Movie Profiles & Premiums

Oh yeah, I’m early on this, but I started adjusting some listings today. Obviously I won’t see (m)any of the potential rewards eBay promises until at least September 16, but I do want to see if buyers are attracted to one of the main ideas eBay proposes, namely free shipping.

I chose to tinker with the Wrestling Magazines aisle of my store. 90 active items, more to be listed sitting in stock. A decent seller, but honestly a little flat right now because I haven’t gotten around to adding any in awhile. When they do move it’s pretty much split between single-item sales and multiple item sales.

The category, and this isn’t meant to be a knock on any of my customers, is prone to non-payment. Actually, it’s been a lot better lately, but it’s past history was poor enough that at one time I split the stock off from my other goods, opened a second eBay Store attached to one of my buying IDs and required PayPal immediate payments only. Since I’ve brought the category back to the main Collecting Old Magazines store on eBay I’ve had pretty good sales without a non-payer.

Items are typically priced $5-$8.

It seemed a good category to start my tinkering with. If it works this plan extends next to Sports Illustrated, then Newsweek, Time, etc. — this is the planned strategy for standard sized magazines. Typically (though not always) light enough where a single issue can ship USPS First Class domestically, I also offer Priority and Express Mail.

What I’ve come up with here presents many buyers with a deal and covers me while presenting attractive shipping values.

Okay, first the old way.

Magazine priced $X.XX with (usually) $2.50 First Class Shipping, $4.80 Priority and $16.50 Express. On multiple purchases I can fit three, sometimes up to 4 issues in a single Priority or Express Flat Rate envelope and I charged the customer the same $4.80 or $16.50 rate. I enabled the Best Offer feature on all issues priced $6.50 and above with $5.00 as my bottom number.

For international sales First Class was offered to Canada only (I could really use a spot for a fourth rate eBay!) at $3.50, while I charged the quoted USPS rates of $9.95 to Canada and $11.95 elsewhere for Priority International.

The new way:

Magazines repriced at $X.XX plus $1.50
Best Offer feature removed from all items under $10 (in this case, all items).

U.S. Shipping:
First Class: Free
Priority: $3.00 plus $1.00 each additional issue
Express: $15.00 plus $1.00 each additional issue

International
Canada First Class: $3.50
Canada Priority: $9.45
International Priority: $11.35

I’m going to lose about $1.00 on every U.S. single item purchase (that’s $1 off profit, not $1 out of pocket).

But I’m (supposedly) going to be advantaged in search for offering Free Shipping, plus I think the $3.00 Priority shipping is going to be an eye-opener. On combined sales I see the benefit of the extra $1.50 per item multiplied. In other words, take two $7.50 magazines (new price).

New price: $7.50 X 2 = $15.00 + $4.00 Priority shipping = $19.00
Old price: $6.00 X 2 = $12.00 + $4.80 = $16.80

I’m also up the $1.50 right away on international sales, thus I try to compete there by lowering my Priority Rates below the rate card and include the online discount for postage I get for printing labels through PayPal. Since international customers are only seeing a $1.50 per item increase I will gladly combine their orders without adding the extra $1 per magazine.

I’ve been receiving the Final Value Fee (FVF) discount every month so far, most at 15%, one at 5%. These discounts will double in the future because of the free shipping offer.

These are currently Store Items, but I’ll have to run the numbers on the costs of moving them to the new Fixed Price. Right now I list these in the Sports categories, but I could also play with the idea of moving them to the Books–>Magazines category if I see the Media pricing advantages me. I’ll probably move a dozen or so to Fixed Price this week (under the old rules/rates) just to get them some exposure and see what, if any, reaction there is to the shipping fees.

In addition I’ve jumped the gun on eliminating checks/money orders on these listings, primarily because I don’t want to have to edit them again in a few months–as long as it’s still in the eBay rulebook feel free to request paying by check/m.o. from me. I also adjusted my handling time to 2 days, which is accurate, though sometimes I’m quicker. I meant to add a line describing my careful packing, but unless I can find a way to bulk import the text it’s going to have to wait til the next batch of updates.

