messy business

Wow - my exact thoughts at this moment. I'm not stressed by it (I am a zero-stress person these days). I did spent all of last night cleaning up an eBay explosion in our living room.

We live in a pretty small place, and we can't keep our business things organized. Even when we can get some kind of organization, it doesn't last for long. And oh, my, all the boxes! And the giant bag of peanuts and the huge roll of bubble wrap.

We are moving in the fall and looking for a 3rd bedroom which will function as an office and business area. Hopefully that will help us.

I get majorly burnt out at least once a month.

Honest!

I know zactly what you're talking about..both of you!

Want confusion? Moving out of one home to another with all this eBay stuff. All the time trying to not go bonkers!

When we bought this house almost 3 years ago and I had to not only move my household and everything in it. Besides, our home contents, the children, dog, etc etc I had to deal with the eBay stuff. Including all the boxes, envelopes, bubble wrap, etc...and think bout the items...OH MY GOSH!

I had auctions I was selling, items waiting for payment, items not put up for auction, items pics had been taken, items with no pics, items with notations on them (sticky notes) and more. And I wouldn't let anybody mess with my eBay stuff because I knew where everything was.

It was INSANE! (and it got worse, ha)

Shortly after moving into this home, I became ill for well over a year and a half. I was depleted of energy and had side-effects from medicines and medical procedures that were majorly wicked. I could barely move from room to room much less get everything organized.

I FINALLY after almost 3 years in this home have it situated except two closets in an out of the way corner of the house. The doors stay closed until I can get to it. One is stacked from top to bottom with rubbermaid storage containers. With items separated, mens, womens, children, lingerie, video's, books, albums etc. The other closet, I HAVE to get to...transfer those items into the other rubbermaid containers so I can have everything in one place and not two. This will come during the summer as it's a slower time on eBay and I'll get everything ready for the fall.

I FINALLY have a spot set up in the garage with four compartmentalized shelfing units. I have a place set up for wrapping with all of the items in one place, envelopes, boxes, paper, tape, etc. (even though it doesn't matter how many pairs of scissors I buy, they always get lost)

Yes, ma'am, At times I think I'm absolutely positively going ape sh*t crazy with everything. Hubster is real anal retentive and likes everything just so...well, when you're selling on eBay, it's hard to keep a significant other/spouse happy. So he's had to learn to live with it until I could get everything where I want it. He didn't understand that he just can't move everything into one place and expect me to be happy bout it.

When I'm going bazonkers...That's when I walk away...take a breather. Throw my hands up and say, I quit. (for today) I put on some music, dance around the room, throw a stick for the dog to chase, do what makes ME happy, light candles, yoga, EAT chocolate and/or snuggle up with a book.

Here's a pic of one of the closets that I have stuffed to the gills...


If you EVER need a place to vent, come to the boards..feel free to vent away with me.

Been there and Done that..plus continuing the saga.

<smile>

Take care, Donna

Ebay burnout I know it all to well. Add homeschooling my two boys who are 3 and 6 to the mix

I find what happens to me is I spread myself to thin and then can't find a place to start. I become overwhelmed and just say screw it and I get nothing done instead.

So right now my new goal is to focus on one thing and give it my all, while in the process other areas might start to crumble I think this is the only way to get anywhere.

Two ID selling two tottaly different products on variouse selling sites. so right now I'm am focusing my attention on my own website that I can sell from. Its a learning experience but I'm taking it day by day and I'm confident I CAN do this.

Hang in there

quote:

Originally posted by cakethings:
We are moving in the fall and looking for a 3rd bedroom which will function as an office and business area. Hopefully that will help us.

Our plans this coming year is the addition of about 600-750 square feet. One of the additions is to be an official eBay/online selling room/office all of my own!

WOOOOOHOOOOO!

I'll send pics when it happens!
Donna

quote:

Originally posted by wahm922:
I'm confident I CAN do this.

Dayum straight you CAN do this!

(then you can teach me cube care/zen cart, ha)

Four ID's to your two IDs..we have a full hand between the two of us. HA!

<smile>
Donna

quote:

Originally posted by Suthrnjewl:
even though it doesn't matter how many pairs of scissors I buy, they always get lost

Amen!

Things that start with the letter "s" tend to get lost easily...

scissors
socks
sanity

I actually bought the house I am in for an eBay business.

It's a three bed room with a large bonus room attached to the two-car garage. Right now, I have the entire bonus room and garage for inventory plus a bedroom as an office.

