For years I have worked on developing my own website to handle what I do online all by trial and error.
Everything on my site I created manually.
I had no checkout system for selling so also sold on other websites and began using my site to promote my stores and other sites. I even share with other artists to use to promote their auctions & shops and other online sites.
When I attempted to sell from my site I predominantly had to create many individual paypal buttons for each item I was selling usually my art but last year I began buying jewelry to resell. Listing the jewelry was proving to take too long on my site so I began looing for a new venue rather than continue making the listings there, I left what was there already where it was, but opened an ebid store and from that point on began listing on ebid - shifting from actually selling on my site and pointing my site visitors to my new ebid store for shopping.
The work in editing got to be so much its been talking me hundreds of hours to accomplish and is very exhausting, so I left what was already on my site, which by the way only had a few sales over its entire course of time and so I began setting up my store here so i would no longer have to keep making paypal buttons and have so much editing to do as my site is basically a social site anyway and not designed for ecommerce. I put a tab on my site to send customers here to my new ebid store,
I left what already was there and on new promo uploaded pictures there I began posting direct links to my ebid auctions that match the items I was showing there to send customers to ebid,
I use the gallery function of my site to post pics of items I have for sale and I use the description boxes there to paste links where the items can be purchased. By using the gallery there my items get posted to facebook twitter and other sites as a hub for promotions.
My hope was by the time I finished getting every new item listed here in my stores that i would use my site solely for promo and not sales as I had not made any more paypal buttons since I began using ebid. There are still however old paypal buttons still there from things listed before I made my ebid store. Its been a process that takes alot of time to convert. Ultimately i wanted the ebid store to be my main site and eventually would close down other sites and just keep my ebid store as I planned on consolidation to free up my time as I currently have to spend more than 100 hours a week mostly editing and writing on alot of sites and promoting my ebid thru them all.
So far I got about 850 items listed since around last September . I set my store up with about 50 categories and subcategories and had all my auctions in their proper category. For me that took alot of time as I dont know how to use the bulk uploaders but instead used copy and paste as I individually created every auction I have here.
You must know how tedious and time consuming it is to do it the way I have been but i am self taught and fumbling my way along and learning as I go. I dont have Microsoft Office any more, as it was on my old computer, given to me by my daughter, but couldnt transfer it to my new computer plus I never really knew how to use it. I see it was needed to use your bulk uploader so I downloaded the alternate one recommended - the Open Office org software - but on the bulk upload page it says to use "Calc" on Open Office.
I dont know where to find it on that new software as perhaps its been updated and has a new name or something but realized I dont know how that would help me to do bulk uploading of auctions here .Not sure what I downloaded from that link as I dont see anything saying "Calc". So I am back to individually loading.
I had a fairly well organized store with over 800 items listed - categorizing not just an item by what it was but also by its type and materials and had over 50 various categories and subcatgegories to list in. All was very time consuming as I worked day and night for months figuring it all out and getting them listed.
Meanwhile I havent bee on my website much except to do promotions of my ebid auctions and putting direct links on those images to my ebid auctions already listed so any potential customer would have to go to my ebid auction to complete the sale.
I had one member of my website use those links and actually came here bought 9 items from ebid from my listings.So far she was 1 of my only 2 customers in the passed 6 months.
While my ebid stores are my new method to selling online and I also placed a tab on top of my webpage to send customers to my ebid store, I still had my old edits there that were there from before I opened my ebid stores.
Doing everything manually, I was focusing on new listings and leaving old ones alone so i can keep listing but got tired and have not done as much online since Christmas as its been easier to just leave the old things as they proved to not get me customers anyway and I was using my new way to direct people to my ebid store and its dedicated checkout system.
Well on my ebid auctions, I had made a template to copy and paste from one auction to the next any info that would be pertinent to all and put specific info into my file names to make it a little quicker to list individually.
The copy and paste template provided most of my info for my ebid store items and my promo site. It was not unlike what I have seen often on ebay where I used to do alot of selling and have 100% positive feedback at.
I stated right in my links that if a customer saw something at my site [ thru my slideshows & profile page] that if a customer didnt see what they wanted in my ebid store but instead saw something on my site, that they should simply contact me and I would then list that item on ebid for them to purchase. I also have lots of items on my site with no paypal buttons at all as doing it that was was always very time consuming and not an effective way to sell.
