Red Ink Diary

As the last days of August have whizzed into September small sellers should be well into preparations for the (hopefully) busiest season of the year.

As of today we are 85 days away from Black Friday, November 26th. Bearing in mind that online seasonal sales often start to pick up in October, ideally you should target September 30th as your completion date. This gives you time for corrections, fix-its for omissions and fine tuning your listings.

Here is a check list, please share your thoughts in the comments for things you do which I have not covered.

• Seasonal offerings of new stock

Check your inventory of seasonal goods. Make the decision, if you are going to buy stock orders for new items need to be placed now, by September choice is already limited. You don’t want to be stuck with everyone else’s rejects!  There will inevitably be shipping delays.

• Lost!

Check your inventory! Be sure to physically locate old stock items you have listed. It does you no good to make a sale and have to refund your buyer because you can’t find it, in fact, with PayPal’s August 10th fee change it will cost you money.

• Price

Look at your pricing, make at least three searches, Google, Google Shopping and eBay. Note not only comparable prices, including shipping, but also the number of returns you get for the different search terms you use. Apply this knowledge to your titles and the first 150 - 200 characters and spaces of your item description. Remember prices may need to move up as well as down.

• Pictures

For most of us pictures are not the most enjoyable part of the job, but it has to be done because we all know the truth in Auntie May’s favorite saying (this week) “A picture is worth a thousand words and a bad picture is worth a ‘back button’ click.” No Matilda, scanning is not the best method for that coffee pot.

• Stop!

If you sell on your own website, for maximum SEO you should consider suspending listings you are ‘refurbishing’ for at least 24 hours. On Bonanzle you can use the batch editor to put those items on ‘reserve’. When you are finished with your renovations (def.#2) duplicate the listing so it becomes brand new and then delete the old one. On Bonanzle traits and attributes do NOT duplicate, remember to add them back.

• The Google

Google announced changes to Google Merchant Center in July.

“Starting in late August, product offers in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories from US merchants may not appear in Product Search if your data feed does not include the necessary unique product identifiers, such as MPN, Brand, GTIN/UPC/EAN or ISBN. These attributes will not be required for your feed to process correctly, so any product-based ad format will continue to show and product offers in other categories will continue to be listed on Google Product Search. However, to avoid seeing a drop in traffic from Product Search, we urge you to start including these unique identifiers as soon as possible, for as many categories as you can get this data.”

• Packing materials

Check supplies of labels, tape, bubble wrap, padded envelopes, business cards, any enclosures used, boxes (free from USPS) and envelopes. Reorder if necessary, dust off and sort boxes and padded envelopes by size if you are recycling.

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Pennsylvania has a long history of both creativity in wringing money out of it’s residents and iron-fisted (def.#1) enforcement.

Back in 2007 Pennsylvania’s State Board of Auctioneer Examiners decided that eBay consignment sellers needed an Auctioneers License and begun enforcement. Auctionbytes covered the story. Stay at home mom Mary Jo Pletz and Barry Fallon; who sold his consignment business; both faced fines of up to $10 million dollars if convicted.

At the time Pennsylvania’s Auctioneer Licensing Act required anyone who makes a living taking bids on goods not their own to be licensed. To qualify applicants must either serve as an apprentice auctioneer for at least two years, participating for compensation in at least 30 auctions, or complete 20 credit hours (300 classroom hours) in auctioning at a school approved by the Examiners Board.

Fortunately common sense prevailed and in October 2008 the law was changed.

August is a slow news month

Search Google news for “blog tax” and prepare to be shocked and awed.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer trumpets “A Blog is No Longer Free Speech”
• The International Libertarian gets wound up starting with “The recent decision by the City of Philadelphia …” in “Why Philadelphia’s Licensing and Taxing of Blogs is Creeping Fascism”
• Righteous indignation runs rampant at NBC “Pay Up or Shut Up”
• even normally sedate NPR has an amusing piece“Seriously? A Blog Tax?”

Not news or a blog tax!

News,(def.#2) by definition is new information and there is nothing new about Philadelphia’s “Business Privilege License”. (BPL) It isn’t even a tax never mind aimed exclusively at bloggers. Philadelphia wants taxes too, but that is different, extra and is called a Business Privilege Tax. (BPT)

“Every individual, partnership, association and corporation engaged in a business, profession or other activity for profit within the City of Philadelphia must file a Business Privilege Tax Return, whether or not they earned a profit during the preceding year.”

The City of Philadelphia has simply applied an old fashioned revenue stream to internet users and started enforcing it back in 2007. From their website: (emphasis is mine)

“A Business Privilege License is required for all businesses operating in Philadelphia. This includes businesses that are located outside the city limits but do some or all of their business activities in the City.

Also, if you receive payment for work and an employer does not pay wage taxes on your behalf for that work, you are considered a Sole Proprietor and treated as a business by the City of Philadelphia. You are required to apply for a Business Privilege License to work as a Sole Proprietor in the City.”

This is about business

Philadelphia requires you have a license to do business, this is hardly unique. You can choose to pay $50 a year or a one time fee of $300. If you have a business, no matter where you are based, you need to keep account books. Where Philadelphia has been particularly creative is defining freelancers and contract service providers who live in the city but work outside the city limits. Hello iron fist!

There is a velvet glove

“As soon as you determine that you have a tax obligation to Philadelphia, please make arrangements to register for a Business Privilege License and get an account number, file missing returns, and pay. If you come forward before the City contacts you to disclose any past liabilities, the Department of Revenue’s Voluntary Disclosure program will work with you to reduce interest and penalties under $10,000. Call 215-686-6614.”

Or you could just move.

The truly alarming thing is how many writers did not bother to research and consequently got it wrong.

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As firefighters battled a brush fire near the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island State workers took this amazing video. The twister pulls flames high into the air. If you do not see a video please refresh the page.

The blaze has burned about 1,400 acres so far. Firefighters have the brush fire about 60 percent contained, DLNR officials said.

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Once in a while we forget our troubles and cares to go completely off topic and enjoy a little Saturday Silliness. Kudos to the veterinarian.

If there is no video please refresh the page.

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