When does being principled become being pigheaded?

I posed this question earlier on Twitter and decided I would try to explore it more myself.  We all have our own personal opinions about things and our own reasons for doing or not doing something but the question becomes when mixing business with personal when does standing on our principles become just pure stubbornness.
There are hundreds of platforms of all sizes to sell merchandise on and with all those sites you are bound to run into people that you have a personality conflict with. 

Now I am intelligent enough to know that if it is just a conflict regarding personal things to just let it go and move on but what if the conflict involves your reputation and your business.  I have had one such conflict in the past year and it has made me hesitant to list at any platform that person and their group of supporters are involved in.  It makes me realize that just one person has the ability to damage you reputation to a great extent. 

So if that person or people is part of a successful site and I have always stated I will never go where they are am I  sticking to my principles as I feel I am or am I being stubborn and allowing others to prevent my business from flourishing.  I guess it is a fine line between being stubborn and being principled and being wise enough to know the difference.  It is just like my stance on eBay.  I don’t care for it anymore and swore I would never list there again but when you have a bunch of stuff that you know will do well there and take a lot longer to be found on other platforms you have to decide which is more important getting the best price for an item or standing on ones principles.  Well you can’t put food on the table with principles.

Anyone who has any thoughts or has ever run into this type of problem please feel free to post a comment.  I know this is not a black and white issue and it will be interesting to see what others think.

Twitter and why I use it daily

I just discovered Twitter a little over 2 months ago and now it is a big part of my daily routine. Twitter is a great equalizer when you join the stream you can follow everyone from your mother, to CEO’s to Google itself, and a lot of them will follow you back.
When I start researching blogs and articles for information on building an ecommerce business it is impossible to read it all. The great thing about Twitter you can follow people that have the same interests as you do and they are a wealth of great information that they are willing to share. You can then pass the information on to people who follow you be retweeting it.

Twitter is also a wonderful social connector for people who tend to be shy and in my case busy parents. All it takes is a few minutes to sit down at the computer and read the short tweets, it takes no time to read 140 characters. Then all you need to do is either respond or retweet. I love it because I can be free to say what I think and not have all the anxiety of meeting the person face to face and trying to carry on a long conversation, you can tweet on your own time table and still continue carrying on the same conversation. I know you can have similar exchanges in forums but on Twitter you can input from anyone who happens to see your tweet in the Twitter stream. Not just the the people that belong to the forum and respond regularly. My friends tell me that the internet is the perfect social medium for me as it takes away any social anxiety and exchanges can last from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. It is also perfect for perfectionists and ADHD people because you have time to get what you want to say right and it moves so fast you don’t have time to be bored. It is also a wonderful tool for multi-taskers because you can click on links and have 10 or 12 tabs open and work on as many as you want at one time.

To get the most out of Twitter you actually have to use it, and not just as a promotional tool but as a real social tool. I can say that when you first start out on Twitter and a person with 2000 or 10,000 followers responds to something you say it makes you want to use it more and build those connections. I make you feel like your thoughts matter in the very large world wide web. Twitter is a global medium so someone is always online so if you are a night owl you can talk to someone across the world

I use Tweetdeck for keeping track of my tweets because I can set up groups for the different kind of people I follow. I do notice that I tend to interact more with some people and less so with others but unless I am way behind in my tweets I do read them all. You never know what nugget of information you will come across.

So after just using Twitter for 2 months I can see why it adds value to both my social connections and my ecommerce business. I have met some great people who have really taken the time to interact with me while I learn. You can find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mommytoaaj. You should try it you never know who you will find.

Information Overload and too Many Choices

My very first post on this blog was the journey I started last January looking to start building an small online business.  I had a plan or so I thought, start out slow build a reputation while I still had a toddler at home so I would have the start of an online business when she went to school.  Well by May I realized that eBay was not working for me with all the non-stop changes way too much for a little hobby seller so I started looking for other sites.  Now a little over 1yr later I am revisiting my plans to see what is working and what is not.  I can say that promoting for a small site ended up being much more of a full time job than I expected.  Good thing I had an understanding husband.  I have discovered that networking and finding mentors is one of the most important things you can have as you work your way through internet 1.0, and I have to thank Rainbowseeker and the folks at www.Pheebay.com for helping me along so much to this point.

