"I would be interested in your system, would it work for CD's?"
I don't see why not. This is how I do it:
First off, each postcard I purchase to resell is placed in its own protector sleeve. The cost of the postcard is written on that sleeve in code before being placed in its proper spot in the "to sell" pile. That pile is sorted by place or topic.
Ebay affords me 1000 auctions per month at my store level, so I do 8 batches of 125 postcards. That means generally 2 batches a week. When I gather 125 postcards to make a batch, I number them 2 to 126. I start with the number 2 because I use File Exchange to upload my listings to eBay. File Exchange uses a spreadsheet, and row 1 is reserved for column headings. Each row corresponds to an item.
The next thing I do is scan all 125 postcards. I use a powerful photo editing software called Irfanview to automatically crop and rename the images with a specific pattern (batch number, year letter, and image number). Being that this is my second year doing this format, the year letter is B. The next batch I will be doing is 21, so the first postcard to scanned will be titled 021B002.jpg. All of its credentials will reside on row 2 of that spreadsheet file - commonly known as a flat file. That flat file will be saved as batch021B.csv.
That catalog number 021B002 will also be automatically placed in the "CustomLabel" column of the flat file and secretly placed in white coloured font in the item description of each listing. I say automatically because the spreadsheet software is programmed to do all that.
Once the batch is listed, all 125 postcards are placed in a shoebox with a divider at the beginning labeled in this case 021B. Obviously placed behind batch 020B.
When the auctions finish, I will have dozens of sales to invoice and packing slips to print. I sort my sold listings in my Selling Manager by most recent record number first, so that my print job goes in that order. The Custom Label section in Selling Manager shows the postcard catalog number, so it is very easy to find.
Unsold auctions are relisted at fixed price, and any listed over $1.25 are GTC. Ebay affords me 2000 fixed price per month, so if I have too many, I can drop those that are too old buy sorting by Custom Label.
I use the Custom Label feature instead of Private Notes because it is the only one that carries the information through from start to finish. Private Notes does not show up as an optional column in Selling Manager.
Having a cost code on each postcard is extremely handy for dealing with best offers and also for setting a sale price. I have devised a program that takes into effect every conceivable cost (not including my labour, but yes, PayPal, envelopes, stamps, paper, eBay fees...) and tells me to the nearest 25 cents what my minimum selling price for that postcard is in order to break even. I can comfortably sell that postcard now knowing if I am going to double my money or get 1000x what I paid for it.
That's how I do it - only took me 11 years to get to this point.
Oh yeah, I stay away from the SYI format - that's what bogged me down for many years. I only use it to make certain that my item titles don't go over 80 characters and to check my html.
Sorry if I went on and on and on - especially if your reading this on your phone.
