What are lot numbers and why do we recommend you use the in
Jumble Saler
Let's start with a story. The developer who wrote Jumble Saler started by selling hundreds of comics and magazines that had been in his loft for years. A lot of these were put on eBay individually, or in small groups, and he stored in then in tubs in his loft/attic based on type. However, when you end up with dozens of different types, then you need even more tubs. Also, he often ended up with more than one copy of comics and magazines. After a while, he started buying up lots of comics and magazines, and selling those.
When he was just selling a few things, it all went well. However he started getting problems after a while. He would sell items (that he only had one of) and then sell the same item again. He'd then have to go back to the buyer and apologise that he didn't have the item. After a bit of investigation he found that when he was relisting stuff that had already sold. The relisted items stayed in the list and then sometimes he had forgotten to delete these and listed them again.
He also had issues with the storage in the loft. Again, when only selling a few things, storing of items for sale was easy. When eBay kept upping how many items he could sell and it went to over 1,000, then he had load of tubs storing different types, which took up more and more space and made it harder to find sold items. This lead to mistakes.
So he turned to using lot numbers. Each item was given a unique number starting at 1, then 2, etc. He bought a raffle ticket book from the local pound shop, which had yellow tickets with numbers from 1 to 1000. He then used a comic bag for each item he put on with the ticket inside and then stored them in cardboard boxes in the loft in lot number order. When putting the auctions on eBay, he put the lot number in the 'Custom label (SKU)' field in the format '00000001', '00000002', etc (which means they can be sorted alphabetically). He also added this to end of the item descriptions such as:
A particular magazine - 20 August 2005 (LOT#1)
and then when the item sold, it was just a case of going to the storage box, which makes it quick and easy to find the items. This also meant he could deal with the accidental relists easier as well. When you go to the Active Listing section on the eBay control panel, you can order by Custom Label. This means you can then see which items you have and do a stock take against your eBay auctions with easy by comparing the numbers in your box with what is online in your eBay 'Active listings' list.
After a year of buying and selling magazines and comics, and eBay has upped his monthly listings to 2,400 a month, usually with the 100 free listing a day offer permanently on, he bought number stickers off a seller on eBay to stick on the comic bags instead. There were 1,000 for £9 (UK) including delivery off sellers advertising auctions like:
Personalised Bespoke Auction Number Lot Labels Stickers on ROLL sequential
Auction Lot Number Sequential Labels Micro Labels 25mm x 10mm NEW SIZE EASY PEEL
However, you can use paper or stickers and just write the number on. Alternatively, you can pick up prize ticket books from local bargain shops for £1 (UK) which normally contain 1,000 tickets (the sort you see on tombollas at fairs).
Jumble Saler and lot numbers
When the developer wrote his system for the fast creation of eBay auctions, especially when dealing with sequential numbers on comics and sequential dates and months on magazines, lot numbers were built in as standard and the same numbers where used over the several eBay accounts he had set up with the increasing number of auctions he had online.
We are assuming if you are looking at eBay software such as Jumble Saler to create your eBay auctions, then you have more than just a few items you are putting on eBay an organised system of numbering and storing items can make life easier. This is also useful when you have several of the same items in different conditions, whether it be Beenie toys, coins, stamps and other collectables. Several auctions for items in different conditions can be easier with a numbering system, even if you just bag or envelope items, or package them up ready to be sold and manually write a lot number on the outside of the package.
Using lot numbers with other items
If you have other small items, you may not want to attach stickers or tickets with numbers to them. You can bag them and just put the number on outside. You can get clear zip lock plastic back, like you use for food storage in your kitchen, or clear freezer bags and use those instead. If you are using raffle tickets, then you can just put the tickets in the bags so that they can be seen from the outside. These can be recycled as soon as you sell them, they can come out of the bags, posted, and then the bags reused for your next items.
If the items you are selling just get sold singly, you can even pack them up ready for despatch and just write the lot numbers on the outside.
Lot numbers on the eBay control panel
The image shows part of the active listing screen on an eBay control panel. You can clearly see the 'Custom label' which eBay often called the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) which is where our lot numbers get published. eBay lets you order by 'Custom label' and search it as well:
When you sell an item, or items, you can see the Custom label / SKU / Lot numbers as well. This makes "picking" the items sold for an order easy. In the image below, then items 1613, 1614, 1615 and 920 have sold:
All the lot numbers are padded out with 0's such as 00001613 as the SKU is a text field on eBay, rather than a number field, so that when ordered on the eBay control panel, they stay in number order.
Turning lot numbers on or off in Jumble Saler
Use 'File' then 'Settings' on the main menu to open up the settings screen, and tick to use lot numbers.
Doing a "stock take"
When you have hundreds of items on eBay, sometimes things go wrong such as:
- You sell an item but the buyer cancels and the item doesn't get relisted
- You sell an item and send out the wrong lot numbers
- An unsold item gets relisted twice
So if things start going wrong, then it's time to do a stock take. So on your eBay control panel, order your active listings by 'Custom label', like in the image below.
and then you can physicallly go through your items for sale and make sure that there are no items that aren't on eBay and no items that are on eBay aren't actually there.
Comic and magazine storage
If you do go along the comic bag routine, then look on Amazon and eBay for bags of the appropriate size. You can also consider comic backing boards, or plain card sheets, to back them when you store them. You don't need to post these, just reuse them after you have sold.
Lot numbers in titles
You can choose to display the lot number in the title such as:
A particular magazine - 20 August 2005 (LOT#1)
which makes it really easy to see the lot number after it has sold on eBay. This does take up a bit of your title space, especially when you get to 4 digital lot numbers like (LOT#7777).
So if you want to turn them off in the titles, then go to 'File' on the main screen menu, and then click on 'System settings'. Remove the tick in the 'Add lot numbers to end of auction titles' check box.
You also have the option of altering the format of lot numbers. However, they must start with a bracket "(" and end with bracket ")". This tells allows Jumble Saler to differenciate between issue and volume numbers and lot numbers in titles. See Jumble Saler sequential items in titles system.
Other numbers in titles and sequential items
See Jumble Saler sequential items in titles system which allows you to copy an existing auction and quickly just increment issues numbers, dates, etc.
Displaying issues and volume numbers if you are primarily selling items with sequential numbers
See Showing extra boxes for issue and volume numbers.