Growing the store

I've got the Attributes thang down! And figured out how to copy an item, so now when I add something new to the store, I select something that is similar (in type and maybe color, if I'm lucky), and the attributes are copied over along with the rest of the file. This rocks - it saves SO much time.

I put Bob on to the task of the metatags and description, since I totally didn't know what I was doing there. He found a free metatag analyzer through the eCrater forums (which also rock - so many resources there) and spent over an hour tweaking the words to get the percentages up. It turned out that my blind shot in the dark wasn't so bad in the first place - we had a better than average outcome with the keywords I had originally chosen. Dropping the extraneous "ands" and what I call fluffy words helped to get the numbers up.

And every time you add more items to your store, or you sell stuff, it's worth running the analyzer again, because it can change your numbers. I don't know if this is hard science or snake oil, though... hard to tell without any sales yet.

And Bob was flummoxed by Squidoo! At least I wasn't the only one :-) I'm going to give it another go, though, and see if I can't make some more sense of what on earth those lenses are all about!

Today's picture is of an absolutely lovely piece of Carnival Glass that Bob found this past weekend. This is a tumbler from the Dugan and Diamond's Storks and Rushes pattern, which was made between 1920 and 1931. This color is called Marigold - you also see it in Blue. The iridescence is just so very pretty in this piece, and it's in perfect shape. The mold markings are very bold and pronounced, which is perfectly acceptable. This pattern was reissued later on, by Westmoreland, but was marked as such with a "W" - which this tumbler lacks. By deduction, it's an original.

Google Attributes

Yesterday I logged on to the eCrater account and saw a new button next to all the items in our inventory - the unmistakable G of Google. eCrater supports a certain number of Google Attributes, which are like keywords that describe your stuff that's for sale, and that the Goggle search engine will look through first when someone types in a search.

Here's a great article from the Search Engine Journal, from February 2007, that explains them really well. The upshot is that the more attributes you assign to describe something, the more particular you can get about your search, and the easier it becomes for your potential customer to find their exact match with your product.

I must admit that when I first started to read about attributes and how to assign them, my heart fell - I had already put 53 things into my store without knowing what an attribute was or that it was a good idea to assign them to each one! And it wasn't a matter of doing one record, and copying and pasting it into the rest of them; I had to go into each record individually and put the criteria that described that particular item itself. I tried to take plenty of breaks to give my eyeballs a rest (I tend to not blink often enough when looking at the screen), and also to stretch my back out. After about a day's work, I'm all caught up. And from here on in, when I add anything else to the store, I can select a similar item, copy that record, and the attributes will also be copied, for me to fine tune as necessary.

Once again, I am learning so much by doing this all myself. I guess there are plenty of people out there who hand over the running of their internet stores to a Web Master - and also hand over the money to do it - but this way I am gaining a real sense of ownership, and a depth of knowledge that I never would have imagined acquiring a year ago. Such a richness! And there's still room in my brain for more stuff!

The Google Help Base Center - a place that's dry as burnt toast, highly technical, crammed with information but not exactly geared for low-tech klutzes like myself, is also a good bookmark to have, because every single attribute that Google supports is listed, explained, and an example given.

Now I'm feeling slightly more in control of how the website is developing. I did write a Squidoo lens, though ya got me as to how those really work (maybe I'll have to do another one to get the hang of it?).

Today's picture is of another piece of Wedgwood Jasperware. This one is a commemorative pin dish made to celebrate Canada's centennial, in 1967. The applied white relief is a stylized maple leaf - no mention of Canada or the year anywhere on the piece. If you didn't know what it was or what it represented, you'd think it was a Star of David gone wrong! But in our house, mom had even made a needlepoint chair cushion using this motif. When I spotted this piece at the estate sale last week, I got all excited (that's a Canadian living in the United States for you!). Enjoy - and look forward to many more souvenirs celebrating that year in history.

Building up a store

I've got this sense of deja vue that I just can't shake - and for good reason. Taking photographs, doing research, putting items into the online store... I've been here before. Yet this time around it feels so much better. I feel so much more my own boss at eCrater, a freedom and a responsibility at the same time. I don't quite know what a metatag is, but I know it's important! And what the heck is Squidoo? Yet another form of self promotion, and it's free, so I'm going to do it.

I've begun putting some of the Wedgwood Jasperware items on the site. We have so many, it is going to be a regular department store by the time I'm done. Today's picture is of a very pretty, deep rose teapot. Yes, it's fully functional, glazed on the interior. Unusual in that it has a trivet or stand on which to place the teapot. I think we found this piece at an antique store in Tarpon Springs, long before we ever thought of having our own business.

The most famous of Josiah Wedgwood's inventions was Jasperware. The unglazed vitreous body provides the perfect background for classic scenes in bas-relief.

Venetian Decanter and Glasses Set

I just think this set is stunning, especially after we cleaned it up at home. Hand blown Venetian glass in a turquoise, almost teal color, with a gold, lacy applique overlaid in a beautiful pattern. It's right out of the 1960's and you can just picture it on somebody's kidney shaped coffee table, serving up some sherry.

Evocative.

I just love how some objects we find can transport us to another time like these can - one look and they definitely are NOT from a 2008 Crate and Barrel catalog. They are swinging; they are lounge music from an enormous console in your rec room; they are air blue with cigarette smoke, and ladies' hair teased into Dippity-Do gravity-defying shapes. All this from looking at a bunch of glass!

Yes, I love what I'm doing.

I hope that the photo does the set justice.

Time Travelers now at eCrater

Wow, my head is spinning, and so early in the day. I've been working on setting up shop at eCrater, and getting Google Checkout ready there, and we even bought a domain name. I think I have the forwarding set up so that it will bring people automatically to the eCrater storefront.

