  I certainly didn’t learn the Spencerian turn of the century writing method but we had the Palmer method and a clear plastic card that we would have to lay over our writing to see if it matched the perfect script on the card.  This must sound very odd to anyone under 35…

Speaking of antiques 🙂 this catalog was a very rare find:

How many paper catalogs exist that are over 120 years old?  The engraved illustrations are just so ornate and detailed.  Just lovely.

There’s more to list and sift but I’ll be sharing some items here too. 

Just click on any of the above photos to go directly to the auctions.  Sign up for my store newsletter if you like what you see.

Does anyone else find historical paper ephemera this fascinating or am I among a handful of crazy people??  Many would say “Throw this crap out!”  I say to that, “What, are you insane?”  In my opinion, someone, somewhere is connected to this piece.  I’ve heard all kinds of stories from my customers about a particular kid’s book, cookbook, sewing item, event bulletin, postcard, etc. having great significance to them and I love EVERY story that they take the time to email to me.  They usually thank me profusely (although this is not even the best part) for offering the item and tell me their story.  Did I mention how much I love this part?  It’s what keeps me going.  Just call me the Matchmaker.  Even when I don’t  have a particular item, I know where and how to find it.  Today I matched my husband’s boss with a rare book that her grandmother gave her as a child.  She told my husband that she wrote in it so much that her mother threw it away.  😦  I didn’t have the book but showed my husband where his boss could find it on Amazon.  He told me a while ago that she has now ordered it and it’s on the way.  Another happy customer even though she wasn’t mine.. this time around. 

I’m off to sift….

 

Waterboarding My Cat – Torture For a Purpose

“Waterboarding” may be too strong a word for “force-hydrating” my cat.  Is it torture to force a cat to drink and eat?  If this were my cat’s blog, the answer would be “yes”.  But it’s not her blog. That’s a totally separate website. 😉

To the beginning….  My original cat, my main squeeze, my only lapcat, the queen of the household, Zuzu, stopped eating and drinking sometime around Sunday.  Had some odd(er) behaviors, she vomited a little, got even lazier (which is hard to judge on a 15 year old cat), and would not come down for breakfast or want to do her usual lapping from any running faucet.  Gave this a few days thinking that she’d get over it.  Nope.  Off to the vet for a visit.  They hydrated her and force-fed her (this was not easy for them – In their defense, they did not realize that Zuzu is spoiled and too set in her ways to be told what to do.  They were warned but brushed it off.  Twenty minutes later the vet tech was hanging her head in near defeat.)  The vet said that Zuzu didn’t appear to be in any danger at this point and to give it some time.

It is now Friday and she’s still not eating so last night we started the force-feeding and hydrating.  Oh boy…  After I read on the internet that really stinky baby food might jump-start her appetite, I went out and got some Gerber Stage 1 puree of every kind of meat there is.  She didn’t appreciate being force-fed by my husband’s finger of all things – Heavens! – but she had a few droppers full of water and some spoonfuls of Turkey with Turkey Broth.  Yummo!  She actually licked her whiskers but didn’t go for more without some “help”.

She still purrs, walks around, and even jumped on our bed last night to reclaim her usual spot.  I’m hoping this is just a virus that has hopefully run it’s course.  I just had the equivalent of what I’ve been referring to as the “swine flu” and this just happens to be the cat that always drinks out of my water glass the minute she hears it hit the table.  I’ve resorted to using travel mugs in my own home….  Anyway, she may have picked up my virus.  It was particularly nasty. 

For now, we’ll continue with the “torturing”.  If she won’t resume eating on her own, we’ll be making the return visit to the vet for all sorts of labs, etc.   

What we do for the ones we love…   I’m crossing my fingers for a happy ending here.  It tortures me to have to “torture” her, but I’m not willing to give her up to her own stubbornness just yet.

Could anyone give me a clue as to how to make this process easier?  I’d love to hear from you.

***UPDATE***

Zuzu started eating and drinking on her own about 2 days after I wrote this.  She’s back to her “normal” “active” self and everything worked out just fine.  Whew…

 

What is eBay Doing Now?

Who exactly is eBay appealing to now?  I’m not so sure that they’ve figured out what sellers want nor do they seem to care.

