New Ebay Stores Awareness Campaign!

A homegrown effort by Ebay Store owners has lead to the creation of a campaign to promote awareness of Ebay stores ! High praise to Sandy (Ebay seller: sandrarn83) for thinking of this and also following it through to completion. Thanks Sandy!

Behind the Red Door you'll find millions of items never found in regular searches. We, the proud eBay Store owners, want you to have the best shopping experience available on eBay! Click on the logo above to visit my Store or click on this link to see the millions of items from all the other fine eBay Store owners.

Aliens , UFOS, Always interesting to buy and Sell on Ebay!

I just had to show your these pictures! As you know Holograms are very hard to take pictures of . Selling this Alien card set with a silver looking foil picture would just not do it justice!

So in this blog post I will tell you how to take a picture of an Alien Hologram to get this affect!

First you need to be outside without a flash! You need to have some sunlight, and something to lean the picture and or holographic card against. You need to angle the items slowly left to right to get the right affect then be sure to hold the camera to get the most of the holographic image in color as you can.

It makes your Aliens sell better and when they sell better they are known to not use their ray guns as much ;)

Check out this guy! This set I am selling (still some left), has real artist depictions of aliens seen in real events with dates and the story on the back. Done for charity, these were some extra packs I purchased to benefit the charity and of course sell to you!

Selling Art On Ebay - Notes from a non-artist type..

Recently I have been fascinated by Art. I am not sure if it is an escape from reality thing or just an appreciate that grows as we age. In any case, I have always had some luck selling unusual pieces of art which I find out and about on my Ebay searchese of flea markets , tag sales etc.

Recently I came across an oversized poster booklet (in quantity) and and Artist named Christo that did the banners/flags of an orange/salmon looking color in Central park recently. I loved the posters and picked these items up cheaply. The images are of art done on a grand scale. From islands and bridges being wrapped to umbrellas set across miles of hill or in raging rivers. Ebay has developed an interesting art market. It is not just the antique pieces or pieces by lesser known masters but markets its developing all by itself . For now ill leave you with some pictures of the posters in the large posterbook by Christo, but my next blog installment will be on the ACEO artist trading cards! Thanks for reading my blog! :) -Marty

Flashback to An Important Moment in Time

As we all know Ebay is just as much a community as a place to shop. I thought I would let you in on a very special moment for me a number of years ago when my daughter was younger. After running and playing at a friend's house all day my friend took this picture of us. It stuck in my mind because at that time I had a lot of worries on my mind, my mom was very ill, work was tough, but it was that friend who captured the moment and created a memory that would last a long time for me that made the day special for my daughter and I. Now my daughter, Jaime, is just as much an Ebay shopper and web community member as anyone. Just a little personal story to place a photo in the timeline of an Ebayer.

Our Mosaic Down Syndrome Puzzle Master

I just found an old photo poster that our house puzzle master Tina Harduby (my wifes mosaic down syndrome sister) did with a Nascar Driver years ago!

Tina, who is now in her mid 20s is a master of putting together Springbok puzzles to make sure all the pieces are there for our customers! I saw this cute picture of her and since she is a star in this household I wanted to share it with you! You can see an update of her in our family picture here taken a few years ago!

Thanks Tina for all the puzzles you assemble! WE LOVE YOU! You too Jaime! (my daugher shown with the Cheesy smile LOL)

Ebay Live Boston 2007 Received Community Hall of Fame Award

Exciting news! I could not tell you about it until the event was over! I received one of 5 Community Hall of Fame Awards given out by Ebay this year! The award is for being a good member of the Ebay community, helping others , and names are suggested by former winners and Ebay employees from what I understand. It was a great award to win! I received the honor of directing a $2500 donation to Solar Youth Inc from Ebay. Solar Youth is an organization that teaches inner city kids about the environment through all kinds of great activities. When I saw a video of the kids climbing a local hill and their faces I said you bet this is the one! I also received a wonderful plaque and a crystal award of stars that fit into a plaque, a part of which is to be placed in Ebays corporate HQ. I could not have won this without all my friends at Ebay and my fellow eBay seller friends that pulled this part of me out into the open. I realize I want to do as much as possible to help other people and I was very honored to receive this award which will mark an important time in my life when I realized I need to spend more time helping others. Here are a few pictures for you! -Marty

PS - If anyone from ebay reads this blog post.. Thank you ! So much please thank Meg and Bill for me! :)

Ebay LIVE Boston - Pre Conference Report 6/9/07

Well , it is almost time for Ebay Live 2007 in Boston, Mass! The conference runs June 14-16th but already there are some hints of some important things going on. One interesting thing is that Seth Godin the Squidoo visionary will be speaking. The guy is a guru for sure. I only wish I had more time to digest all he has writen. I will be attending his class at eBay Live and Squidoo will have a presence there.

