Power Sellers Unite

cotton92 · Joined: 21 Dec 2011 Posts: 4

Hi all, I am relatively new to e-commerce, I have been working for an "ebay store" for about 5 months now. I understand if this post is misplaced, if so please tell me. I don't even know where to begin finding a good e-commerce community, but I have a lot of question.

Basically, the situation I would describe when I arrived was very unorganized:
-no inventory
-manual payment checking
-no label recording

We have about 400 orders per day, and use Auctane Shipping manager to print our labels. We manually cross-check this with the daily Paypal list. Then we organize the labels and manually enter them into the main inventory sheet daily, an Excel database.

This process, not including creating the labels, takes me about 3-4 hours every morning, and its a pain in the ass.

I am starting to come around to my senses, and realize we need a serious system. My first idea is to create a SKU database for our 1000 listings are so and go from there, but even that is proving to be impossible.

My question is what steps I can take from this point to decrease the "morning process" to under an hour. Any suggestions or comments are greatly aprreciated, as I am sure you all are much more experienced.

Schistosomiasis · Joined: 19 Jan 2010 Posts: 192

Hi Cotton,
Yes, a database would help you a lot. I'd suggest a simple SQL-based db, you can get one set up cheaply (let me know if you need suggestions on how/where to get this done).

The relevent fields would be, for example:

SKU
Listing category
quantity
photo (hosted on the db server)
price
ship weight
list date
sell date
listing number
sold to (name,address)

You can add other info as you see fit, such as supplier, packaging type, etc. Another huge advantage is it's very easy to sync up inventory if you sell on multiple venues.

The process would be, every day:
1) From Ebay (and other venues), dump a report on sold items. Upload directly into db. This would also store buyer info.
2) From db, dump label info and a "pull-sheet" (helps when pulling items from your storage area).
3) Label info is dumped in whatever format your label printing software takes. Just curious, any reason you don't print postage directly from your Ebay account?
4) Print labels. Pack pulled items from pull-sheet.
5) If you like to keep a hardcopy, print from db.

If you need to sync up multiple venues, dump "available inventory" report from your db in appropriate formats and load into Amazon, etc.

Please let me know if you need any help with this. I normally list several thousand items a month, and couldn't keep track of it without a system like this.

cotton92 · Joined: 21 Dec 2011 Posts: 4

Thanks for the reply Schistosomiasis.
We use a program called Auctane Shipping Manager, which is a web-based extension of the Stamps program. While I do no think I am currently capable of creating an entire SQL database, I do have a question: What are the logistics of syncing various databases? Wouldn't they all have to be in the same format to sync properly?

And as far as creating listings on Ebay, do you follow the template set out in FileExchange Pro? That is the only database based listing system that i have come across. If so, is there anyway I can easily edit current listings with a database format instead starting from scratch?

Thanks

mojavelyn · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:37 pm Post subject:

Have you actually tried to print the labels from PP?

Schistosomiasis · Joined: 19 Jan 2010 Posts: 192

Hi Cotton,

The general idea is this: Your SQL db holds data in plain-vanilla format, but can input or output data in any format based on simple instructions that it is given. Different venues, Ebay, Sears, Amazon, Alibris, all have different requirements for uploads, and all have different formats for report downloads.

So... your SQLdb is given simple instructions on how to, for example 1)format for Ebay FileExchangePro upload, 2) Read Ebay-generated report download, 3) Format for Sears product upload, 4) Read Sears daily orders download, etc. The instructions are given once, and only altered if you decide to add a venue or if one of the venues makes a change in thyeir requirements. You can also dump shipping label data in whatver format you need for your favorite postage program.

So every night you collect all the reports, dump them *as is* into your db (which knows how to read them), and generate your shipping-label data and pull-sheet. Then, generate new *upload* data, and refresh all your venues with up-to-date inventory numbers.

I wouldn't suggest doing the programming yourself. This type of db is simple and cheap, less than a one-day job for a professional. Gather some example upload and download files to give to the developer to use as examples. If you get brave later you can poke around in the code to see what it looks like, but it isn't necessary.

I asked for a web-page format, with buttons to click for "upload Ebay report", "Download Ebay File Exchange file", etc. A few years later and I can add new venues/formats myself, after a bit of a learning curve.