I took the bait, Scott Pooler of Trading Assistant Journal is right, “Free Shipping Is a Myth,” however can it be packaged creatively enough to work is my question.

Now to put that question to the test, I want to see if customers can overlook, look past, or simply understand, the higher base pricing and value the free and discounted shipping over it. We shall see.

David O. Woodbury takes 3 columns of a 4 column page with this article, which begins seriously enough with a paragraph about astronomers searching for new worlds and another about research in biochemistry leading to an eventual cure for cancer.

But a lot of the rest of this article is the fun stuff, my favorite being the paragraph titled “Tomorrow’s Telephones”. Woodbury catches the attention of the 1943 reader right away by predicting answering machines:

Walk out of your house and leave the telephone unattended. It will answer incoming calls and records messages which you can play back to yourself when you return.

The next sentence anticipates beepers:

Hurry back from your office on business, with a small radio pick-up in your pocket that will notify you when your phone is ringing, so that you can drop into the nearest booth and pick up the call.

Then car phones:

Reach for the instrument in your automobile or taxi and ring any number in town through a special radio exchange.

And finally for portibility, an equivalent to cell phones:

Or go hiking in the country with a walkie-talkie the size of a suitcase in your hand and stay in touch with the outside world.

I wonder what size suitcase that is?

Woodbury tells us that these innovations may be a long-time coming because the first concerns of communications engineers are faster and cheaper service along with an expansion of the system. Sounds familiar.

You can read about “Tomorrow’s Telephones” along with silver-rimmed glasses to beat germs, the home dehydrator for preserving food, and snippets about plastic faucets, double-headed nails, synthetic rubber pipe for plumbing in the July 17, 1943 issue of Collier’s Magazine.

This item previous appeared on my now defunct “Random Notes” blog sometime during 2005-2006. “Random Notes” is a feature I’d like to keep going, so my plan is to publish the original 18 notes again and start creating new ones. Hope you enjoy!

I really don’t think I get more value from any other service. Really, I buy tons of DVDs, obviously with classic movies and movie stars being the theme of this site, enough books that I have boxes of them in the attic, the basement, overflowing the shelves, and I buy my fair share of music as well. In fact, I just found this neat Amazon widget that shows off my Media Library:

…And that’s just the stuff I’ve bought from Amazon!

Anyway, Amazon launched Amazon Prime in 2005 and it took me about a week to sign up for it. Prior to that I’d always take advantage of the Super Saver shipping, but with Prime I paid one annual fee and had access not to the sometimes slow SuperSaver shipping, but to free* two-day shipping. I put the asterisk by free because obviously it’s only free after you join, which does cost $79 annually.

While two-day shipping is the standard, you also get a nice discount on overnight shipping at just $3.99 per item–I’ve used this in a pinch the week before Christmas a couple of times now!

Once you Prime account is all set up you see a couple of new buttons on item pages for all eligible items. They’ll be right at the top of the item page and all you have to do is click the appropriate button (for 1-day or 2-day shipping) and you’re done! Do make sure you have both your shipping and payment options set up in advance because there will be times where you click that button and before you even have a chance to go in an edit your info Amazon has already taken your money and begun processing your order! You’ll have that great new release in two days!

(Hint: New releases often hit stores on Tuesday, DVDs that is. Order them with Prime Saturday night and they’re usually delivered on Tuesday. Your package arrives at home the same day the item debuts in stores!)

