Creative Compulsion

I’m always looking around the internet for creative ideas and tips about selling on eBay. Of course you always get those, buy now and make a million tomorrow scams, but once in awhile you do find something well, creative. I found a cool website maintained by Jim Cockrum. He has a free eBay newsletter called Creative eBay Selling. I’ve gone through some of the back issues and he does have some really good information. Nothing to lose, click here to sign up!

This is really cool! Filmloop allows you to create slideshows/loops of pictures. The nice thing about it for eBay sellers is that you can go in and “grab” your gallery pictures and the Filmloop Studio will let you create a loop that displays clickable pics to your auctions (see mine on the left). You can adjust how the loop is displayed including colors, sizing, etc. Very cool - FREE - marketing tool!

The holiday season that is! In the last month and a half, I have wanted to scream or pull my hair out practically every day. This is my second Christmas season selling online full time and I felt so overwhelmed at times. But like with everything, I learned a lot about what worked, what didn’t and what I can improve on. My sales were great - better than I had projected, and that’s a huge plus!!

I learned so much in the past year. Not just about business, but about myself. I’m stronger than I thought I was. Sure, I get cranky and sometimes the customers (the ones that can never be pleased) get me down a bit. Overall, though, I’m a pretty tough cookie these days. Hopefully always fair, but I won’t be taken advantage of. I had my first foray into the world of small auction sites (namely Wagglepop - yuck!). I found that for my buck, the better return is from eBay even with the higher fees. Of course, my websites still come first and are what I enjoy the most - they’re like children to me, lol.

My New Year’s resolution for this year was to quit smoking New Year’s Day. I beat my goal! Tomorrow will be 2 weeks (ok, except for a partial cheat on New Year’s Eve - not good to drink when you’re trying to quit apparently!). I started taking Chantix the day before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure exactly how it works, I only know that it does. I’ve tried everything and nothing seemed to help me quit. This time, I don’t even really want to smoke and when I did, I just didn’t enjoy it at all. Take it from a hard-core, I love my smokes, 2 pack a day smoker - if you want to quit, you gotta try this medicine!

I think the most important thing I’m walking away from 2006 with is a better sense of who I am - and who I’m not. I’m absolutely good enough exactly the way I am. Not perfect, don’t want to be - but comfortable in my skin and proud of who I am these days. I don’t need to impress anyone. If you don’t like something about me, that’s your problem, not mine. I’ve spent almost 35 years trying to impress people and worrying about what others thought. I can honestly say, I really don’t care anymore. I like me.

Back to work but before I do - Happy New Years all!!