There are some interesting classes in the schedule for Live. There is one on eBays new media market. It has been a struggle for eBay but it might be an area where local radio commercials become available for bidding fairly soon. I also heard (non-eBay related) that Cable now has the ability to pinpoint ads to your neighborhood. If this is every offered in an eBay like marketplace I can see huge potential for local business.

Speaking of Local business I am curious about the the class offered called "Ebay Local" and wondering if that is an expansion of their home page "Map It" feature or something new, different and Craigslist like? I am in that class!

I will be reporting here LIVE from LIVE so to speak. There are some other areas we are curious about including Rent.com (an Ebay company) since my wife is also a real estate agent.

If you have ideas/comments about live feel free to post! -Marty

(picture if of a Plush DICE radio we have in our store!)

Update on Wall Street Cigarettes - Library Research

I just had to post an update here to praise Librarians!!! My good friend Loretta is a librarian and she had me email some libraries for info regarding my 1920s cigarette label item as shown in the picture ! This information below was the result of my question and subsequence answers from the library regarding this item. I highly recommend contacting librarians who love to dig through these resources! With this information I can now list my item!

In short the item is from Wall Street Tobacco Co. formed in 1926, out of business (it appears in 1927) and the directors signature is on the side of the pack!


From the paper Polk's & Co. (Trow's) 1926 NYC Directory:

Wall Street Tobacco Co. Inc. (N.Y.)
L L Mosquera Pres, Wm P (might be an F) Raab, V-P, Jas Carruthers Sec,
D E Greene, Treas.
Dir: L L Mosquera, Wm F (might be a P), Jas Carruthers, D E Greene
79 Wall, R 304

There was no listing for a Wall Street Tobacco in the paper directories
of 1921-22, 1929, 1930, and 1936-37.

JP

New York State Library
Reference Services
CEC, ESP
Albany, NY 12230
(518)474-5355
www.nysl.nysed.gov/refserv.htm


Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:35:46 -0400
From: "NYSL REFSERV"
To:
Subject: Re: 44 Wall Street Company/Building information
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline



To: Martin Adamo

You have reached the New York State Library (NYSL) in Albany, New York.


Your e-bay posting was very interesting and gave you some good
searching suggestions, such as contacting a business librarian at the
New York Public Library in Manhattan. http://www.nypl.org/

The New York City Municipal Archives may also be of help. You can
leave an e-mail comment with the City Hall Library (see link under
Contact Records).
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/about/archives.shtml

FYI...
In the NYSL's Marvyn Scudder Manual of Extinct or Obsolite Companies ,
Vol. III, for 1930, the following information is listed for a Wall
Street Tobacco Corp.: Delaware charter proclaimed repealed for non
payment of two years' taxes January 24, 1927. In Vol. IV of the same
title, which shows companies that have reorganized, merged, liquidated,
or dissolved and companies that have changed names or forfeited their
charters, this information is listed: Wall Street Tobacco Co. Inc. N.Y.
1929. No other information is mentioned. No addresses are given.
Neither company was mentioned in the 1938 volume. There was no
information that these two companies were connected in any way or if
they were totally independant of each other.

No Wall Street Tobacco Company or Corporation was listed in the
International Directory of Company Histories.

The NYSL has the NYC Business and City Directory and Telephone
Directories on microfilm for the following years: 1924/25, 1931,
1933/34 (among many others). We do not own the microfilm for 1926 -
1930. I will check to see if we have any paper directories for the time
frame you request.

JP



New York State Library
Reference Services
CEC, ESP
Albany, NY 12230
(518)474-5355
www.nysl.nysed.gov/refserv.htm


>>> 4/23/2007 11:48 AM >>>
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
(clhct1@aol.com) on Monday, April 23, 2007 at 11:48:32
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Martin Adamo

City: Wallingford

State: CT

Request: I am researching an item from a company that had a listed
address of 44 Wall Street NY. The company was called Wall Street Tobacco
Co. Inc and it is a cigarette wrapper. It appears to have been pre 1940
but I cannot really tell the date). I am trying to find out if this
company existed at that address and what was located at 44 Wall Street
before the current building was put up. I found out the building
presently located there was built around 1926-7. I have a picture I of
the item which shows the Wall Street view on the wrapper at the time but
cannot send with this info form can reply and attach to email.