Okey-doke, I’m rambling on about Prime because I love it, but also because Amazon is giving it a little push for the holiday season. They’re running a free trial, so you’ve got nothing to lose trying it out for a month–if you’re like me, then there’s no going back! It can be dangerous, I order a lot of frivolous stuff, but then again this is what I enjoy spending my money on and if it’s lousy I’m an online seller so I’ve always got an outlet for gently used like new material! Seriously though, if you’re the kind of person who has more than a stack of DVDs or CDs or too many books for your shelves, then chances are Prime will save you a few dollars and make life a little more convenient:

Great, potentially important, post by Marty Weil today over at the ephemera blog:
The Weil-Ptak “Standardized” Ephemera Scale

In short, the scale, brainchild of Marty Weil and John F. Ptak, who operates an online bookstore, delves into the details of 6 factors to categorize ephemera items from “least ephemeral to most.”

I don’t want to copy the ephemera post verbatim, as I urge you to have a look yourself, but in order to give a better understanding of what I’m about to do I’ll say that the six factors are 1) Place of origin/population target; 2) Amount of usage/intended amount of use of the printed item; 3) Purpose; 4) Savability (Reasons why the item might have been saved); 5) Medium (what it’s made of); 6) Age.

Okay, so we’ll target a couple of specialty items of our site now.

Let’s start with a supplement. The M23 Movie Star Supplements issued with The Philadelphia Record throughout the 1930’s. Here’s how I grade it according to the Weil-Ptak Scale:

A: 3
B: 1 (that’s a bit of a stretch though, grading 1 as intended to be saved)
C: 4 (Weil-Ptak only publishes grades of 5 and 1 for mark C — I’m going to assume it’s a scale from 5 through 1)
D: 3
E: 3
F: 4
Total: 18

And now I’ll take a quick look at a magazine, to be specific, I’ll go with a 1947 issue of The Sporting News, as I’ve recently listed a complete set of those for sale. We’ll assume it’s a run-of-the-mill issue, nothing too special like important Babe Ruth or Jackie Robinson content (both of which there was a lot of that year!). Here we go:

A: 1
B: 5
C: 3 (see above comment for C)
D: 3
E: 4
F: 4
Total: 20

Conclusion: The issue of the Sporting News is slightly more “ephemeric” than the Movie Supplement. What does this mean? With a lowest possible score of 5, ranging up to a top score of 30, the way I understand it the closer an item scales to 30 means it is a combination of rarer, more fragile, and tougher to find than an item scoring lower. Especially in good condition, my guess is a 30 would be tough to find in any condition! A 30 was likely something that most of the population would have thrown away. My first thought of a 5 would be the type of item issued somewhat recently with the idea that it’d be collected–I’m sure it’d score higher than a 5 but something like a commemorative issue of a magazine detailing an important person’s death or a big sporting event, something meant for the masses to consume, would likely score lower than a 10 on the Weil-Ptak scale.

Does a 30 mean a bigger price tag than a 5? Not necessarily. You’re probably not going to get a better price on a 100 year old used bus ticket than you are for the Moon Landing issue of LIFE, but that’s not what this is about.

My first impression is that this is about classifying the unclassified. Collectors crave information, a scale brings organization to a growing but largely unorganized hobby. Check out some of the posts over at the ephemera blog. You’ll see stories about people collecting things you never dreamed were collected. Looking at recent posts there is coverage of collectors of Sterographs, Checks, Vietnam War ephemera, Mario Lanza and so much more! Every collector, no matter how common or obscure their niche, aids the collecting community in allowing the objects of their specialization to survive another generation of collecting. And what’s interesting to me is how often items from one collection find their way into another, usually more specialized or generalized collection which the item fits into.

The Weil-Ptak Scale, if implemented correctly, is going to help collectors in the end, as it’s going to help in organizing the hobby.

Suggestions: Casual things I picked up in applying the grades to these specific items. Item B, usage, was tough for me to apply. Especially to the newspaper insert. My guess is the intended usage is for a kid to pin the item on their wall for a few weeks until it falls off. But a supplement falls into all spaces in between with the possibility of being thrown out the same day, to being framed in a display forever. Item C, purpose, either needs grades 4-2 to be defined or more clearly explained if 1 and 5 are the only grades. F, Age, may need more than 5 points, or perhaps have points 4 and 5 combined with a new point 2 (100-200 years old) inserted between current points 2 and 1. Actually I think the age category could use the most work, but could be most easily corrected as well.

