SecondMoonshot

John

Time to take the next step and moved into a warehouse at the beginning on October 2023. It is a conditioned 1875sqft metal building 5 minutes from my house with ample space to store vehicles, eBay inventory and shipping, and framing workshop. It is located in a nice section in Rolesville, NC and was able to get it at $1 per sqft. I am about 95% done with all the setup. Latest pics: Latest on 11/3/23 John

When I initially started this business, I would do all my listing defaulting to USPS Priority Shipping for packages over 1lb and offer USPS Parcel Select Ground as an option at checkout. One of the main reasons was that the Priority mail was discounted and the discount would help offset the eBay fees. While it is a little faster, it often is maybe a day more typically, so the reality is the timing is not that important if you get it out the door in a timely manner. It is important to note that the Priority does come with $100 of included insurance, however, the claim process is so painful and it has never yielded a positive result and thus it has no value to me. So I don’t do claims and just refund and treat it as a cost of business. Now I list most everything as Parcel Select by default that would have been Priority. It allows my items to have a lower overall price and has helped increase sales, albeit not by that much. The downside is that it is not insured and that there is no eBay ...

This week I received a new Rollo Wireless Thermal printer specifically for shipping labels. I decided a review was not necessary since there are enough good ones out there. What I will say is…they are all right! This thing is a game changer in speed, efficiency and quality. Once unboxed, I needed to see if it supported Wi-Fi Direct (it does not) and since my warehouse is really a storage unit with power, the first thing I needed to do was to setup a Wi-Fi network. A few months ago, I picked up an electronics lot at auction which had an Apple AirPort Extreme which turned out to be a recent model, but more importantly IT WORKED (more rare than you might think). I don’t have internet broadband and just use my cell phone for all work in that location, so had to tweak the IP configuration on my iPhone to use the new router but not for internet (this was done by just going to Settings and edit the Wi-Fi connection IP Config to a Manual configuration, leaving the Router field blank and copyin...

Figured I would start the year with a new YouTube video.  John

I am always looking for cardboard and while I can often find people giving away boxes for free, ideally I like to use large flat sheets to make large custom boxes and they work really well for picture boxes.  We started to get the cardboard sheets at Costco that they use to separate the layers of merchandise on the pallets. Usually getting a dozen was a good pull but today came up with 32. I think I will talk with the management and see if I can get on the list to take some off their hands on a regular basis. They don’t ever question me taking them and usually find a lot in the metal box bins so pretty sure they just throw them away.  Think I got 32 in this run. One of the staff chatted with me about them and said I was doing them a favor taking them.  Another 32 or so.  The little box is what we bought and even helped us acquire the sheets. I have to put excess in other storage unit. We are getting very efficient New record is now 58! Have a stash (like a squirrel)....