The latest “big announcement” is that eBay will, as of June 16th, 2009, be allowing the first five auction insertion fees to be waived and the Final Value Fees on those auctions be lowered to either $20.00 or 8.75% whichever is lower.

Hardly a big deal for those of us who list many auctions per week.  For me this new procedure will save a measly $1.75 per month (.35 x 5) in listing fees plus a few percent of the FVF which has lately been a low selling price (assuming that those five auctions result in a sale.)  It’s a start and it’s heading in the right direction (down) but I can’t even begin to feel excitement about this change.  Also part of this new offering is that in order to get the five free insertion fees the seller must use the Sell Your Item or Simple listing tool.  I use a third party listing program (Inkfrog) as many store owners do, so I would have to go outside of my inventory management program to save a few dollars.  Probably not worth the trouble for a few dollars.

Why is eBay appealing to the very casual eBay seller?  What do they gain by targeting this customer?  Not much from the looks of it.  Anyone who sells just a few items a month on eBay may not be aware of this change or may not care enough to  increase their auction listings.  Isn’t that what the intended result of this change was?  To increase listings thereby making more money for eBay?  If so, why not serve casual and mega-listers and make that magic number 20 free auctions?  That way the casual listers can still list a few per month, possibly list a couple more things from the basement, and megalisters can actually get a bit of a break on a larger number of auctions and actually be happy to see their monthly bill go down a notch.  Here’s an even better scenario:  the first fifty auctions per month free.  Watch the auctions go up, up, up and eBay can collect all the FVF’s they want.  Ebay and the sellers are happy as clams.

I can still dream, can’t I.

 

I Have Fun at Auctions Even When I’m Alone

Went to my favorite kind of auction last night. 

What makes it my favorite kind of auction you ask?

It’s rural.

It’s far enough away from home without being annoyingly far.  In other words, within an hour’s drive.

The Amish park their horses and carriage under a shade tree.  This always fascinates me.  I try not to stare at the people who are obviously Amish because of their dress.  I’m not a rude person just a people watcher.  The men do the bidding.  Their wives quietly browse and bring their husband’s attention to any hidden bargains like every good wife does (including this one.)  Their clothes are very clean and all handmade.  I have to stop myself from staring at their clothes.  The seams are always so well sewn and the ladie’s dresses and bonnets are usually made of such durable fabrics.  Nothing fancy but made to last.  I could go on and on about this.  Did I mention how people fascinate me? 

This auction takes place in cow country.  It’s always a beautifully scenic drive.  I’m a country girl at heart even though I’ve spent most of my life in suburbia.

I have to park on a winding country road with a ditch to my side that I have to remember is there when it gets pitch black.  OK, so this isn’t one of my favorite things about this auction.  My husband was not able to go with me this time so I had to do the “parking thing” alone.  If I fell into the ditch no one would hear the thump, the probable screams, and even if someone did they would think “Eh, one less bidder.”    So I had to be extra careful.  It’s out in the country but there’s still danger out there folks. 🙂

It takes place in a driveway.  The box lots are all pulled out to the driveway and choiced to the highest bidder.  You have to be fast on your feet and well prepared.  I learned this the hard way as I’ve learned mostly every else.  It’s lightning fast and there’s no time for slackers.  The auctioneer will usually taunt the unprepared, “What? Is this your first auction?” and everyone chuckles.  Been there.  On both sides.  It’s fun though.  Really.

The food is good but sometimes it distracts me.  One time I was munching away and didn’t realize that half of the crowd had gone out to start bidding.  I missed the lot that I wanted while I fed my face.  Boy that food was good but it could have waited.  Honestly, I was pissed at myself for doing something so stupid.  Now I eat when I’m done.  Period.  Between my purse, my bidder card, my lot list, and my pen, I don’t have any hands left for even a drink.  When my husband’s with me he might be the water boy (or should I say “man”?) but he wasn’t so I had to stay parched.  Oh yeah, and there’s only a porta-potty so there’s incentive to not drink a thing if you know what I’m saying…

Do you love to go to auctions too?  What makes them fun for you?  I’d love to hear from you.