All in all this is great work though, and honestly I didn’t notice any of my suggestions when I read the post, only upon application. I hope to see more!

Update: Just noticed that The Exile Bibliophile also did a post about the Weil-Ptak scale. Must be some smart folks over there because they had the same idea that I did — they ran one of their items through the scale, in this case, a Stereoview of the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston. Great work!

I’m going to get these couple of links over to the Collecting Old Magazines home page when I get to its redesign, but as for now figure I’d post them here. Here are a couple of recent chats I had centered on magazine collecting:

Is It Worth Keeping Old Magazines at LoveToKnow.com

And more recently:
Vintage Magazine Collector Cliff Aliperti on the ephemera blog

There should be some helpful nuggets in each of those for the collector (hopefully not too much repetition as they were conducted 6-8 months apart). Enjoy!

Cliff

Well, this eBay seller at least. Just posting in case you’re having a similar problem and think something’s broken. There are just a few, but a couple even cause me to have to open up Internet Explorer and log-into my eBay account there:

1) Switch formats in the Sell Your Item (SYI) form - If you’re creating or editing a single listing inside eBay itself, the area by the pricing, where you choose selling format (Auction, Fixed Price, Store Item) is broken in Firefox 3. I cannot switch the tab from one selling format to another. Everything else inside SYI works.

2) Cannot view Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) on Firefox 3. The Seller Dashboard Summary shows up fine inside My eBay–>Selling Manager, but when I click on my percentage to see my current DSRs for the month the page tells me I need to download Flash, which I don’t. Shows up fine in Explorer.

3) Phantom log-in buttom on eBay Partner Networks (EPN). This is really a separate problem for eBay affiliates. I’m assuming eBay doesn’t have the log-in area coded to web standards as the entire area is askew in FireFox. Anyway, the log-in button itself is there, you just can’t see it, except maybe a sliver of the top of the button. Click that sliver and you’ll be logged-in.

These were bugging me so I figured I’d share. None of these problems/glitches existed for me until I updated to Firefox 3, so the problems seem to be the bastard offspring of Firefox meeting eBay. I’ll add to the list if I come across any others.

About a week ago I was greeted with a new My eBay page when logging in. I just noticed a link at the top which said “Send Us Your Comments,” and so I did. Here’s what I wrote:

The My eBay Beta is attractive, but I have a couple of problems regarding usability –

Cliff Aliperti
ID: things-and-other-stuff

As follow-up, I did opt-out — I was scared clicking the “Opt Out” button would begin a complicated process, but it didn’t. Click the link and the old Selling Manager is back as my default My eBay page.

Just a quick note that the latest issue of The Movie Profiles & Premiums Newsletter went out to subscribers last week. It featured a profile of Alma Rubens in The Silent Collection by Tammy Stone and Photo ID Guides for both Series 1 and Series 2 of the 1920’s Galeria Cinematografica large photo cards from Cuba.

Next issue is slated for July 15 and will feature a profile of a Golden Age movie star by Susan M. Kelly.

Also, a reminder, we’ve created “About the Author” pages for both of our regular contributors. You can access them here:

Tammy Stone

Susan M. Kelly

Just a couple of things I see that are commonly complained about eBay features or services, but that I haven’t personally experienced:

(Quick disclaimer: Let me just say this. People aren’t making up their problems with these features or services, but I do think the problems are generally exaggerated because people are just more naturally inclined to speak up when something is broken rather than when it’s working well. I’m not posting this to intimate “this guy says Markdown Manager is broken, he must be an idiot,” no, no, no. I’m just trying to offer the flip side and say I’m someone who likes these things.)