In short looking for any history of the existence of Wall Street
Tobacco Co. Inc located at 44 Wall Street.

Other hints from the label. It mentions they were made at Factory #23
2nd District NY. I did find a reference to a Cigarette item made at that
factory in the 1890s but not by Wall Street Tobacco Co. Inc. That
reference was a Baseball collectible item that looked like a milk cap
with a baseball players photo on it. It was a promo item made by another
company but did reference that same factory.

Sending you the picture might be helpful to you.

Thanks for any help or resources you can provide.

Martin Adamo

SourcesConsulted: I have searched all online resources I could find. I
searched Google, Yahoo, Google Book search, histories of 44 Wall Street,
Cigarette information. Online marketplaces such as ebay and others and
can come up with no information on the item or the company.

Submit: Submit

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Most Amazing Puzzles on Ebay at Galaxy Puzzles!!!

A very popular item to sell (and buy) on eBay is jigsaw puzzles. There are puzzles and then there are great puzzles with amazing scenese. My good friend Janice has a store on eBay called Galaxy Puzzles and sells the most amazing looking puzzles.

Her new jigsaw puzzles are by Educa, Sunsout, Ceaco, and Paper House Productions.

Here store link is here

http://stores.ebay.com/Galaxy-Puzzles&refid=store

Here is one example of a a puzzle I really love in her store!

Use Poshpoints to Promote your Ebay Store and Listings!!!!!

This is so cool! I cannot take full credit for it I have to mention my friend Janice directed me here! (I will grab her store URL and promote her here as a thank you ) I checked out this site called Poshpoints a while back but never signed up. As usual, I figured I didnt have enough time to poke around yet another site. However, Janice came back to my seller group mentioning that on this site you can now promote your eBay listings for FREE~~~~~!!!!!

You cannot beat that. The site is growing fast and here is the "skinny" as they say...

Its a site where you load up some stuff to "sell" but get points instead of money. You then trade these points for stuff by buying stuff. Your only out of pocket cost is shipping and there are no fees! Great for those items you need to clean out that might not be right for eBay, but you do not want to throw away. Also a great way to promote you eBay items at no cost while doing so.

So check out this site by clicking below and get started its free plus you get some free points while their offer lasts!! -Marty

Check out Togo.ebay.com - Sample Widget NEW from eBay!!!

Taking a look at Stumbleupon.com to help market your store

Recent news reports have eBay in talks to aquire Stumbleupon.com. I read the news release and checked out the site which was very interesting. I first noticed this site when reviewing my traffic reports (these are reports ebay store owners can view to show how traffic (customers) come into the store and from what sources). I determined that a seller friend has given a thumbs up to my store and that was leading a handful of people over .

As I checked out the site I realized it had real potential as a review site for pages we are trying to promote in this Ebay effort. I highly recommend checking out the site located at http://stumbleupon.com and signing up.

Basically this site gets an idea of what you like based on which sites you rate and then feeds you more of the same when you click the "stumble" button.

I believe what eBay might be getting at with a possible aquisition here is a socially rated web search for products but that is just speculation at this point.

I feel there is an advantage to signing up and at least rating your own content sites and then moving your way through some random sites to build up a knowledge of how this tool works.

Lately it seems eBay is moving in the right direction with their efforts and I like this site.
If you happen to check it out and sign up, please comment to this blog and list your site and we can exchange ratings if you like! -Marty

Researching the Unusual Find Wall Street Tobacco Co. 1930s?

I felt it might be helpful to talk about the research process when it comes to items that are unusual in nature. One thing we hope to find is that we pick up an item that is not common and not already listed on eBay by numerous sellers. Recently at an estate clearout I picked up an inexpensive piece which appears to be a framed Cigarette wrapper of some kind. As best I can tell it looks 1930s perhaps 1940s. In reading all the wording on the paper its hard to find much online. There is nothing listed in Google and other searc engines for the Wall Street Tobacco Co. located at 44 Wall Street (at the time). I looked up the building and found it was built in 1926-7 so that made the item have to be made after that time. I also searchd a phrase on the side of the pack label that states "Made at Factory No 23 2nd District NY" . I found one reference oddly enough to another Cigarette item which was a button promotion of a baseball player but from the 1890s. Seeing that nothing was immediately available except these few clues I took the step of posting the picture to my seller group for input and ideas. This is something that is very useful that you should consider doing as well. I will probably post this same info to a collectibles forum to get some idea. This appears to be a rare and special item which I will not sell at a low start bid without a reserve. Of course having as much info as possible is always helpful. You will see a quick picture of this item as it is (framed) with this post - Marty