Sure is better than the one-room apartment and multiple storage sheds that I had seven months ago. That SUCKED.

I can relate to going crazy as well!! I have been really feeling it lately. We just moved here to NC a few months ago and are still in a 2 bedroom apartment while we look for a house. My Ebay stuff is EVERYWHERE! As we speak, my closet is filled with clothes, my girls room has plastic totes with clothes, the kitchen counter has my postal scale and the laundry room is my shipping room. Trying to work with twin almost three year old girls is also interesting. Someone is always asking me for juice or princess fruit snacks (here comes one now to ask...she must have sensed me typing me about it!)

Lately I have wanted to just close everything down until we move into a house but we have not found one and so who knows when it will be. It will be a wonderful day though as we are already planning on space for me to work and store items!

I have to admit last week I was really frazzled with the problems with the images. My friend is having me sell a ton of kids clothes for her before she moves out of state and it seemed like all of her auctions got hit with no pics last week and therefore low bids. I love Auctiva and want to stay but that really sent me for a loop!!

Anyhow, everyone keep your chins up and keep up the good work! I used to be a really organized in my former life as a social worker but I gave that up when I started working from home with two little ones so don't let all the clutter or abundance of details get ya down!

Have a great day!

Marcia

quote:

Originally posted by cakethings:

quote:

Originally posted by Suthrnjewl:
even though it doesn't matter how many pairs of scissors I buy, they always get lost

Amen!

Things that start with the letter "s" tend to get lost easily...

scissors
socks
sanity

Around here its the missing tape measure for the clothing!

Donna did you say ebay room?

We have a back porch that is enclosed with vinyl sliding windows windows - two solid walls and two of the windows. Ac already out there as well as electric.

Well hubby and I talked and were going to close this in for the "baby" room. My baby was 3 in December and he still shares a room with his brother.

At this point they don't want to be seperated so now the last few years the plan is an ebay/office/playroom.

I have big plans for this room, big dreams!

About a year ago he finally got the windows in and its now part of the house and there is no more plastic hung up in the doorway but my nephew has been staying out there for a few months now. The good news is he found his own place and I;m hopeful to get my room sometime this year

I had some better pictures of the room but this is all I could find right now:

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/0/0/6/3/4/4/webimg/11871823_o.jpg

Edit to add afew more I found but still not the ones I was looking for:
http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/0/0/6/3/4/4/webimg/11872608_o.jpg

This is when DH first started on the room:
http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/0/0/6/3/4/4/webimg/11872609_o.jpg

See how long I have been waiting for this room!

We moved into our 3BR house, (I guess it would be called a raised rancher) almost 3 years ago. The room that WAS my office area turned into a BR for my son. The basement at one point looked like an 84 Lumber/ebay warehouse. Hubby would pick up wood, cabinets, anything that was discounted from work and bring it home and plop it in the basement. I'm kinda glad we live out in the boonies so people don't visit too terribly often. If its not my family, people usually come to the front of the house to knock, which is a good thing! I don't usually let people in the basement unless I know them. A stranger's first thought would be "this girl has a disease of some sort". My family knows that I sell on ebay and they invented the word "packrat", so my mess doesn't really bother them. Actually, even with all my stuff they still have more crap accumulated than me!

I have bookshelves along 3 of the 4 walls in my basement. One wall is the "community bookshelf" that contains all the books that we use ourselves. The other 2 walls are my inventory. Mostly all my Amazon books and 1 bookshelf of my ebay books I need to list. The floor contains boxlots jutting out here and there from the wall. And I jumped head first into the world of women's clothing, so I have a dummy and a clothing rack filled as well as the closet in my son's room. The laundry room has my postal scale and bubble mailers.

Since day 1 when we moved in, we've been planning to close up the garage (40'X12') and turn it into a BR and an office. Well, we're FINALLY getting it done! We've replaced the windows on the side and filled the spot where the garage door was with a 53" X 60" window and the two swing-out doors at the back with a nice sliding glass door. We must focus on the exterior before the interior because the house is BLUE. I like blue, but not this one. It's a cloudy sky blue, like a grayish blue, dull, BLECH! And to make it worse, ITS EVERYWHERE!!! The porch, the porch furniture, the interior too on the trim, the carpet even the freakin' toilet and tub!!!!!! I had a moment, I'm calm now. It just really doesn't match the new dark brown roof we put on last year!