Markdown Manager is broken - Have never had a problem with it. It always seemed like the problems stemmed from Good ‘Til Canceled listings. I typically use Markdown Manager on Fixed Price listings, but occasionally on Store listings as well (I use 30 day store listings). Never a problem.

Shipping Calculator is broken/never worked — Once or twice, yes, it has been, but it’s been around a number of years, I’ve been consistently selling that entire time, and I’ve only noticed it being off once or twice. Usually it’s dead on. I’m pulling this number out of thin air, but I almost feel conservative saying the Shipping Calculator has worked properly for me 99.9% of the time.

The Google/eBay war has conspired to keep my eBay listings out of Google Base - This is a recent one, I replied to a post on the eBay Boards (a rare venture there for me) and while I had a few people sympathize with me the bulk of the replies were some combination of eBay/Google-bashing accompanied by a few conspiracy theories. The Google Store Connector is broken as I write this. My eBay items are in Google-Base because of this post on the Google Base Help Discussion board.

PayPal Shipping is broken - This is another that I don’t totally disagree with, and honestly, out of the problems mentioned above is probably the one I encounter most often. It was down once for close to a week if I remember correctly. But hey, it always gets going again. Back before PayPal Shipping I used to ship items only once or twice per week. Now I ship 5-6 times per week. PayPal shipping is great for buyer and seller alike. I just wish you could print First Class International labels!

Auctions are Dead - Not mine. Auctions have been around a lot longer than eBay and they’ll be around after eBay. They are for rare items though, not for TVs or DVDs or salad tongs or socks or board games or anything else you can comparison shop for (Exception: out of print items, items under produced with greater demand than supply, luxury items, but then again these are all rarities of one type or another). Auctions work best when you don’t have any idea of an item’s worth because that means you couldn’t find one anywhere else to compare it to. There was a time all of those items I mentioned above did get bid up at auction, but personally I think that’s a phenomena that was created by the novelty of eBay itself.

PayPal is unsafe - I’ve been using it since 2000. I got screwed once as a buyer for $400 and a few times as a seller probably totalling under $100. My account has never been frozen. My money has never taken an unreasonable amount of time to reach my bank account. I’ve never had a problem paying for eBay items with PayPal or other items with my PayPal debit card. 8 years, practically zero complaint (I was upset over the way my $400 buy was handled, but I’m over it). In that time I’ve had my bank account taken over through an ATM scam, have had my identity stolen in separate incident and have been ripped off by alternatives (one form of BidPay got me once). I love PayPal.

eBay is unsafe for sellers - I had my seller account hi-jacked once. It was scary, I was checking my email after dinner, somebody had written asking about a listing because it didn’t look consistent with the other items I sold. Sure wasn’t, I had a couple of pieces of jewelry priced at a few thousand dollars mixed in with my collectibles. I couldn’t log-in! I was in a panic. eBay Live Chat had me straightened out within a half hour. I’m just glad I was basically on top of my listings/email that night, or who knows. But eBay was very helpful and understanding in this situation.

eBay is unsafe for buyers - The time I was ripped off for the $400 I was pretty inexperienced. I was part of what turned out to be a million-dollar plus scam (I have the emails from the FBI agent telling me so) on video tapes. Some guy had listed tens of thousands of rare and out of print (OOP) VHS and kept the scam up for about 3-4 weeks before the negative feedbacks started rolling in and his account was suspended. While the listings were suspicious, his ID was not, the seller had over 10,000 feedback with single-digit negatives at the time my bids were placed. I don’t know what to say about this one, I got ripped off, I never got my money back, it still burns me.

To contradict this though I can say that I buy regularly and this is the only time in 8 years that something I bought didn’t show up. I had an experience earlier this year that nearly became my second time getting ripped off, but honestly I was pretty careless, and in the end while there was no item to receive I didn’t lose any money either. (I detailed that transaction on the blog when it happened). Now I have had items come that weren’t up to snuff or been damaged, but it’s usually cost-effective to just eat the losses there. I try to buy items I can’t really lose on anyway.