Let's give it a try, shall we? Try this link: timetravelersonline.net

That should take you to a very small storefront at eCrater. At the moment, we've got it on hold until all the kinks are worked out. I think we'll be opening it soon even though it doesn't have many items in it as of yet, because now that I've got the hang of all that taking photographs and writing descriptions down, the process is a bit more efficient than it was 6 months ago.

But please, take a look at the store, with all its 4 items in it. I like the look of the place, myself. It shouldn't be unfamiliar compared with the TIAS store, apart from looking rather empty... just a virtual change in geography, as it were.

I can't believe that I've done as much as I have. We've had to forward the domain name to eCrater instead of masking it because bookmarks won't work properly, and there is some glitch with the Checkout unless you do it this way. But I don't mind. I like the domain name better than the clumsy one we'd been using before, and we'll be able to take it wherever we end up. I have a feeling, though, that we'll be at eCrater for some time. They make it very easy to set things up, it's completely personalized, and all the promotion - the really important stuff - is also, totally up to the seller.

So we'll give this a try.

Quite a nice bunch of stuff

The estate sale we went to couldn't have been better. Close to home, and just overflowing with lovely, well cared for items that had seen a lifetime of love. We whizzed through the home and quickly built up a pile of some very special things to take away with us.

I took a quick photo of what we found. Briefly - some Wedgwood Jasperware ashtrays, including a Winston Churchill, and, to my delight, a Canadian 1967 Confederation one (which you had to know what it was just by the abstracted symbol of a maple leaf on it - no mention of Canada or 1967 at all). I was tickled pink to find it, because I'm a closet 1967 memorabilia collector. Also a covered trinket box, and a horse and chariot ashtray, both in the classical Grecian relief that you often see on the Jasperware pieces.

Silverplate - some serving pieces, like a large ladle, a small lade, a cake server, a sauce boat, and a sugar and creamer set. All terribly tarnished, but with TLC, some time and my favorite silver polish, they will all soon be gleaming, and will command decent prices.

A very pretty hand painted teapot in a soft teal color with gold handle and spout. So pretty and a practical size.

A covered cheese dish - something you just don't see any more. Very old, most definitely antique. It's lightly crazed all over and does have some staining from age, but I don't think it's a detraction. It's a special piece and in great condition.

A Stangl 1960's flower vase. I'm just starting to learn about and appreciate American pottery, and I'm glad I spotted this tucked away in a china hutch at the sale. It's in some very "Florida" colors - turquoise and gold - and still has the label on it from the factory. Mint condition.

A Venetian glass decanter set. Something special for company in a deep turquoise glass with gold lace decoration. It has all 6 glasses present in the set.

We also picked up a covered casserole dish that caught our eye, cream with green relief decoration. It just looked like something that people might like.

So that's the shopping for today. We are really pleased with what we found!

Doing some Shopping, and Looking Ahead

We're going to an estate sale tomorrow afternoon. What a luxury - a sale during the week and without a show facing us! It's been a while since we've felt the absence of any pressure to restock, but we have officially ended the show season. We won't be doing anything until an indoor event in Fort Lauderdale at the beginning of August.

So now we are able to catch our breath and really take a close look at what we have left from the shortened season that we just got through. I want to do a review of exactly what has sold well for us - I bet it won't be what we think it's been. I know that Bob gets excited every time we've sold something that takes up a lot of space! even if it hasn't been of high value; he's also been pretty happy when something heavy has sold, because it's meant that he wouldn't have to lift and carry it again... So does that mean we should only be buying light, fluffy things??

I can see us developing several different levels of merchandise. One level for outdoor shows, where people expect to find and see the "bargains" of the collectibles world. The $5 table at the Treasure Island show was truly a good thing for us, because it allowed us to pull together a bunch of items that we wanted to clear out of stock and reduce their prices to sell. It was the right thing to do, and it created some room for us.

Bob and I want to start doing indoor shows, which cost more to participate in - usually three times the cost of doing the same show out of doors. But you don't see the same merchandise indoors as outdoors - once inside, you see a higher quality of merchandise, expect to see higher prices, and you might not even negotiate on the prices as you would outside. All this just for airconditioning!

The good news is that we won't have to buy all new (old) merchandise in order to start selling at these indoor shows. We already have a broad range of prices and values in what we offer. We will have to go through the bins and decide what exactly is appropriate for the indoor show, and what we should leave at home - and that brings up another point: we'll likely have less space, so we'll have to be more discriminating in what we bring.

I'll also take a look at table coverings that can help make our lovelies pop! The right color and texture can make a big difference. At the higher end of the shows you see retailers getting into elaborate displays, spot lights, and cases. Again, since this is our first year, I'll be trying to keep things as simple and inexpensive as I can for now.

Realistically I think we'll be doing both types of shows, as weather permits, and where it makes sense to do business indoors and where it will be expected that we show outside.

Meanwhile, eCrater awaits. I've been toiling on putting the correct values into the dreaded Shipping Matrix, the place where you can make or break your own store. I've read easily 20 pages in their online forum about the subject, so it's worthy of extra study up front, before I get too deep into this new store. Once those values are in (how much to charge for shipping by weight), then I can start to enter some items into inventory, which will require me to enter a weight in for each at that time. If I don't have a value for weight, then I can't enter an item. Luckily, I just happened to have bought a postal-grade scale when I was setting the shop at at That Other Internet Place - which we didn't end up using, but should have, in hindsight.

But first things first. Shipping Matrix. Then I get to pass go.