Using Tag (Keyword) Clouds For Visual Sales and Information Directories

I have been working on an interesting way of displaying content by word density called Tag Clouds. They have been around a while but Im slow to catch on. Of course I do think of new ways to use them. LOL

Ok now just so you know what I am talking about you will need to look over to the left hand side of my blog <-----over there and scroll down.

There are two tag clouds there. The first one is for the blog, people can click on anything and find those posts. The second is for my eBay store. People can click on a word and find matching items.

Both these "clouds" as they are called are put together using a formula which makes fonts bigger for higher mentions of words and phrases etc. They both will update automatically as well as items come and go (supposedly).

It is running off the eBay RSS feed (which up until tonight was pumping out only the word "Wednesday" which is why I couldnt get it to work LOL)

Keep in mind I do need to refine this some I can adjust colors and size and also exclude words etc. But give the basic store visualization would you agree that it might give you a very quick idea of what is in the store if you were a new buyer or someone just looking at that list from a blog?

I felt that this was true, but I wanted your thoughts -Please post your comments!!

One seller on eBay posts about making lists and posting them everywhere. I know it sounds basic but I have heard about this very basic game plan working but thought the list was good but not good enough as it was hard to navigate. A clickable tag cloud however might be appealing in this sense that they suggested to broadcast.

Here are some advantages I see here.

1- It adds tons of clickables to blogs (couldnt get it to work on the Squid lens yet still working on that)

2- I can use Vflyer.com (check them out) to create a flier that is free and can go to all the free classifieds sites.

3- The list is always updated so wherever it is, there it will change.

4-It appears Zoom renders their own pre-page before the customer gets to the eBay page which nicely lists all the items that match the click.

I am working on ways to bring people in that dont involve them having to know what they are searching for.

I wanted to integrate it on a custom page in the store but dont think it will work there due to the scripting but there are plenty of places to use it.

So how did I come across this? Well first I noticed Squidoo had a tag cloud, but more importantly I saw a site where people listed what they would like to do with their lives and I learned almost everyone wanted See the Northern Lights and of course lose weight , quit smoking etc etc. It was interesting to see the density of the thoughts of 900,000 people all interested in many of the same things.

In any case please offer your thoughts.

How being a Trading Assistant Can help Your eBay Store Sales..

A Trading Assistant is the term eBay uses to describe people that sell for others on a commission basis. How could this make sense for you? Well first it is a source of income for which you do not have to come up with money for inventory. Next , the items you list to auction for you clients you are selling for will promote your own store items for free! The clients pay the costs of auctioning their items, but any items out on auction promote your store items! So you get some free promotion. Also some slower moving client items can be put in your eBay store where you can charge more than eBay charges you! (rent). Lots of good ways to make money in the trading assistant program. We will be writing more about this in coming posts.

I am a Trading Assistant - I can sell items for you!

Grow your eBay Store Squidoo Lens hits #1 In Business #2 overall!!!!

Big news to report tonight! Our Squidoo lens located here

http://www.squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales

Has soared to the #1 position in the Business category! It is also an astounding #2 overall out of over 90,000 lenses! Squidoo is like a socially rated website content area. I could not have moved up without the help of many great eBay store sellers. Plus who doesnt want to make money on eBay these days?

In any case I am really excited about it and hope that if there are any Squidooers out there they can stop by and say hello on my lens and vote for me! I will keep providing the very best eBay information !

Marty

Train & Railroad Collectibles/ Items are always good to sell on eBay!

One theme that seems to never go out of style is peoples love of Trains! There are so many train and railway collectors out there! . People collect everything! From model trains to the real trains themselves! They collect bells from train stations, read books on trains, kids read books on trains, and almost everything with a train them is usually better than something without it! After selling out of nearly every train related item we had in our first year of selling we finally have a few more listed. Just to give you an idea of the variety of items . We have train belt buckles and books listed now so Ill post a few pictures -Marty

Huge Star Trek LOT /Outer Limits - What to do about titles for Cool Auctions

Well we have a cool auction running. Its for a huge lot of Star Trek Spaceships and a few other items.

