Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
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I have had similar experiences with older, still active, approval books...
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I'll look into it.
Tim
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I keep a copy of every downloaded Approval Book Page I activate. For one thing, if you delete the older book, they will be gone, and who knows, you may want to go revisit some old pages.
For another, as you just saw...one never knows with computers, and having a proper back up should be one's own responsibility. Do not just rely on one back up source. Good luck Michael. rrr...
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I have all of the scans for each page in my hard drive. But if they are gone from the online book, I don't think it is possible to reupload the scans to replace the lost scans. Is it?
As Jan said, it was also my older books that were still active where this happened. The only thing I could see to do was to close the books where the pictures were gone and start over with new books. I was able to get the order packed.
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We have a cleanup program that is deleting old Auction Lot images and old Approval Book Page images if the item/lot is older than 12 months. Now with the Approval Books, this could happen if one of the items on the page was sold over 12 months ago. I am open to changing this if we can come up with a plan that works.
Regards ... Tim.
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I am in favor of automatic retirement of Approval books older than 6-12 months, especially if no sales have occurred for the last 3 months.
Don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but older depleted books just take space, and seldom generate much activity.
I personally am retiring my books that are older than 6 months, especially if depleted and showing no sales for a while.
But it requires that each one of the sellers to have the discipline to do so. Automatic retirement of older books makes it mandatory, and not subject to discipline. All we have to agree is to do it (yes or no), and if yes, at what age?
rrr...
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05:50:02pm
Yes - 6 months if no activity over the last 3 months. Recreate another book and add more material. Leaving it there to collect dust when it's at least half depleted I'd useless - you'll get no sales. Try reducing offices if no activity after 3 months and then retire it.
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07:08:08pm
I'll go along with 6 months/no activity for past 3 months. (sorry Ralph and Kelly, I know my support will cause a lot of folk to vote against it
)
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IMHO, if there is no activity after any amount of time the book should be deleted. Obviously it is just taking up space doing nothing but collecting cyber-space dust.
Mike
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One small problem with deleting the books with no activity especially if they have few sales,is we have new members joining nearly every day ,all of these are potential buyers.
Books that are depleted should be deactivated.But give the new members a chance to see what you have for sale.That's my humble opinion.
Brian
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I agree with Brian. A perfect example is that I just sold over 400 stamps to someone who bought mostly from my older books that had been active for about a year. As a result, I retired several of the older books due to depletion.
I am all right with automatic closure of books that go below 20%. Anything higher leaves alot of stamps in the book. To close a book of over 200 stamps just because it drops below 50% leaves over 100 stamps unsold in the book. Remember that with at least 100 stamps are required in order to post a book. Why do we want to close a book that meets the posting requirement? Doesn't make sense. It also means the member has to rework the 100 stamps into a new book. That is alot of unnecessary work to do.
I don't think that time should have a factor in the short term. Bringing up the APS policy, since it was stated that our approval books are based on the APS books, sales books remain in circulation for 18 months, then are automatically retired. I wouldn't have a problem with that 18 month time frame.
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I have now re-uploaded the images of a book that was more than one year old. I agree with Michael and Brian that it is not as easy as described. I have seen sales from books that had been dormant for months as well. It made me happy that I had not deleted or retired the book yet. In my opinion, it is more interesting for a buyer to have a larger choice of items from one seller. They will be tempted to buy more, if they see there are more than just a few books to choose from.
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Jan Simon,
Please let me know if the image that you just re-uploaded gets deleted again.
Regards ...Tim
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They have not been deleted again (so far). It is book #808.
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We should probably not focus on time but on how much material is still left in a book.
Your arguments are certainly valid points. Old books still gets sales occasionally. But I think that old depleted books (looking at % sold) and books with just a few items left (looking at number of items left) do not offer SUBSTANTIAL choices for our members and thus fall short of our general rules guidelines. If they have been around for a long while (6 months or more?), it may be time to force their retirement.
I am recommending (for discussion) that we look into automatically retiring Approval Books with 75% sold (?? 70%, 65%? what number?), as well as books with less than 50 items remaining (not including our noted exceptions for FDC, S/S and sets..). No one has any issue with retirement of unsold Auction items!
I am posting this here, but I am opening a new discussion thread on this topic, which left our stamp images topic some time ago. And I will combine prior comments. Your thoughts please.
rrr...
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Michael and Jan Simon,
I believe I have fixed this problem. Please let me know if you see it happening again.
Regards ... Tim.
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Will do. Thanks for your help, Mr. Wizard!
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Tim, this is a follow-up. Last week, several of my approval books were closed by the system due to being sold out. As I went through and filled the orders, I checked every page in every book that had been closed to see if the images were still there. I only noticed one page where the images were gone. However, that was on a page that had been sold out previously. I believe the missing images to have been from the problem that was reported before you fixed it. To me, everything looked good. Thanks.
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10:33:19pm
I am going through trying to pack an order of over 400 stamps, and I am finding that on many of my books the images are gone.
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Approvals
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I have had similar experiences with older, still active, approval books...
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this post
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I'll look into it.
