Round Three

As some of you know, who follow my blog, I have had trouble with a person, calling one of my items into question. I did a post on this back in November, or December, the second time it had come up.

Let me bring you up to speed with a bit of background if your unaware of the situation. I had an item reserved until I could prove authenticity. That was done to the best of my ability, and in the eyes of the site that I sell on, was accepted. It Should have been end of story. A month later, it was brought up again, and that was when I posted the 1st blog on this. Now the bottom line is, I still do not have a valid reason why this person is so adamant on my item being a fake. If I did, I could look into it further and possibly this person would be right. BUT, Because I do not, we are at an impasse.

Well, now we are on to round three. Here is the current situation. Because the item was deemed authentic, the person in question decided for themselves that this was un-true. They then went to a public forum and slandered me. I reported the slander, but because it was off the site that I sell on, again nothing could be done about it.

Several months have passed. On Monday of this week, I had a sale. At that time, my booth items dropped by one item. As they should. After getting the item ready and going and marking shipped, I look, and my booth items again dropped by one more.

HUH?? Well, because I have been busy, and because the site is relatively new, I thought nothing of it. May have been a glitch, which has happened before. A week passes. On Saturday, I go into my batch edit to use my mark down manager. I had decided to run a sale on china. THIS did not happen, because low and behold, there sits my item that I thought was no longer in question, with a big "SUSPENDED" next to it.

For those of you who know the site, you know that you can go in and report an item as fake. You use the "bomb" button. Each report is assigned a value so people do not take advantage of it. Meaning, if I report it, it is coming from my ISP address, I cannot then keep hitting that button. Well, I can, but it does no good.

Apparently, because of this, this person who originally thought my item to be fake, recruited a lot of people on different computers, to go in and "bomb" my listing. This to me tells me I am dealing with a mentality of a child and not a professional dealer.

I would hate to sell anything to anyone that is not what I think it is, however, if I am not provided the information to research it further, then I am stuck with what I have, and that is the item is real.

At this point in this on going saga, I have decided to keep it listed. Even though the public slander is creating doubts about my own ability, I refuse to allow anyone to control how I do business. I show integrity, and honestly in dealing with my customers, and that is all I can do.

What makes you an expert?

In the past year, I have learned many things about on-line selling and marketing. Most good, but some has been questionable. So here's the question: What makes YOU an expert.

I follow many blogs, forums, groups, pod-casts, and other media tools to learn how to market myself. I have joined social media sites, and gone to webinars, that have given me value for my business. I also have google alerts set up. Google alerts tell me whats happening around me, when I can not fit in to my schedule all the things I think I would find value in, so I can go to my alerts later when I do have the time, and read to my hearts content.

One of the alerts that come up is on forums. I have set mine up generically, so I sometimes get forums I do not read or follow. Remember here, I am looking for content in my business, ie, Antiques and collectibles. However I do get the odd piece in once and awhile so need more than just the antiques category's. So I do read some of the forums I would not normally turn to for research value.

A lot of the forums, I question, not because I think they may not be reputable, but I see comments come in to my alerts, fairly often when a person is basing thier expertise on a sellers, feedback or how much they may be selling the item for. Now personally, I have only sold on-line for a year, so my feedback is going to be lower than people who have done this for 10 years or more.

Here is just an example: I have some LLadro's listed in my store. My prices are market prices. However, I could conceivably list way below that if I paid way below that.... get the idea here? If I purchase a "lot" of ephemera at auction for re-sale, I can lower my price, based on what I paid. I want to make money, not have a store house full of items I can not sell because some may be to high priced, or for that matter to "low" priced and a potential customer believes it may be fake.

My point is there are many people out there who claim to be experts, but who are really only giving an opinion based on sellers feedback and price. This practice is arbitrary and can do damage to someone starting out, new to on-line, but has been in business, and has integrity and honesty in dealing with people.

Advice? Be careful who your giving "opinions" to. Talk to the person, find out who they are, find out their history and area of expertise before you possibly put someone out of business because you may not agree with pricing or feedback.

SO, what makes YOU an expert?