But once that's done, hubby will start framing out the garage and I pray we will be able to get it all done by the fall.

So, in the meantime, I have to just start getting rid of what I've bought over the winter.
This past week was the first I've listed since Feb.
I lost my motivation and need someone to stick some dynamite up my keester or something.

How are sales for everyone if I might ask? I didn't do too bad this week, but is Memorial Day weekend is coming up so I will probably schedule for Wed/Thurs.

OK. Need some java and get busy!

P.S.--sorry for the rant!

Hi again, I am glad to see I am not alone on this issue. So maybe I just need to be more realistic and expect to deal with it.

I also create alot of my own inventory and keeping supplies on hand is another storage nightmare. I just acquired 3 new sewing machines, big industrial honkers, so have spent the past week clearing out space for them and contemplating moving the whole operation down to the basement. Come to think of it, that is where it originally started out but then it seemed more convenient to work upstairs so stuff just started migrating. That is when everything started spreading. Then DH made rules about the garage, and anything that was not a tool, a car, a Harley or a tractor was banished. He piled it all downstairs for me to keep, trash or donate! My donation pile looks big but not nearly as big as my "I will get around to listing this soon" pile.

To all of you full time stay at home moms, I don't know how you do it. I have my 4 mo old granddaughter 2 days a week and am lucky if I get packages ready and get to the PO by 4:55 on those days!

quote:

Anyone else feel stressed out by the mess of running an ebay business from home?

Yes, I went through this already. Over a period of about 7 years, I turned a nice basement room into an absolute shithole of other people's used crap. This insideous buildup of stuff occured slowly as I would go to estate/garage/yard sales and bring stuff home. I'd find that one item of a lot sold for 10 times what I paid, so I held onto the other items in the lot, to be sold over time, to keep that stream of cash coming in. It was good before 9/11, the money flowed in like water. Then the bottom fell out. The value of items all of a sudden dropped. Stuff continued to pile up.

Well, this went on for years. My wife constantly fought with me over how the room looked ("sell it or get rid of it"). As the years passed, this "stuff" was no longer valuable. Most of it barely sold. It was a waste of time to even list it. Then, one day last October, it rained real hard and water came into the room and ruined the rug. The rug had to go. But what of all the stuff on the rug?

Well, you know what? I threw it all out! I am so happy I did that. I got rid of a ton of stuff which was now worthless. I restored the former 'eBay' room to a livable room again, and I don't ever plan on letting that happen again. It's a sickness. Watch yourself.

quote:

Originally posted by JeffS:

quote:

Anyone else feel stressed out by the mess of running an ebay business from home?

Well, you know what? I threw it all out! I am so happy I did that. I got rid of a ton of stuff

I LOVE doing that! I have done that twice in the last year and love the feeling of.."Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" feeling.

I've vowed to not let it get outta hand again. I'm staying to it also. What I have put back are viable selling items during certain times of the year. I have a full set of china that's a hard to find pattern, Tommy Bahama, Reyn Spooner, Avi-Kahala, A few Rock a Billy Dresses from the 50s, Vintage Wedding Silk Kimono's, Men's Tuxedo's, Vintage Formals, Halloween Costumes (including a gorgeous wenchy looking renaissance gown), I have quite the collection of vintage lingerie that gets really good money. (including several vintage Olga Full Sweep gowns and peignor sets) I've sold several just like the below link and have gotten just bout the same money for them, too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-OLGA-GRAND-SWEEP-LACE-NIGHT...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

But I agree Jeff...VERY rewarding to just clean out the crappola and move on.

My Best,
Donna

quote:

Originally posted by wahm922:
At this point they don't want to be seperated so now the last few years the plan is an ebay/office/playroom.

I have big plans for this room, big dreams!

I love the swing set you have for the boys out there. And know what? There's nothing wrong with those boys sharing a room cause they don't wanna be separated. They'll talk into the wee hours of the night soon bout all kinds of boy stuff and it'll make for tight bonds between them!

Dreams do come true Danielle! You're married to a good guy and he's gonna do the best in partnership with you that he can.

Some dreams just take longer to happen but they do come true!

What I say you need in that office is a jacuzzi off to the side...how bout you? And you'll need a place to put the margarita, too! And when it's time to clean the jacuzzi out, you'll of course need a cabana boy! <wink>

My Best!!!!!!!
Donna
(the eternal dreamer)

quote:

Originally posted by ataraxis:

P.S.--sorry for the rant!

