T&D's Pickers Challenge is BACK for Season 2

Yes, it's true, the long awaited season 2 of T&D's Pickers Challenge is Back....with a couple a changes that will hopefully make it easier and more fun to participate than ever before.

So New "Rules":

1.  Enter in what ever you want to feature on the show.  It doesn't matter how much you paid, whether we've seen it or something similar to it before or if it's something totally new and different.  Make a video and tell us about it.  The entry should be a newly picked item that hasn't been listed yet that you will put up for sale for the challenge.  Auctions should end by the following Tuesday before the results show.  For example if you want a 7 day auction, your item should be listed by the same Tuesday that your video entry is due and if you want a 5 day it needs to be listed by Thursday that week and so on.

2.  To enter, your video should be set to unlisted and you should send a link to that video to us for us to use in the pickers challenge.  (Once that weeks challenge is complete you can publish the video however you want).

3.  The time frame is LONGER!  The schedule will be Week 1 challenge, Week 2 Results, Week 3 Challenge and so on.  Instead of 2 videos per week this season will be reduced to 1 video per week.  This should give you and us more time!

4.  How places/winners will be determined: places will be determined by what we refer to as "Challenge Profit".  "Challenge Profit" is simple price item sold for on ebay minus price paid for when picked.  We call it "Challenge Profit" b/c it does not take into account shipping overages or underages, ebay fees, paypal fees or listing fees  (that's just too much to keep track of). 

5.  What will I get if I participate?
Well, besides the sheer joy of playing in the game, anyone who participates gets a link to their channel on the challenge show (exposure), also winners will get props and shout outs on the results show, as well as the pride of being Top Dog for the week!  We'll also post a congrats comment on your channel!  We may occasionally throw in a prize here or there, but that will be at our discretion (we'll announce if a prize is up for grabs).

6.  Your Video entry:
Your video ideally will be 1-2 minutes long and include information about the item you picked, where you got it, how much you paid for it, why you picked it, what you know about it and how you are going to sell it.



7.  Be a Subscriber to our Channel!



These again are a general guidelines and we may need to change them as needed.

Finally,  by sending us a link to your video you are giving us permission to use that video and/or edit it for a challenge video.  We may or may not have monetary compensation from in-video ad revenue for the challenge show.  If you are not ok with that, then please do not participate.

If you have any other questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us...we can't wait to see what you bring to The Challenge!
~T&D

How to save money on Priority Shipping

We know that shipping has been covered by several Pickers before, but nobody really talks about the incredible value of the Priority Flat Rate Envelope.  It is amazing what you can fit into one of those envelopes.  First off they come in 3 varieties; the regular letter size, the legal size and the bubble wrap version.  If you buy your postage online, they cost $4.70 for the letter size and $4.95 for the other 2.  The only rules are that the package has to weigh less than 4 pounds and close on its own (you can re-enforce it with tape, but the flap has to be folded over and gripping the body).  Some examples of items we have shipped using the flat rate envelope are:  jeans, bulky sweaters, jackets, kitchen knives, calculators, books and many other items.  The priority envelopes can get beat up in the shipping process, but as long as you secure the item as you would normally it should arrive save and sound (we often put items into a poly mailer and then into the priority envelope).  Besides the savings in postage, the supplies are also free, go to the USPS website, set up an account and they'll even drop them off at your door step for free (many of the priority supplies are offered online exclusively).  Hope this helps you guys out!  Let us know if you have any questions!

Happy Picking,
~T&D

Picker tip of the Week: Make a Little Extra Money When you Ship

There is a free App on Ebay called AdShip that pays you about $0.20 for every package you ship domestically with a tracking number.  There has been a lot of controversy over this app, if you read the forums on eBay, a lot of people think its a waste of time and they think the customer won't like it.  But, we have been using it for months now, we have not had one complaint and we've received 4 checks from them so far with another on its way.

How it works: You ship your package as you normally would with tracking (if you use ebay shipping, tracking is automatic and only $0.19 for non-priority, with the discounted online shipping it's like its free and it IS free with priority).  Then you open the AdShip app through eBay, all of your tracking information will be uploaded, click get rewards on each package, rack up the rewards until you reach $50.00 and finally request a check.

The biggest down side to this app is that it takes them a long time to acknowledge that you have requested a check...2-3 weeks at times, so we usually request a check early...when we hit around the $40.00 mark and we haven't had a problem yet.

The upside is that AdShip sends your customer an e-mail telling the customer that their item has been shipped and what the tracking info is...this has reduced our e-mail from customers drastically (even though their tracking info has always been right on the page with their item).  And of course it's nice to get that bonus check.  If you ship as much as we do or more (we earn a check about every month and a half), it's definitely worth the extra 3-5 minutes to get a little extra back!