In no way was I ever intending to be redirecting potential customers to buy away from ebid to my website.
If anything the opposite would be true as I was using my website to bring people to Ebid.
My site however works well as a promo hub linking me to all my social sites, facebook, linkedin ,twitter blogs , ebid facebook pages and more.
Redirecting my sites to guide people to my ebid store has been the overall goal.
It was my hope that once I can finally get all my items listed here that I can eventually consolidate all my sites and post solely on ebid which is why I bought the lifetime membership.
When I linked in my websites and my slideshows for ebid promotional purposes, it was never intended to be breaking any rules here nor was I using it to divert potential customers away from ebid.
The intention was actually the very opposite. My website even has direct tab link to take people from my website direct to my ebid stores~! I also encourage other artists and crafters to join ebid and open stores as well.
I even read the TOS but felt to my understanding I was not like some of those sales companies seen online that use ebay or ebid to do such redirects to circumvent sale fees. I do enough online buying to see that is a practice others use but though mine may have appeared to be on a similar track I assure you it was not like those~!
Still I made a mistake - Apparently the way I created my templates for my ebid auctions, that some of my info links gave such an appearance and has caused concern an my auctions have since been placed on 'hold' and my stores were emptied and closed down.
and I received an email that I was in violation of the TOS.
Initially confused as to whether it was due to drop shipping or if it was a violation for something else, I reviewed it and see the links as the potential reason for how ebid could have mistook my profile page as a source of conflict and potential TOS violation,
I am trying to fix it all now. i never wanted to violate anything and for that I am sorry,
Now I have also lost months of editing work as well - one click and I lost all my auctions~!! They are not easily restorable~! None will go back into my stores. I have now downsized the categories of my stores to be able to attempt to re-sort them but there doesnt seem to be any speedy way to redo my stores and I dont have the energy to spend another 4 months posting them or editing them back into their proper categories, I have now removed most of my subcategories and am trying to see what is the best way to proceed - to repost all my cut auctions and leave them out of the store and just make new auctions for the stores OR do i risk if I reload my old auctions that one or more that would still have my website links would cause this to be all deleted again and fear relisting as I can not afford the time to put so much work and effort into this to come back and find it all deleted~!!
While I do understand your concerns about the listing you considered a violation, why couldnt that my listings have been held in a way I could have bulk edited without them losing their sorted positions in my store? Even had there been a way to instead of deleting the listing to have deleted their descriptions. At least that way the time needed to correct the descriptions to be in compliance wouldnt have caused the loss of months and months of labor.
Its all very frustrating to come and work for months here listing and then come back and see all my work gone.Although I can understand your considering I was in violation I hadnt considered that I was, so it was a matter of interpretation of your rules that was misunderstood and the consequences in this case seem a bit severe and is a very big setback and cost me alot of valuable time and effort in vain and to miss any potential Valentines Day sales as well.
Being that most customers are not from the US as the venue still needs more promotion with ebay being the one most buyers are familar with I am not sure that even if I began reposting all my auctions here if there would be even one sale as I had NO Christmas sales here whatsoever.
With all the work I did here listing so many auctions since last Sept I had only 2 customers - 1 from Germany that i ended up refunding part of the shipping on and the other from my website that came here thru the links on my site and bought 9 items total here. .
I am in very poor health and everything takes alot of effort and now I dont see spending 100s and 100s of hours listing and promoting that yielded only 2 customers as a complete waste of time and effort cponsidering someone clicked a button and killed my store and so I might have to just walk a way a while and watch TV.
My arms ache from typing.This has been upsetting. I never meant to violate anything and didnt see what I did as a violation but now understand how it was considered one and have no intentions of including any info that could ever be considered a violation again.
On the flip side now, is there is any easier way to list into the stores and auctions to correct this situation and restore my old listings to be in my store in their categories without having to do each one individually? I dont think redoing 850 auctions one at a time as something to do as that could take weeks to accomplish.
I wish someone could show me how to do it more effectively.My internet connection is slow. living in the country, so each auction takes about 15 minutes to edit over. and slow to load the next ones.
Really has me almost ready to give up entirely and maybe go back to ebay. They never deleted any of my auctions.
Ave