I did not write my Saturday Sale Stories last week because my whole family went away for a weekend. My husband played in chess tournament, and I was hoping for relaxing stay in a hotel with marathon of “Law and Order:SVU” and lots of beauty sleep.
Little did I know! It’s impossible to relax even in a hotel room with two little kids who act like energizer bunnies. They pretended to be Eloise and destroyed the room and hotel lobbies by day. By night my youngest refused to sleep because he wanted his own bed and a bottle of milk. Neither was available.
I was going to write an entry about last week sales night before we went. However my Internet went out on Thursday. It was too bad because I had great sales last week, I made more then in few previous weeks and even had a international customer purchase three items at the same time, something that only happened to me once since I opened a store.
Disney Characters Feliz Navidad Banner
I had a sale on Friday for none other then a Christmas Feliz Navidad banner, but without Internet I could not print my label on PayPal.I was horrified to have to go to post office and pay close to double the postage but I did not want my customer to wait.
I remembered how much I hate the post office and how much I love printing labels on PayPal. Not only a wait was horrible at the post office with their extra step. While standing in long line waiting for your turn to get to only two open windows you are being approached by a worker who makes you fill out form saying which way you ship you packages and if you need extra services. That form then supposed to be handed to worker at the window. Hello!!! I am perfectly capable of saying what kind of postage I need at the window. What happened to polite verbal communication? That worker would have made things easier if she would sat behind one of the windows helping customers there instead of annoying us in the line.
And then on top of everything else one worker behind the window spotted me in the middle of the line and loudly announced ‘Liz Taylor in the house!’ I get that every time I step in this post office along with bewildered looks of elderly desperately trying to locate Liz Taylor in their presence and young folks shrugging their shoulders because they never heard of Liz Taylor but still looking around. I wanted my Internet be back on at the moment!!
Right before we left on Saturday morning I checked my email on my iPhone without which I cannot live and to my dismay I found I made two more sales. No time to wait for post office to open, and Internet at home still down. I was not too happy knowing we have three day weekend and I even won’t be back until late Monday night. I wrote both buyers really apologetic email saying their items will be shipped first thing Tuesday morning and kept my fingers crossed. I never got a response from them
Being on a shoe string budget during our trip I was glad to have made those sales as well as one more sale during the trip. I kept shipping expenses aside and was able to use the rest of the money as we desperately needed it during the trip.
So as one can imagine I did not get a break or rest. Except couple hours on Sunday when I met a fellow seller from Bonanza in person. We had wonderful time drinking milkshakes talking about selling online and I shared with her few tip I learned including info about ebug and free section on Craigslist as a source of potential inventory. I was glad to be spared of my kids company and it was awesome to have a grown up conversation with long time online friend!
My hubby won some money in a chess tourney and exhausted we made our way home. My kids were so happy to sleep in their own bed. I was too.
Tuesday our Internet was fixed. I was able to ship packages from home while saving money time and my sanity by not going back to the post office. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope that those buyers who had to wait for three days to get their packages shipped will understand that life happens and we are all human and won’t give me feedback trouble or dings on stars.
Ramblings of an Ebay Addict 