WWEBM Update 060708

It has been a few days since my last entry here, and I thought I should take the time to update everyone with our latest activites. Since the purchase of our new computer system last weekend, I have been trying to transfer files from the old computer to the new computer. This should have been an easy task: or at least so I thought. I planned to just copy the files (e-books & etc.) over by way of CD-ROM. But for some reason I could never get them copied. I wasted two disks in the attempt, and then decided to try something different. Although my computers are, I guess, technically networked: I have NEVER been able to access files between one computer or another. This was true even before I got this new computer. I had my wife's computer on the same grid as mine: sharing the internet conncetion; but couldn't share files or access anything else. I am not a networking guy. I just know how to do a few things: and I try to do them well. I don't have the resources to pay someone to do it for me, either.

Now I know that there is supposed to be a way to use the USB's between the two computers to transfer files from within Windows: but I decided that Windows was too much trouble to deal with. I would have to create disks and go between both computers. I decided instead, to just go to my favorite geeky store: Radio Shack. I knew that they would have what I needed: and they did. Of course I had to shell out a little over 40 bucks: but I was able to get a USB 2.0 linking cable with the software to do the job.

The only drawback that I had with this system, is that the USB on the old machine, is version 1.1, and the one on the new system is the (much faster) USB 2.0. Even so, it still did a nice job, and with the exception of one of my directories that had many large files in it: it made quick work of it.

So now that I have most of my files over, I can start creating the listings, and posting them into this new store. Oh, and I did forget to mention one other little problem I had. When I installed Turbo Lister on both machines for this new store, I had checked off every ebay site all over the world. My thought was that this way, my products would get listed all over the world, so I could increase my site's web presence. The problem this created was huge: it took hours to do updates and downloads, as it (TL) had to querry all of the systems from each country that I had directed it to. And when I say hours: I mean 5,6 or more hours to do the job. Many times, the system just locked up or timed out. And my system resources also went down the toilet. I was unable to do hardly anything on the computer while this was taking place.

After sending an urgent S.O.S. to ebay, I received a nice letter back confimrming what I had already suspected: that I didn't need all of the check boxes checked. The CSR said that as long as I checked off that I would make the product available for world wide delivery, that was all I needed to do. So once I figured out how to get back and change that darn section, I made the changes in a heart beat. Of course, it took one more (long) update for everything to be finalized, but now things seem to be where they should be.

So, I DO BELIEVE we are now just about ready to get this thing rolling now. Oh, and just to let you know, even though we only had two produts up for sale, I have already sold 33 e-books since 29 June 2006 (10 days). Perhaps that is not a great amount, but don't forget: I really haven't done anything but list the items. All of the sales were made, automatically delivered and payment received in my account: and many times even while I was sleeping. That's Not Bad!! Imagine, if I had 10 items, or 100 or even 1000+ items all being sold at the same time. How cool would that be? I guess I will just have to work on it, and we will see!!

WWEBM Update 060704

There have been many changes since we started this new site last week. So I thought I would take a few minutes to give everyone an update.

Up to this point, we have only added a few items. Not that we haven't wanted to add more, but there have been several things that have stood in the way of our progress: not all bad either. I guess the biggest of these, was the puchase this past weekend of our new computer. As our current system is old, and just cannot handle the computing requirements that we require. So, as a birthday gift to me, my wife bought me a new computer. Well, actually, she only half bought it: as I had to come up with about half of the cost myself. But either way, we have been hard at work with not only getting it set up (the easy part), but we also have to start installing all of the needed programs and transfering all of our files over to the new system. We have made a start, but things are taking a long time.

Getting back for a minute to the items we have listed, we have been doing pretty well. Perhaps I should define that a little better. With "WELL", I refer to our feedback score, and not so much to our income. I chose to list a book entitled Secrets of Turning Penny Auctions Into Wads Of Cash. The book is selling for only 1 cent. But our feedback on this (reletively new/renamed) site has grown from 1 to 16 positive feedbacks in only 6 days: and there were no sales at all on 7/3. In fact, the same day that we listed the book, we received three sales.

And that actually leads to my next point. When I set up this new store, I signed up for Seller Manager: a web based program that helps to manage my online sales. I was using (what I thought) was the same program on my other site. However, I was wrong. On my other site, I was actually using Seller Manager PRO. In the Pro edition, it does a very nice job at automating some of the routine and mundane tasks. This is especially helpful when you are selling to people around the world (as we have been), and you cannot be at your computer 24 hours a day/365 days a year. Some of the tasks that it handles are sending out e-mails such as Winning Bid Notification; Payment Notifications; Feedback Notification and etc.. Additionally, I have it set up to automatically leave a positive feedback when I received a cleared payment.

So, the problem that I had on that fist day, is that I thought I had the same edition (pro); but I did not. And subsequently, I had to manually do some of the tasks. But because I was under the wrong assumption, I did not actually get to the tasks until the following day (6/30). I know that that really is not that bad: but I want our customers to have access to their products as soon as they pay for it. I have now changed, and upgraded this store to the Seller Manager Pro edition, and I have not looked back since.

Because today is a National Holiday, and I will probably spend at least a part of the day with my family: I may not get any new listings posted until (at earliest) tomorrow. I still need to transfer over files, and I need to make a change with Turbo Lister (TL): the programs that I use to create and manage my listings on my computer itself. TL is a nice program (when all is working as it should). Although it is an upgrade to a previous edition, and it still has some bugs in it (as far as I am concerned, at least). Although officially, it is not in Beta, it sure feels as though it should be. But I digress. I need to change a few things in TL, and then after I have transfered all (or at least some) of my files (particulary my e-books and realted files); then I will be prepared to start the uploading of new products to the site.

In time, I hope to get all of my current programs and e-books uploaded; as well as purchase new books & programs to upload. It is my goal to have 100+ listings running concurrently at any one time. Although this is a very doable goal, it will take me a little time to get it done. I WILL NOT just "plop" a listing up without first reading, or at least familiarizing myself with the product I am selling; and second: I want to put up a quality listing. In order to place a quality listing, I need to take my time and know the product, and then create the appropriate template (if not done already) for the product.

I will continue to make notes as to my progress here, as well as to any other items (what I think might be) of interest or pertaining to new products I will be adding in the future. Please come here often to see what is new in the relm of World Wide E-Book Marketers.