Your eBay & eCommerce Questions Answered #22

It’s FRIDAY!!! 🙂

And that means time for another Questions & Answers blog post!

Today we’ll cover the following topics:

• How to improve DSRs after an incident of bad luck?
• How to insert product pictures inside an eBay template?
• How up to date is the Easy Auction Business video course?
• Is it possible to use Turbo Lister on two computers simultaneously?
• How to start an eBay business with limited funds?
• Excessive sea freight charges & how to deal with them!
• Can you go in to debt when trading on eToro?

Let’s get started!

Hi Andrew,

I was after some advice please, when you get a minute, as I have recently had my eBay account restricted because of poor DSRs. The reason for my poor ratings is items didn’t arrive and my customers opened cases against me; what actually happened was when InPost/CityLink went into administration, I had 4 parcels stolen by the couriers! I’ve subsequently had my insurance claims settled in my favor by Parcel2Go.

I refunded my customers within a two week period of the purchase date but because cases had been opened against me it has had this detrimental effect on my ratings. I don’t know what more I could have done? I made the sale and posted the item promptly, using what I thought was a reputable courier.

But eBay will not consider these facts and just say they will send me literature regarding improving my DSRs. I was aiming for TRS previously and still want to but this knock back has left me a bit dejected with the whole eBay experience.

Regards,
Jamie

Hi Jamie,

Yes, eBay never accept such reasons or excuses; they basically don’t care what happened or why packages weren’t delivered. And really that’s completely understandable as otherwise sellers would come up with all kinds of excuses as to why they got a negative feedback or low rating. Is their stance right or wrong? Well that’s a different question and inconsequential really – this is just how eBay works and you either play by their rules or don’t use them at all.

In your situation, you’re lucky that your account is only restricted and not suspended. If you can continue selling, you have two options really:

1) Continue selling on this account and improve your DSRs over time;

2) Open a brand new account and just start from scratch.

I would probably go with option 2 as it will be quicker to get TRS on a brand new account than to get an account with poor ratings back on track.

I’m afraid there’s not much more I can suggest.

Hi Andrew,

I’m having a bit of trouble adding a picture to an eBay template. What I do is – copy the code for the template then paste it and then I open my picture folder left click and drag it into place. The picture then over takes everything else. I don’t think what I have done is 100% right, but I can’t seem to find any other way.

Cheers,

Luke

Hi Luke,

That’s a totally wrong way of adding a picture to your template and will never work! You can’t just drag images from your computer to eBay like that.

To include images directly inside the listing description block (within the template), you need to first upload those images somewhere online. If you have your own hosting account, use that. Here’s an instructional video on how to do this properly:

http://andrewminalto.com/image-hosting-explained/

If you don’t have a hosting account, you can upload images to free file sharing places like:

http://postimage.org

And then you’ll get a URL for each image you’ve uploaded which you can then insert into your listings, following this guide.

Hi Andrew,

I wanted to ask when your course videos were created because, as you know, eBay changes on almost a daily basis and my hesitation in buying your eBay course is that the material might be out of date? How do you insure against this?

Also, I was ideally looking for an eBay Coaching/ Membership style course where existing material is regularly updated and new content added. To what extent (if any) is this covered by your course?

How often will your course content change, and would I get free access to the modified content/videos if I sign-up?

Finally, is there an upsell, and if so, what is it?

Regards,
Martin

Hi Martin,

The current version of Easy Auction Business was created in the summer of 2014, so it’s roughly 8-9 months old. Some of the videos were updated for 2015 just 2 months ago so I would say it is very up to date and includes eBay’s latest changes! 🙂

Of course, there are always small things that can change and rules that I don’t mention on the course as then it would merely be a rephrasing of eBay’s help section, which is of very little use. In terms of the actual strategies and business tactics that I teach to create a successful eBay business, they’re all 100% valid and effective today.

Obviously, I don’t give any INSURANCE against small rule changes occurring as that would be impossible – there are so many differing rules across the multiple regional eBay sites that I doubt there is even one person on this planet who is up to date with everything.

I do add new material and videos at least once a year and also edit any previous content that is outdated or no longer valid, and you get all those updates for FREE, for life. It’s a one-time payment of £67 which gives you lifetime access to EAB, with ALL updates included.

Lastly – no, there are no upsells! I hate upsells as a customer and don’t do include any in my businesses for that very reason.