Which leads me to my point about eBay being unsafe–disregarding my $400 loss above (which I don’t think would happen today), eBay is generally as unsafe as a buyer is willing to make it. I never spend more than I’m willing to lose (okay, that is more like gambling than a good buying experience, but read on), but I generally have expectations that all will go well. I’ve found enough deals and made enough money off eBay to eBay transactions over the years that I’m reasonably confident about all of my buys. I’ve gambled on a few deals too good to be true that did actually come true. That said, I don’t like spending a lot unless I know the seller, or…and this is key, their seller feedback is strong. It is important to take a look at the seller’s feedback in detail, not just glance at their percentage. Generally I try to avoid sellers under 98%, but I make exceptions to that rule too and will probably lower that number in the future due to the new feedback process (more on that below).

eBay Customer Service is terrible - Okay, maybe, but is it any worse than other online companies you’ve dealt with? Not for me. I find Amazon’s customer service, both as a buyer and a seller, severely lacking when compared to eBay’s. The eBay Live Chat may not always provide the answer you want, but it usually does provide closure. My experience is that the e-mail customer service is actually terrible, mostly because of canned answers and a lag in response time. When you’re having a problem first stop should be the eBay Discussion Boards, if the problem is unique or new, next stop Live Chat (assuming it’s open). I have yet to try Power Seller customer service by phone, so I can’t speak on that subject.

What don’t I like?

I’m on the fence over the feedback changes. Theoretically I don’t have a problem with Sellers no longer being allowed to leave Buyers feedback. In practice what I’ve noticed is that I leave feedback a lot less often as a buyer now. I still leave good feedback (when I get to it), but without any kind of stick being waved against me, well, what do I care about leaving any feedback, except to be a good citizen? In fact, my guess would be that a good portion of positive feedback goes left unsaid now, while the negatives are probably a little accelerated and, of course, no one misses the chance to leave a well-deserved neg.

As a seller I don’t like that discounts based on Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR’s) are not computed to the exact dates covered by my invoice. It only seems fair that any discount I may potentially receive be based upon the actual fees accrued during that exact period.

I don’t like the idea presented by one eBay representative that “The fact of the matter is that free shipping is the standard for eCommerce now” or that “Buyers are becoming used to Free Shipping offers in the general e-Commerce market” as stated in one promotion. As someone who does most of their shopping online I feel qualified to say that neither of these statements are true. Do buyers like free shipping? Hell yes. Do buyers hunt for free shipping? I do. Do buyers expect free shipping? Not really. I pay an annual subscription fee to get free 2-day shipping with Amazon (Amazon Prime). Before then I was accustomed to loading at least $25 into my cart to qualify for free shipping. I order my supplies from Staples, but I always buy at least $50 worth because it means free shipping. I wait to do an order from Kohl’s until I receive or find a free shipping coupon. Free shipping is good, buyers love it, but it’s really not an entitlement or the standard that those eBay quotes claim. It’s often a promotion or more commonly tied into spending $X or more.

What do I have against free shipping? Most sellers will raise their prices to offer free shipping. In fact, if you need an expedited shipping service, chances are you’ll be paying more for the item than before because you’ll be paying the potentially higher base price plus the true expedited shipping fee. Who benefits from higher prices? eBay’s Final Value Fee is raised.

Finally, I found all of this talk about Free Shipping to be especially insensitive, possibly ignorant, timed as it was, right on the heels of another USPS rate increase.

In conjunction with the above points, I also despise the shipping DSR’s which I feel is predicated more on the actual charges of the shipping service I use (USPS) and their ability to deliver the product, especially overseas, much more than it is on any general skill of my own as a seller.