Tim
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this post
Approvals
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I keep a copy of every downloaded Approval Book Page I activate. For one thing, if you delete the older book, they will be gone, and who knows, you may want to go revisit some old pages.
For another, as you just saw...one never knows with computers, and having a proper back up should be one's own responsibility. Do not just rely on one back up source. Good luck Michael. rrr...
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12:09:56pm
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I have all of the scans for each page in my hard drive. But if they are gone from the online book, I don't think it is possible to reupload the scans to replace the lost scans. Is it?
As Jan said, it was also my older books that were still active where this happened. The only thing I could see to do was to close the books where the pictures were gone and start over with new books. I was able to get the order packed.
Login to Like
this post
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
We have a cleanup program that is deleting old Auction Lot images and old Approval Book Page images if the item/lot is older than 12 months. Now with the Approval Books, this could happen if one of the items on the page was sold over 12 months ago. I am open to changing this if we can come up with a plan that works.
Regards ... Tim.
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I am in favor of automatic retirement of Approval books older than 6-12 months, especially if no sales have occurred for the last 3 months.
Don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but older depleted books just take space, and seldom generate much activity.
I personally am retiring my books that are older than 6 months, especially if depleted and showing no sales for a while.
But it requires that each one of the sellers to have the discipline to do so. Automatic retirement of older books makes it mandatory, and not subject to discipline. All we have to agree is to do it (yes or no), and if yes, at what age?
rrr...
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23 Feb 2015
05:50:02pm
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
Yes - 6 months if no activity over the last 3 months. Recreate another book and add more material. Leaving it there to collect dust when it's at least half depleted I'd useless - you'll get no sales. Try reducing offices if no activity after 3 months and then retire it.
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23 Feb 2015
07:08:08pm
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I'll go along with 6 months/no activity for past 3 months. (sorry Ralph and Kelly, I know my support will cause a lot of folk to vote against it)
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re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
IMHO, if there is no activity after any amount of time the book should be deleted. Obviously it is just taking up space doing nothing but collecting cyber-space dust.
Mike
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Auctions
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
One small problem with deleting the books with no activity especially if they have few sales,is we have new members joining nearly every day ,all of these are potential buyers.
Books that are depleted should be deactivated.But give the new members a chance to see what you have for sale.That's my humble opinion.
Brian
2 Members
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11:06:19am
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I agree with Brian. A perfect example is that I just sold over 400 stamps to someone who bought mostly from my older books that had been active for about a year. As a result, I retired several of the older books due to depletion.
I am all right with automatic closure of books that go below 20%. Anything higher leaves alot of stamps in the book. To close a book of over 200 stamps just because it drops below 50% leaves over 100 stamps unsold in the book. Remember that with at least 100 stamps are required in order to post a book. Why do we want to close a book that meets the posting requirement? Doesn't make sense. It also means the member has to rework the 100 stamps into a new book. That is alot of unnecessary work to do.
I don't think that time should have a factor in the short term. Bringing up the APS policy, since it was stated that our approval books are based on the APS books, sales books remain in circulation for 18 months, then are automatically retired. I wouldn't have a problem with that 18 month time frame.
4 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
Approvals
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
I have now re-uploaded the images of a book that was more than one year old. I agree with Michael and Brian that it is not as easy as described. I have seen sales from books that had been dormant for months as well. It made me happy that I had not deleted or retired the book yet. In my opinion, it is more interesting for a buyer to have a larger choice of items from one seller. They will be tempted to buy more, if they see there are more than just a few books to choose from.
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re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
Jan Simon,
Please let me know if the image that you just re-uploaded gets deleted again.
Regards ...Tim
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this post
Approvals
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
They have not been deleted again (so far). It is book #808.
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
We should probably not focus on time but on how much material is still left in a book.
Your arguments are certainly valid points. Old books still gets sales occasionally. But I think that old depleted books (looking at % sold) and books with just a few items left (looking at number of items left) do not offer SUBSTANTIAL choices for our members and thus fall short of our general rules guidelines. If they have been around for a long while (6 months or more?), it may be time to force their retirement.
I am recommending (for discussion) that we look into automatically retiring Approval Books with 75% sold (?? 70%, 65%? what number?), as well as books with less than 50 items remaining (not including our noted exceptions for FDC, S/S and sets..). No one has any issue with retirement of unsold Auction items!
I am posting this here, but I am opening a new discussion thread on this topic, which left our stamp images topic some time ago. And I will combine prior comments. Your thoughts please.
rrr...
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re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
Michael and Jan Simon,
I believe I have fixed this problem. Please let me know if you see it happening again.
Regards ... Tim.
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07:15:18pm
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
Will do. Thanks for your help, Mr. Wizard!
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12:34:30am
re: Stamp Images in Approval Books Gone
Tim, this is a follow-up. Last week, several of my approval books were closed by the system due to being sold out. As I went through and filled the orders, I checked every page in every book that had been closed to see if the images were still there. I only noticed one page where the images were gone. However, that was on a page that had been sold out previously. I believe the missing images to have been from the problem that was reported before you fixed it. To me, everything looked good. Thanks.
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