Now enter web 2.0 the social media web.  I found forums and started my own blogs and squidoo lenses, then around the middle of last month I discovered Twitter.  This is where the title of this blog post comes in.  Through Twitter I have discovered more blogs and podcasts then I ever would have even thought to look for and they have all taught me a great amount of information.  But this all now leaves me in a great quandary what is right for my business plan.  Do I work with online auction platforms and work promoting the site and myself??  Do I go with my own small website?  Do I sell at fixed price sites or try and stay with auction sites?  Do I go back over to eBay because the traffic is still there?  Do I spread myself thin trying out different sites?  Just in the last few weeks I have started spreading my items out onto different platforms to see what sells better where, but then I have to remember to remove it from the other site.  Plus when I started out I gave no thought to the fact that my user name would become my brand so I ended up with 3 different ones.  Thank goodness I love my avatar as I use it everywhere.

Now I read about all these new platforms that are opening up and some of them sound really cool.  Here I am still a relative novice at all this and feel like I have been left alone in the candy store.  I am a fairly intelligent person and try and do my research but there are so many options out there how do you even know where to start anymore.  In the old days (pre-2008) you wanted to start an online business getting rid of your stuff you went to eBay, then there was the sprouting of all the online auction sites (and new ones still crop up daily), now there are more choices/pricing plans then ever before.  The web has changed drastically over the last year as I started this journey and as of this moment I feel like I am wandering around in a foreign country where I am just learning the language.

I really need to thank a lot of the people I follow on Twitter for opening up this whole new world for me and hopefully as I process all of this information I can start on the next step in this journey of building an online ecommerce business.  I still give myself a few years to get it all worked out, and hopefully as I continue to blog this journey it will help other trying to find their way through the maze of the online ecommerce world.

Here is a list of some of the great people I have found through forums and Twitter.

Rainbowseeker-from www.pheebay.com/www.milbid.com
Octavia, Sunray and Passionvinehouse – from Pheebay

Then from Twitter and this is in no way a complete list;

@attheboutique1
@HillaryDePiano
@colderice
@redINKdiary
@ebayandbeyond
@thesavvyseller
@auctionwally

Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome and greatly appreciated.

Andrew and Alyssa’s Bargain Basement is proud to be participating in the Penny Auctions at Milbid.

For the sixth week Andrew and Alyssa’s Bargain Basement is participating in the Penny Auction sponsored by Pheebay.  A variety of Alternative Auction sites are participating in this promotion including, Zolanta, OkBidNow, Biritz, EBid and ChallengeCoinAuctions.

For this week’s promotion we are offering a Fenton pale pink Basketweave candy dish.

The the other sellers participating at MilBid are Adam’s Military Collectibles, The Rainbowseeker MilBid Shop,  The Flyleaf, and Adrianna’s Silver Mine.

Please check out what these sellers have to offer:
A signed copy of AKU, AKU by Thor Heyerdahl,

 A NOS Old BEACON BABY BLANKET with BUNNY RABBITS! Original Box – 1950s

A pair of 925 sterling silver charms,

three different Challenge Coins,
a SR-71 Blackbird Black Nickel challenge coin,

U.S Army 3d ESC OIF LNO Triangle Challenge coin

U.S. Army Warrant Officer Field Artillery Targeting Technician coin.

While you are there be sure to check out the rest of the stores you never know what bargains you will find.

To find out more about all the other auction sites participating and the items offered check out the Pheebay.com Penny Auctions Promotion. squidoo lens created by OctaviasOffering.

MilBid Sellers offer portions of sales to holiday care packages

A very generous group of sellers have joined together over at MilBid to offer a percentage of their sales generally 10%-15% and in one store 100% to be donated for Holiday Care Packages troops deployed overseas. I can not even imagine how hard it is for our fine servicemen and women to be so far away from home during the holidays. I know my oldest son was deployed to Iraq during the Christmas of 2003 and it was a very different Christmas for our entire family. So I know how much care packages from home mean to all of them as they do their duty and serve there country where ever and when ever they are needed.
Many of the units serving now have done many tours into the combat zone so they need to be thanked and shown the country is behind them as much if not more than before. How many holidays have they already been away from their families and friends?
You can find a list of sellers offering promotions at The Official MilBid Blog and The MilBid Squidoo lens
Please visit www.milbid.com and help a small group of sellers show our deployed Military how much we are still behind them and pick up some great bargains for your holiday shopping.