LOVED IT! Loved it!
How bout a cup of vanilla coffee? It's what I have this morning.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for the fall!

Take care, Donna

Mmmmmm, I LOVE french vanilla cappucino(sp?)! Thanks for the good wishes. I really would like to have it done!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to list I go!

Dear Santa, all I want for christmas this year is a 25 x 20 prefab building with a seperate 10 x 10 shed next to it in my backyard. I sell collectibles on ebay & other places santa, and work on computers at the same time. I can handle the computer repair business out of my house no problem santa since I do half of it in the customers home. But the ebay items are taking over the house and I need my own building to run it out of.

I have ebay stuff in every room of the house santa, in every corner, nook and cranny. I have enough merchandise to last me for the next year easily. Boxes on top of boxes and rubbermaid tubs in the twenties. I dont even know what I have in them yet. I just pull a couple boxes a week and list only what I have time to keep up with.

If I had a building santa, I could be so much more organized and be able to list more items per week. Im desperate santa, and now I want to sell vintage lamps & lighting on top of this? Am I nuts?

Never mind the building santa, Just send me a shrink for christmas cuz Im outta my mind.

westvatexan- laf! too funny!

every time i feel overwhelmed about the mess in the house, i visit this page http://lee.org/journal/journal%20030104-043004/The%20Aw...M%20of%20photos).htm

although it's an ebay buyer, rather than a seller, it still always makes me feel better *heh*

WARNING: not suitable for dialup users. has TONS of pics and will end up having to right-click/show pic tons of times to view it, if youre on dialup.

WARNING #2: some of the posts in the thread have adult language.

quote:

every time i feel overwhelmed about the mess in the house, i visit this page http://lee.org/journal/journal%20030104-043004/The%20Aw...M%20of%20photos).htm

Man oh man, that is disturbing. Makes me feel a lot better about taking over the dining room table...

OMG, I thought my house was littered with ebay stuff. I feel like I live in a mansion now after seeing that thread. Im gonna stop griping about the mess in my house now. But I tell ya one thing...I would give my first born to get my hands on all that stuff and go through it.

Us collectibles dealers live for places like that. Nothing more appealing to me than an estate sale of a packrat that has passed on. You should see me and my wife when the doors open..we are like rats on crack..lololol.

That woman has some serious issues though. It's an odd condition -- like the people who have 100 cats in their houses or whatever. Did you notice all the unopened Priority-shipped boxes?

But I know what you mean about the estate sale idea -- when I was looking at all those pictures I kept feeling the urge to open the boxes to see what was inside. That's a sickness of its own!

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Bradford:
That woman has some serious issues though. It's an odd condition -- like the people who have 100 cats in their houses or whatever. Did you notice all the unopened Priority-shipped boxes?

But I know what you mean about the estate sale idea -- when I was looking at all those pictures I kept feeling the urge to open the boxes to see what was inside. That's a sickness of its own!

I too feel the need to go through all those boxes of hers - laf! Prob would be that i'd horde it for myself instead of selling it - *heh*

Put it this way, how many people do you know that have an atari 2600? Now how many people do you know that have THREE of them??

[QUOTE]Originally posted by denverdoni:
Anyone else feel stressed out by the mess of running an ebay business from home? I go through this every couple months, feeling like I have to get control of the house, reorganize and then once I start working and listing again it just explodes.QUOTE]

hmmmmm, I'm right at that point too!!! Stuff everywhere....I feel so guilty when we (husband and I) visit our friends and their front rooms, family rooms and extra bedrooms aren't piled to the ceiling with ebay stuff. Theirs are nice and tidy with cutsy family photos, flower arrangements ... even their kitchens have everything in the right place, plus the aforementioned cutsy photos in equally cutsy handmade frames, etc.

At this time, I am using the Ebay and HiBidder auctions and things are really slow. Someday I would like to have a little website of my own where I could list things and hopefully move some of them. (and not have Ebay take a cut of the profit) But, have to wait until my granddaughter takes "website creation" so she can put something together for me.

I'd like to beg one of those power sellers to be my mentor....you read about the "man from Fremont, NE who made $30,000 the first month he listed on Ebay" or the "lady who went from a housebound stay-at-home wife who makes zillions selling on Ebay".....if they can do it, so can YOU!!!! Yeh, I pay more in ebay fees than I make selling....thats not paying off at all.

Luckily I have an understanding husband who really enjoys packing up whatever I sell. The first thing he asks when he sees me checking my auctions is "did we sell anything".

