I’m a new GS7 user (end of November). I’ve only had a small number of active listings at any given time, but now that we are heading into the new year I will be trying to move a LOT of inventory.
I’m wondering how the GarageSale veteran users are managing their sold listings.
Are you deleting the listings right after the sale?
If no, how long are you keeping them?
Are they moved into a Smart Folder?
I was hoping there was some way to simply archive the sold listings within GS7 so they wouldn’t be visible but would still be accessible if needed. (For some reason I am feeling I need to be keeping them for documentation in case of any disputes, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I can rely on eBay’s records for that?)
I’m just trying to figure out the best way to manage the listings page so it’s not overly cluttered, as this is how I can see myself making costly mistakes.
it firstly depends if you are interested in reports! If you use to track sales, or if you want to have a sort of “counter” (or if you simply want to take memory of past sales), NEVER delete a sold listing (green icon)! If you delete that item, it is like you never had it.
Smart folders are not really folders as you probably intend, they are just sort of filters which help you to highlight some specific listings. They don’t group listing physically (like a folder does), if you want to do this, you have to create a separate folder, call it “sold items” or however you want and manually move there all green icon listings (sold). What I do is using a smart folder that filters all sold items, then I open it, highlight all, then drag and drop to “sold items folder”. In this way the smart folder will again show the same counter (since, as said, it does not contain listings physically but only filters…), on the other hand sold listing are now all together in the same folder and no longer lost somewhere (I have about 6000 listing adding active+sold+expired, they are divided into hundreds folders, each one with the same code of archive place where they are stored… may sound complicate but it is not actually, I can explain more if you need but I think it mainly depends on your need and habits…).
Concernign this:
I am sorry but the reply is NO, surely. If this is your fear, feel free to delete all because you won’t need them in any way, storing sold or expired listing is only a personal need or desire of keeping everything tidy (and you will need it if you have a large amount of listing).
As written some lines above, it mainly depends on your needs. This is a screenshot of what I mean. Make sure you know the double-and-move feature after restart! This is extremely important for what you are looking for…
I hope this will help you, if you have any question I will be glad to reply
I create a new folder each month in the Orders panel to keep things. I simply drag older orders into them every week or so. I name them Dec. 2016 Sales. etc.
When you click on “start”, a window appears, if you pay attention to bottom left corner there are 2 options: duplication and moving (to a specific output folder that you can choose). If you click them, after starting that listing, it will stay inactive where it was (so you can use it like a “model” to start several similar listings) in the meanwhile it is doubled and the active one (blue icon) is automatically moved to the folder you chose. The inactive copy stays in the same place so it is ready to be started and started again. This is very useful for keeping your active listing tidy. I hope this will help you.
I store my photos in a series of folders on my Mac named 01, 02, 03 and so forth. In GS I create folders with the same name as the Mac folders so I know where the original image and the watermarked version of each image is located. I batch watermark folders full of my images using iWatermark Pro to cut down on image theft.
Each of the GS folders is sub-dived into various other folders. In this example A to D represent various types of listing (auction, fixed, auction with fixed price), shipping (paid, free), and time period (7, 10 or 30 day). This allows me to quickly select groups of listing and change their type, shipping, or time period to correspond with eBay promotions. I do not pay listing fees, but list during the regular monthly promotions and promotions they have by invitation only thus I need a quick way to capitalize on these.
Sold items are dragged into the Sold folder - E in this example.
The folder named “----” (F in this example) is for items which I’ve withdrawn from listing on eBay for various reasons such as consigning the item to a retail shop; withdrawing for personal or business use; and so forth. Sometimes I combine items from two or more templates as a job lot so the unused templates are dragged here.
The items in the main folder, but not in a subfolder (G in this example) are partially completed listings. These typically include listings which I’ve completed everything but taking the pictures. Other items placed here have their pictures completed but their description has not been completed pending additional research. Once completed these will be dragged into one of the sub-solders.
I typically archive images to a hard drive using a hard drive dock periodically, deleting the watermark versions of images, which are kept in separate folders, as they can be remade. I also export old GS listings periodically to the hard drive. I reuse some of my images for art work thus I basically save everything. I still have a bunch of old listings stored on CD from 2000 - back then hard drives and RAM were expensive and CDs were the cheapest route to go.
More good info, devilsadvocate, thanks! Like the suggestions for photo management - that’s been a challenge of mine. I had been an InkFrog subscriber, so all of my images were uploaded to the InkFrog servers. It was pretty efficient, in my opinion.