The new links policy. Okay, I can see the point of this one. Most independent sites don’t have outside links, if content is missing they just create it. I typically placed either a link to one of my grading guides in the listing or a link to a Photo ID Guide for movie collectibles which would provide further information on an item. I’ve put a copy of the grading guide on one of my eBay Store pages, for the Photo ID Guides potential customers are more likely to see them if they go to eBay from my site rather than vice versa. I have to admit, I did like the idea of buyer’s clicking from eBay to me. So I don’t like this one going away, but I totally understand.

On the flip side, eBay should not pretend to be my partner if they are not allowing me to promote myself off of eBay. If you’re an eBay affiliate you’re aware that they’re affiliate program shifted to an in-house program called eBay Partner Network (EPN). When I place a link to eBay on my site, then yes, I am eBay’s partner. When eBay disallows me from placing a link on their site, well, that is just the opposite. I don’t work for eBay, or at eBay, or even with eBay, but my new stripped-down listings confirm that eBay is just a tool for me to use to sell. I use eBay. As nothing more than a user I can say that the old eBay spirit of community is dead. Not to be a jerk, but I’m okay with that, I’m there to sell, I was never really a community guy. I don’t do eBay Guides or My World or Blogs (aside: without outside links, what the hell are on the blogs but people spamming their own listings?), I save original content for my site. I embrace community on my site. I’ll reply to the rare comment found here and encourage people to sign-up for my newsletter so I can chat to them. I do my best to go above and beyond with my emails…of eBay. After all, I only have so many characters that I can place in an eBay reply and none of them can be a link to further information, so I save my good emails for those who write me off eBay.

I could add things to both columns here for eBay, maybe I will, but most of these opinions can be found posted by me on the blogs covering eBay. I’m pretty consistent in defending eBay, but do disagree when I think something is just plain wrong (as I do with the whole “Free Shipping” thing).

To be honest, this post took a turn from the time I started writing it. I came across notes on other blogs today mentioning how lousy Markdown Manager was and that the Shipping Calculator didn’t work. I wanted to defend those two tools and a couple of other things I hear griped about that I liked. Instead the post turned into my personal state of eBay address.

That’s okay, this is my place and if you know me, you know I’m prone to rambling. Hope you enjoyed!
Cliff

Lots of little annoying side projects had slowed down the growth of the magawiki for awhile, basically because something had to suffer while I took care of these other things:

1. Closed movie card store, moved listings to eBay (done)
2. Updating eBay affiliate links and site design of things-and-other-stuff.com (in progress)
3. Updated eBay store (done)
4. Updating eBay listings to remove links and update shipping with new USPS rates (in progress)
5. Closing magazine store, moving listings to eBay (in progress)

The list really goes on and on, but having completed a couple of these tasks and moved everything listed as “in progress” past the halfway point I found myself with some time to work the magawiki some this week. I wouldn’t bother announcing it, but the fact that I’ve added listings twice within the past three days leads me to believe my work on the magawiki can be semi-regular again.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about and are wondering what the heck the magawiki is I have a page, What Is This?, which explains to some degree, but the basics for the user come near the end of that page:

“It’s intended for research–if you collect a writer or are looking for articles about, say, Babe Ruth, you can do a search and wind up with a checklist. If you see a magazine listed on eBay but the seller doesn’t include any details of what’s inside then maybe you can find the same title on the magawiki and have an edge over other bidders.”

So since I’ve been away for awhile expect the “in progress” note by Saturday Evening Post to remain there for awhile–first I’d like to catch up on my files for magazines which I had completed at the time on the magawiki. Huh? In other words, I had finished posting my files for Life Magazine, but I’ve created new sales for Life since that time, and thus have created new files of content. So my first couple of days of new work on the magawiki was posting these listings (comprising 39 new pages of magawiki content). I’ll catch up on other previously completed titles before resuming work where I left off on the Post listings.

One of the things I love about this project, and illustrated by the previous paragraph, is that it will never be done. The magawiki will constantly be evolving as long as I continue to find and list new magazines for sale. Since that’s my job, it’s always happening. Enjoy!

Cliff