Gosh it feels good to vent...

TENNISNTRAINS
jeanneb

So we finally just bought a house!! We have been living in a 2 bedroom apartment since moving to NC from NY 8 months ago. We close in about a month and I cannot wait! Of course, now I have to pack up my ebay stuff (mainly clothing so it should not be too bad). We will have an office in the new house and a 16x20 bonus room to hold my goods.

I looked at those pictures of the house with all the unopened boxes. Yes, I want to open them all too!! There are A LOT of people like that out there. My hubby's grandma was very close to being one. She had stuff ALL OVER and when she passed on they literally just threw things into a dumpster. She even had an antique Indian Motorcycle in her garage that was in awesome shape. The family sold it for thousands of dollars to the official museum for those bikes. She use to even store cakes under her couch..you never ate ANYTHING when you went to Grandmas..you always took HER out.

Lots of luck to everyone this week!
Marcia

quote:

Originally posted by wayoutwest:
Put it this way, how many people do you know that have an atari 2600? Now how many people do you know that have THREE of them??

OMG! I just discovered someone else that has 3 atari 2600s Biggfredd *lmao*

the difference is, he bought his with intention of reselling, i bought the extra two of mine with excuse of reselling *laf!*

Recently, I went through my kitchen and threw out so many things. I had like 3 sets of dishes, silverware, glasses, you name it! I was going to donate it BUT I knew if I didn't do it right then and there, I wouldn't ever make it there. So, I chucked it all and it felt good! I did the same with a bunch of clothes that were beyond donating. Too worn out. Man, it felt wonderful to just throw it all away. I donated tons of old toys my son didn't wany anymore. Some pretty expensive but it was great.

I highly recommend doing this. It was liberating!

quote:

Originally posted by marciay96:
So we finally just bought a house!! We have been living in a 2 bedroom apartment since moving to NC from NY 8 months ago. We close in about a month and I cannot wait! Of course, now I have to pack up my ebay stuff (mainly clothing so it should not be too bad). We will have an office in the new house and a 16x20 bonus room to hold my goods.

I looked at those pictures of the house with all the unopened boxes. Yes, I want to open them all too!! There are A LOT of people like that out there. My hubby's grandma was very close to being one. She had stuff ALL OVER and when she passed on they literally just threw things into a dumpster. She even had an antique Indian Motorcycle in her garage that was in awesome shape. The family sold it for thousands of dollars to the official museum for those bikes. She use to even store cakes under her couch..you never ate ANYTHING when you went to Grandmas..you always took HER out.

Lots of luck to everyone this week!
Marcia

Congrats and best wishes for many years of happiness in your new home!

quote:

Someday I would like to have a little website of my own where I could list things and hopefully move some of them. (and now have Ebay take a cut of the profit) But, have to wait until my granddaughter takes "website creation" so she can put something together for me.

Have you tried eCrater?

Register a domain name you want and then you can FW it to the free store on eCrater. Its easy to do and can wotk like your own website until you get something else.

That is what I'm doing while I build my own website

Also look into VStore, it was posted here recently as well.

I'm pretty much done with ebay, closed both my stores but will run auctions here and there and for the holidays of course but I'm moving away from all the fees. With sales being so slow this time of year, its the perfect time for me to do this!

I found the answer to your problem:

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/pac_ctnt/text/0,2019,DIY_14161_44387,00.html

Now send that tape in!

quote:

Westvatexan

I see you have a store with vstore hows that working out do you get sales.

Hi Debkwek, I dont get alot of sales from the vstore maybe 1 or 2 a month if im lucky. But then I also dont advertise it and I dont have alot of items for sale. But I do get alot of visitors because I have a bunch of links on the web. So Im basically just using it for now to park items and maybe get a sale and link stuff to it.

Most of the stuff I have for sale on there are collectibles that go up and down in collectible status. I keep an eye on ebay for the items I have in the store and when someone has the same item up and its getting multiple bids..I pop mine on there right behind it. When their auction is over the losers are gonna be looking for another one of the same item. Walla! there mine is for the same starting price of the one that just sold.

I do pretty good selling on ebay (knock on wood) But when I have enough items listed in the vstore, im going to start seriously promoting it. Im just so busy with ebay and computer repair and researching and general houshold duties, that I rarely find time to throw more items on there. I always say Im going to, but I never get to it because its last on the totem pole..lolol.