Hope this helps Martin!

Hi Andrew,

We are expanding nicely and at a rate of knots but having a couple of problems, mainly that we now have 2 people working on listing creation full time for us and as we’re using Turbo Lister on two separate computers, there are some synchronisation problems. My fear is that we’re going to overwrite our work, which is obviously a big waste of time.

Sorry to waffle on but I need to know the best way for several people to upload listings to eBay for me, can I use multiple copies of Turbo Lister to achieve this?

How can I expand by getting more listing creators all using the same database? Am I missing a trick here or is this simply not possible?

We are currently using Linnworks but create listings using Turbo Lister.

Many thanks in advance!

John

Hi John,

I believe it is possible, but I can’t say for sure as I haven’t tried it myself. Two people should be able to work on two different computers, but they’ll have to make sure to synchronise data frequently and try not to upload new listings at the same time.

But as I said, I haven’t actually done this myself so can’t say for sure what problems it could create…

Another, simpler solution would be to have one MAIN Turbo Lister computer which is linked to your eBay account and a secondary computer that is linked to a different eBay account (an empty, dummy account) and you simply create listings there and export them to the main computer. As far as I can see, this should work 100% without any problems!

Hi Andrew,

I was just wondering if you ever have sales on your Easy Auction Business? It’s not that easy when you’re on a fixed income.

Thank you for your time.

Have a great day,
Sue

Hi Sue,

No, I’m afraid that I don’t run sales for Easy Auction Business. I’ve never done so and probably never will in the future. The price has always been £67 (from day one) and in my opinion it’s a real bargain taking into account what you get in return – the bonuses alone are worth more than the price you pay.

If you’re on a very limited income, and can’t afford to buy the course, then my best advice is – don’t. There’s no point in spending all your money on the course and then be left with no funds to invest in stock and your business. I’d rather be honest here and suggest that you learn as much as possible from my blog and just try to start out like that – you can begin by selling unwanted items from your house, which will not only build up some extra money for you, but also provide invaluable eBay experience.

Hi Andrew,

You have done an amazing job with you blog, helping and educating people who have no idea about the shipping business.

I have ordered cargo (13 boxes weighing 100kg) from China to be delivered to me by sea on CNF terms.

I realised a little late that it would cost me dearly when the cargo arrives at Felixstowe port!

My Local freight forwarder sent me the bill for clearing the cargo here in the UK and there are all kinds of fees that I cannot understand.

1. UK Customs Clearance £50.00
2. DTI Fee £2.55
3. UK Terminal Handling £71.50
4. Import Documentation £115.00
5. China Import Fee £49.50
6. ICA £36.85
7. Use of Deferment £35.00

Plus there is also the import, VAT and delivery to my door.

I’m just sitting and wondering which of these fees are real and which ones are made up… the rates all seem too high as well?

I do not know if you are aware of all these fees and charges, but I will be very grateful if I get any clarification.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Milen

Hi Milen,

Unfortunately this is how it works – if you don’t have a proper door to door service in place, you’ll be hit hard by all the fees you have listed and you can’t do anything about it now, other than simply paying. If you delay this process, the fees will only increase as storage costs at customs warehouses are very high.

One thing that’s obvious is they’re overcharging you and taking you for a bit of a ride – I mean £115 for import documentation? That’s very excessive…

Then UK customs clearance? Surely that should be included under the £115 import documentation fee?

And what is a China Import fee?

It all looks made up to me just to inflate their fee and charge you as much as possible.

You can of course question these fees with your freight company but they will just probably give you vague answers that no one can make sense of…

I’m afraid there’s very little you can do now expect use this as a lesson learnt and next time, only import via sea with a pre-agreed, fixed price for door to door delivery. The company I recommend you check out is Woodland Global. They’re very fast, efficient and highly affordable.

Hi Andrew,

I have a quick question, sorry if this sounds obvious, but I’m new to this game. In eToro, you can only lose the amount that’s in your account right? You can’t go into debt? For example you put 500 dollars onto the eToro account, you can only lose that 500 dollars even in the event of extreme market conditions?

Thanks,
Adrian

Hi Adrian,

Yes, absolutely. You can only lose the money you have deposited to your eToro account and nothing else. You can’t go in to “debt” on eToro, no.

***

Yet another Questions & Answers post finished! If you have a question you would like me to answer, get in touch with me via the contact form on this page!

Thanks,
Andrew