You can find AdShip in the Ebay apps tab and it's free.

(Just FYI we are not affiliated with AdShip in anyway except that we use it)

~T&D

Episode 9 - Theme

For the Episode 9 Challenge and in honor of October finally being here, we are challenging you and ourselves to find something halloween related to resell on eBay!  The purchase price limit is $8.00, you have to post a video response by the end of Tuesday Oct 4th and your item has to end by the end of Saturday Oct. 8th.  This should be a spooktacular challenge (sorry for the corniness, but we had to lol).  As always, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!
~T&D

Picker Tip of the Week: Making the most of your listing titles

 A large majority of buyers use the title search to “look up” items on ebay – I know we do – in an effort to maximize views and hits to your item it is very important to include in that title as many key search words as possible, even if it doesn’t really make sense or make a sentence description per say. 

It can be very hard to create a title without making a complete sentence so it is always a good idea to type in your title read it and then eliminate words such as: as, a, the, and, with, also, etc…. and then if you have any extra space you can readdress words to make the title read better. 

It can also be helpful when you are doing the listing of your item to take a minute and view a couple of other similar or like items that have recently sold to see what kind of search words were included in their listing – once you see a word or phrase come up a few times it might be a good idea  to use those for yours as well.

One last important step is to prioritize your keywords by putting your most eye catching words towards the front of the title b/c with the new extended title the last words get cut off on the quick scan that buyers also tend to do.   The name of the maker or designer is usually a good starting point

Here are a couple of examples:  

Old cap with logo – you could have

Vintage (insert logo name here) snap back hat cap trucker style retro mesh  

Pair of denim pants – you could have

Levis boot cut denim jeans pants western casual work size 36 mens

Again the more descriptive search type words you can fit the better! 

Hope this tip helps out -

Thanks much T&D

Picker Tip of the Week: A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

We can't tell you how many times we've researched an item that we're listing to set a fair starting price or a BIN and at the end of the auction it ends up selling for more than the average sale price.  And we're left scratching our heads wondering why the heck it happened.  We've also seen where you'll have several similar items and some sell high while others sell low or not at all even though it's the same thing in the same condition.   The trick is to open the different listings and more often than not the listings that sell for high have several more pictures than the ones that sell for lower.  Also, the quality of the pictures are usually much better.

We, as pickers have to remember that while we can touch, feel, hold and see every detail of the item, our buyers cannot do that until they receive it.  Put yourself in the buyer's shoes and think about when you purchase something off of eBay...are you more inclined to put a bid on something that has a single, semi out of focus, dark picture? Or are you going to be more interested in the one that shows even the smallest flaw so that you know EXACTLY what you are buying?

While we realize that it's going to take extra time and effort to take a few nice photos, it could make the difference between a sold and unsold item.  It could also mean a significant difference in sale price.

Things to remember when taking photos:
Light (Brighter is Better)
Focus (It's not easy looking at blurry pictures)
Quantity (cover as many angles as possible)
Close Ups (it gives your buyers the opportunity to "examine" what you are selling)
Issues (if there is an issue, it's better to point it out in a picture than to write about it)

~T&D

Picker Tip: To Calculate or Not to Calculate?

This week we are going to talk about shipping...Should you use calculated shipping or flat rate shipping???  Well, that depends.  If you ship the same thing over and over again, so you know how much it weighs and how much it costs then go ahead and use flat rate shipping and spread the ups and downs amongst all of your buyers becuase eventually it will even out.
HOWEVER if you are like most of us pickers, you buy all sorts of things to resell that are all different sizes and weights.  It will be extremely beneficial to you to invest in a 50 lb scale (you can find one for under 10 bucks on ebay...a little more if you want to buy from a U.S. seller).  We feel that it is beneficial for the following reasons:

1. No more guessing, all you have to do is weigh it, put the weight into ebay and ebay does the rest
2. No more losing money on shipping and very rarely over charging on shipping (no more refunds!)
3. Your international sales will increase (if you want them) b/c for every one person that asks you how much shipping will cost there are 10 other buyers who wont bother (also with the dollar being weak right now, a lot of international buyers have more buying power).
4. You can ship from home and when you buy postage through ebay, click-n-ship or paypal,  you save money on shipping (ebay top rated or power sellers get even more savings)
5. It saves you time, no more standing in line at the post office and you can even have your postal carrier take the packages to the post office for you (as long as you are sending at least 1 priority package and notify them the day before pick up)

We hope this has helped, let us know what you think about this.  And if there is a subject you would like us to cover, let us know!
~T&D