Recently we had some Outer Limit cards with Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner episodes so we decided to toss in a few cards into the lot. Thus we were able to use the following keywords in the title

Star Trek

Huge Lot

Outer Limits

Klingon

Borg

Having multiple reasons a searcher can find your item always helps. This should be an interesting auction! Star Trek items were very popular in the early days of eBay, and the best items will always get some good prices. However , in years since those days Star Wars has been more popular at times and represents one of the biggest markets on eBay. Some support for Star Trek items can be found in Japan where great collectors just cannot get enough items!

-Marty

Using your Squidoo Lens to Earn Ebay Affiliate Dollars & Increase Your Sales

On Ebay, I post often to a discussion board where other store owner (Sellers) gather. I just posted this information which I felt was important enough to add to the blog here.. I invite all comments and or ideas on this.

A week or so ago (its hard to remember as during tax time I lose track of time) I mentioned that eBay had opened up the affiliate end to eBay sellers. What this means if you can make money driving business to your own listings AND if someone signs up for an account to buy one of your items. Have you noticed the big announcement? Of course not! It came out but not everyone got the "memo". In any case there are many affiliates out there making lots of money bringing people to eBay listings to bid, buy and sign up for accounts but now its your turn.Ok so basically people set up these websites (you have seen them) where your listings are all over the web and look like big collections of eBay listings, some even look like their own search engines or stores. This is how people make money doing this.They have some web space and do the coded endings to the listings using tools eBay gives you that do it automatically. Some people make 1 million bucks a month (no lie).In any case, this program was not open to sellers bringing traffic to their own listings before. You could bring traffic to others listings and make money but now things are way more interesting because you double benefit! (sales and $$ for bringing them in ).In any case it all sounds good, but like anything else who has endless time right? Well being the rocket scientist I am (actually stumbled into it LOL) , I figured Id check on something.As most of you know from tinkering with the Squidoo lenses they have a nice system for adding an RSS feed module easily (basically if you can cut and paste a URL and type your done!). Moreover its FREE (their webspace and their dime no hosting costs no cost whatsoever to you).PLUS they pay you if someone clicks on an ad etc from your Squid pages (nice but no real money yet).In any case the affiliate program eBay has will create an affiliate coded feed of your items to post in RSS modules on Squidoo and you can post away and post your friends items (especially if related they might help your sales too) and do it all for free. Any business coming in with these codes earns you money under the affiliate program . Here is a link to the payout page (you can click around to get more on the program)http://affiliates.ebay.com/odcs/custom.htm?template=Payout

With the Squidoo network we have , combined with the blogs and myspace pages etc , we have a web of content in place that will make these affiliate feeds more valuable.People can make money doing affiliate deals without content but we just created a huge web of content and can add lenses or modules to add RSS affiliate feeds.Lets take an example. I am not a home craft person but always like stuff that others do here.Many of these people have Squidoos and blogs now. They set up lenses with RSS affiliate coded feeds and earn money off any business coming to them AND off any new active user that signs up because of their feeds.Say Home craft person #1 is more motivated then person 2 and 3, she can put everyones stuff she likes up and earn money on all of it while her friend benefit from the sales in their store with no work.To the best of my knowledge there are few great content areas with affiliate set ups and for the most part while web space is cheap its not free. So this is my idea.Basically there are a few downsides. First I think like anything else new , eBay can always change it or take it out, and second, I worked with Commission Junction before and didnt like how they operated but it could have been just my experience. Commission Junction is running this for eBay.Also , while this isnt important to everyone when you have a business DSL or Cable package it often comes with this huge amount of space on their servers. I have some crazy amount at my office. Many of you have the same. I assume that can also be used to set up RSS feeds for no cost but Im not an expert in doing that.Anyone with any ideas? read through that section and let me know.Downsides are limited plus no costs. Upside could be some extra money.

Here are some thoughts from an affiliate blogger on the ebay change..http://www.geekbooks.com/ebay_changes_affiliate_terms_for_the_better_530.html

Selling and Old Favorite Educational/Science Kits

I am not sure if its because I would like to play with these or because people really want them but I buy a lot of educational/science kits to re-sell on ebay. As it turns out they sell really well. While many kids are plugged into their video games there are still people that enjoy these kits much like I did when I was a young teen 30 years ago. This weeks find? Prehistoric Animals locked in sand that you can escavate and paint yourself! I sold one within hours of posting them for sale! Always a great item! :)