Milbid.com is a totally free auction site and a portion of any funds the site makes is used to send care packages to deployed military units where ever they may be serving.

Penny auctions continue on many of the Alternative auction sites.

Several smaller auction sites are continuing their cross promoted Penny Auctions.  I think it is great to see smaller sites work together to promote each other and create opportunities for buyers to see that there are great bargains to be had outside of the giant auction site. These sites are perfect for the small sellers that are being driven away by the numerous rules and regulations on how to run their own business.
You can check out all the great items on sale this week at Penny Auctions
squidoo lens by Octavia’s Offerings
The holiday season is approaching and money is tighter this year for everyone so why not check out these great sites and see what you can find.

Milbid.com is one of the sites participating in the promotion so browse around, you just might find the perfect gift for that special someone and get it at a great price too!!

My offering for this weeks promotions is a lovely set of hollow stem champagne glasses.

and the starting price is only .01 cents. Can’t get a better price than that.

You can also get more information by reading the news article at Pheebay.com.

Browse around all the sites you will be glad you did.

Check out this great deal

Andrew and Alyssa’s Bargain Basement at MilBid is participating in the Pheebay- Alternative Auction Site Cross-promotion.

We have entered this wonderful Fisher price baby grand piano.

The starting Bid is only .1cent. You can’t get a better deal than that.
Please check out all the wonderful items offered in this promotion by checking out this lens.
Penny Auctions By: Octaviasofferings.

There are other great deals to be had on www.MilBid.com
The participating sellers there are Rainbowseeker Antiques and Adam’s Military Collectibles.

Thanks for looking you won’t be disappointed

Check out the newest mystery box.

There is also a brand new MilBid Mystery Box brought to you this week by
.

Feel free to check out all the happenings at MilBid.com and while you are there browse around a while you will be glad you did.

My online auction journey and how I found MilBid.

Everyone always says how you can make money on Ebay, so back in January I decided to try my hand at it.  I made some good money on some things I had around the house some of my oldest’s vintage toys and some other odds and ends but then I started reading and about all the changes going on there with fees and feedback and everything else and realized that things we not looking good for small ebay selllers.  So I decided to do some research.  I read everything online I could find, joined some forums and read some more.  Some forums were very helpful like www.pheebay.com and others seem to be full of bitter sellers looking for places to gripe.

Then I started joining online auction sites of which there are plenty, I am not going to list them all as most of them I found not to my liking for one reason or another.  There are some good niche sites if you plan on staying in one category but I was looking to branch out into other areas so I needed a good all around Alternative Auction site.  I am starting out small while my younger kids are still home and hope to do much more as they start school in a few years.

Auction site with a Mission

Then I found MilBid.  It is a great auction site for with a wonderful mission.  It supports the troops both home and abroad.  It is run by veterans who know what it means to serve our country.  The admin. on the site is responsive to all questions, concerns and suggestions.  It has a great group of sellers some of whom have been selling online for a very long time and really feel the MIlBid has what it takes to be a great Alternative Auction site.  The site has a very wide variety of items for everyone in all price ranges and several of the sellers donate items, portions of profits or all of their profits for care packages and donations to Military units serving all over the world.  It is a great place for any seller from the hobbyist to the professional online auction store.  It is very easy to navigate and even after some bumps in the road, the site owner was welling to change things that did not work and do what needed to be done.  I don’t think too many owners would do that.

Any one interested in buying and selling online should check out www.milbid.com.  The sellers there don’t have to set high prices and excessive shipping because there are no fees to cover.  No fees to list and no FVFs.

I will strongly support anything that supports our Military, my husband is a disabled veteran, my eldest son served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from 4/2003-8/2004 and my father was in Korea in the early 60′s, so I know what our servicemembers and their family go thru so that our country is protected.

While visiting www.milbid.com, please check out my store.  Andrew and Alyssa’s Bargain Basement

Andrew and Alyssa's Bargain Basement at Milbid