Taking our Silver To An Antiques Fair

Our Table Laid Out

In additon to selling from our Silver2treasure eBay Shop  and our antique silver website, Steve and I have decided that we might like to start selling at antiques fairs again.  We did actually sell at fairs many years ago,when we had just started the business, and were in the process of building up our stock.  To be honest it was hard work, sorting the items out, labelling them all up with the price and information,  packing them up, unpacking them and displaying on the tables and then at the end of a long day packing them all back up again.  And during the day panicked if anything sold at the fair, hoping that it would not also sell on ebay before we got home in time to take it off. [Read more...]

A Bookmark Is An Offensive Weapon According to eBay

I cannot believe what eBay have done today.  I had an email from them to say that two of my items had been removed from sale as they breached their Weapons and Knives Policy.  I had to re-read the email as the two items that they had removed were two thin silver bookmarks, yes two silver bookmarks.  The reason is that I described them as dagger shape in my eBay antique silver shop (which they are and I must comply with the Trades Description Act), but offensive weapons they are definitely not.

After I had stopped laughing, the anger crept in and I was on the telephone to eBay Customer Services saying that there must be some mistake as one of these items had been listed for sale since December 2011.  But no, the eBay Policy Department were not budging saying that they are dagger shape and could be misused and they were not going to re-list them. [Read more...]

eBay Customer Service - What Customer Service

I have been trading on eBay for a number of years and you can enter my eBay Antique Silver Store by clicking the link. There are times, when unfortunately I have to contact the Ebay Customer Service with technical queries.  Now I have been into their chat rooms, which is a complete and utter waste of time, and I think they employ robots who can only answer with automated responses, as you seem to go around and around in circles with not actually being given any sort of answer to your question. [Read more...]

Old Lady Using Her Computer

I felt I had to write about a transaction I had on ebay that I will never forget.  Many years ago, when I first started selling  on ebay I sold an eclectic mix of items including  china, glass, brass etc before I decided to specialise in silver.

I had a brass ships bell offered for sale which sold quite quickly and I received an email from the lady who purchased it, to say that she had bought it for her husband to go on  his boat.  Included in the email she stated that she was nearing 100. [Read more...]

By JelleS from Flickr.com

Ebay Bonehead Or Bone Handled?

Ebay have riled me again.  I had an email from them to say that one of my items had been removed from my eBay antique silver store as it had breached their Animals, Plants and Wildlife policy.  It was a boxed pair of Silver  1913 Fish Servers with Bone Handles.  Now I know that you are not allowed to sell items made of ivory on eBay but before I listed this item I did check that other items with bone handles were allowed.   There were items listed at the time so I listed this lovely set.

I was quite surprised to find that it had been removed and again on checking, there were items listed with bone handles so I was quite annoyed and wanted to find out exactly why my item had been removed.  Well if anyone has actually used ebay's customer support, it is like hitting your head against a brick wall to actually get answers to your questions.  As emailing them now takes about 3 days before you receive a reply, I wanted to get on the case quickly so decided to enter the ebay customer support chat room. [Read more...]

Booking In

As we run a business it is paramount that good records are kept of every aspect of it, and this is my job.  I have to say that I am quite meticulous and my way might not be the best or easiest, but this is how I work.  I am a believer of keeping manual records, as even though with all this modern technology, a manual record to me is the best record, but I know there will be many that will disagree.  My first job, is to book every item that Steve has purchased manually into a booking in book, detailing the item with the description, defining the hallmarks,size etc. [Read more...]

First Stage - Buying the item(s)

The first part of the process is to actually purchase the silver items.  Steve (my husband) is the buyer and regularly goes to our local auction houses where we source the majority of our items.  This is a long process in itself, as he will always preview the items, which is usually done the day before the actual auction, to have a good look at each item he intends to bid on.  He then attends the auction where he bids on the items he would like to purchase.  The trouble is there are many others who also like the same items, so he has to be very careful not to get carried away, so usually only comes home with a small percentage of the items that he was actually interested in.  He has to bear in mind that we have to sell these items on, and make a small profit, and it is not like someone just buying an item for personal use. [Read more...]

About 9 years ago I discovered eBay and started using it to buy and sell to enhance my own collection of antiques and was spending just a couple of hours at the weekends on it.  It was really exciting waiting to see if you had won an item that you had bid on in an auction, and also just as exciting to watch people bidding on my items that I had put up for sale.

I soon became impressed with the volume and scope of items for sale. After a number of successful transactions I realised that I enjoyed trading on eBay more than my full time job and after much soul searching I decided to make it my full time occupation as I could see it was a way of making money that I enjoyed.

I then decided to focus purely on my passion for Silver and the seeds for Silver2Treasure were sown. In 2005 I created an eBay shop and became a business seller and over the coming years sales grew and I was upgraded to a Powerseller and today I am now a Top Rated Silver Powerseller. [Read more...]

I recently had a major problem with my payment for my ebay sellers fees.  I am a top rated seller on ebay selling quality silver items through my Silver2treasure Ebay Store.  There is a fee for every item you list and then when an item sells there is the 10% sellers commission fee.  Ebay set a limit of £15.00 in fees and once you exceed this you will not be able to list any further items (but if you sell any at this time, they still take their fees).  Now I always pay my fees when they go over this limit (which I have to say is  a ridiculous amount for business sellers, as you soon eat into this very quickly).  Surely once you become an established seller, as I am, and am actually a top rated seller, this limit should be raised. [Read more...]