Technical Support
Seller user guide
As a seller, you have access to a number of useful features that allow you to develop a true presence of Der Hammerstein.
You will have already provided some information when you submitted your seller application, however, this acts purely as a basic framework. To update your seller profile, first locate the Account tab within your account page to open up the account manager. The standard information relating to your registration to Der Hammerstein is held here and is separate from your dealer profile. Move to the bottom of this page and select the edit seller details button.
Once open, check that the pre-populated information held here is correct. The information you submitted to Der Hammerstein for review regarding your seller profile will be held within the top field. If you wish to update this with information regarding your business, please do so. Tell people information such as who you are and what you specialise in. You may also insert a URL for your website here, if you so wish. Once you are satisfied, you can complete the rest of your seller profile.
First make sure your details for shipping, returns and general terms and conditions are outlined. These are the 3 most important pieces of information and in order to remain active, these details must be provided. Keep this information clear and concise and try to avoid being overly verbose.
Der Hammerstein also provides you with the facility to add a banner to the top of any listings as well as a logo. Der Hammerstein will resize these images to fit but be aware that the banner left justifies if it does not fill the width of the page. We recommend designing a banner that fills the dimensions detailed rather than trying to re-size an image to fit.
Finally, you can also add your facebook page link. This is not related to the automated posting to social media functionality and simply places a link on your seller profile to your facebook page. Der Hammerstein validates this URL to make sure that it is pointing to a facebook page.
Once you are satisfied, select the update details button at the bottom of the page.
Beyond the managed content outlined above, Der Hammerstein can also facilitate further promotional support throughout the site using the home page advertising slots. If you wish to utalise these fields, contact admin@derhammerstein.com to discuss. Please note that in order to use these fields, you must list a minimum of 10 specimens per week, continuously.
Selling an item on Der Hammerstein is very simple but there are lots of cool features to help you maximise your sales.
Once logged in, select the sell an item tab and start by populating your unique reference number. This is your reference number and can be used to populate an inventory umber or stock code for the item in order to manage your sales effectively.
The first thing to decide is whether or not this item is a premium listing or not. For more information on standard versus premium items, please proceed to the listing type section.
The Auction title is your item header and should only contain the name of the primary mineral species. This field supports a limited number of character so keep the title relevant. Do not add supporting information if you can avoid it. Do not, under any circumstances, use varietal or trade names for common minerals. Valid species names must be used.
Below the title is the subtitle field. This is where associations and supporting information can be added. This is the perfect place to detail if the specimen has been polished, whether it was once in a notable collection or simply that the specimen is particularly large.
Select next to move to the details section of the listing. Here, the first action is to assign an item to a category. These are pre-set to help your customers find your items more easily so start by deciding which category your specimen best fits.
Next, enter the locality. This field is currently free text so for best results, we highly recommend copying and pasting the locality from Mindat to ensure that the content is accurate and spelled correctly. If the locality is not available on Mindat, you can still manually enter this. If you are feeling particularly efficient, it can be worth stripping the mindat locality down by removing content held within brackets in order to make sure that the locality displays correctly.
Length width and height should then be populated, ensuring the largest dimension is entered first and that all measurements are done in millimetres (mm). Alternative units cannot be used as they will confuse your customers.
The final text field here is where you can enter a description. In many situations, the description can make a huge difference so plan your description content carefully. To help, here are a few do’s and don’ts for descriptions;
Do…
- Include crystal dimensions
- Detail associations
- Advise of what analysis may have been completed
- Point out any notable damage or repairs
- Provide history of the specimen
Don’t….
- Over use ‘fluffy’ language. Hyperbole has its place but over using it can detract from a listing
- Speculate regarding an association. Just because it looks like a fabled rarity, doesn’t mean it is. Have it analysed or point out the ‘unidentified’ association.
- Detail retail prices or valuations. If it is valuable, apply a reserve. If it has a retail value, add a ‘Buy it Now’. Don’t add a valuation to the description in the hope that it will inflate bids as it may well do the opposite.
- Comment about another dealer. Comments regarding another dealer are strictly prohibited anywhere on the site.
- Plagiarise other descriptions. Put it in your own words.
The final action on this page is to add images. These can be uploaded en-masse by selecting all relevant images from one folder. However, before you upload anything, let’s talk a bit more about the images.
Over and above every other detail you provide about a specimen, it will be the photographs that sell the specimen. From our experience, there is a distinct correlation between the quality of the photograph and the sales value it achieves so the better the photograph, the higher the value the item sells for. However, while a great photograph helps, over manipulation or post production can detract from the sale so make sure your colours are correct, the image is sharp and the brightness is at a decent level.
Also worth mentioning before you start uploading is the image size limits. Since Der Hammerstein will re-size your images to fit the site, physical dimensions aren’t an issue, however, for the site to function correctly, images cannot exceed 1mb/1,000kb in size. This should support large images while ensuring site performance is not compromised.
So now that you’ve edited and resized your images, you can upload them. Depending on whether or not the listing is standard or premium, you will be able to upload 6 or 10 images which can take a few moments to upload. The very first image uploaded becomes the auction cover photo and will be the first thing people see so make sure this is a great, eye catching photo. Once the images have popped up, you’re ready to proceed. However, if you wish to re-organise the images, you can do so by simply dragging and dropping the images into the order you want.
At this point you can save the listing or proceed to the next section where you can price and schedule your item.
Starting price is the value at which bidding starts. Keeping this low encourages bids, however, if a specimen is particularly valuable it may be safer to have the bids start higher. This field is mandatory and must be populated.
The Reserve is a hidden value that prevents an item from selling too cheaply. However, applying a high reserve to a low starting price item can frustrate bidders. Keep your reserves realistic and achievable. This is an optional field.
Buy it now is used to circumvent all the bidding rigmarole. The benefits of this are that the sale is instant, however, be mindful that selling an item via buy it now is covered by Distance Selling Regulations. This is an optional field.
The Stage auction option is a useful tool that allows you to create listings for a large number of items before deciding when you wish to list them. For example, it is possible to upload 20 specimens and then list them in batches of 5 over 4 days. For more information on the Auction Staging feature, proceed to the Auction staging section.
Setting the start time and date, and duration is done next. Der Hammerstein allows you to choose when an item goes live and the duration so that you can manage your auction in a manner that suits you. However, it’s worth being mindful of when an auction goes live and ensure that your items are ending at an approximate time when your customers are online. Duration is defaulted to 7 days, however, if you wish, you can select to run 3 and 5 day auctions as well.
The final option before listing or staging is the social media check box. If you’ve set up the Facebook API to link with your businesses facebook page, this tick box will ensure a link is posted to your facebook page directing your followers to follow the link to the item on Der Hammerstein.
Staging batches of items on Der Hammerstein allows sellers to post a selection of items in one go, rather than individual items on a case-by-case basis. Staging an item is done on the final page during the listing of an item and replaces the setting of a start date and time. Once an item is staged, it is moved to the staging area where there is no limit to the number of items that can be staged.
When ready, select the specimens you wish to schedule by selecting the tick box to the left hand side then scroll to the bottom and set a start date and time, and duration. Once happy with the items and time, select schedule items for them to drop into the auction schedule. You can do this as many times as you like, scheduling your weeks’ worth of auctions in one go with just a few clicks.
While many will find a standard listing will do, for those items that need a bit more attention, Der Hammerstein provides the option to upgrade your listing to a Premium listing ensuring your items are more prominent.
Premium vs. standard listing
A standard listing offers the following features;
- Standard sorting of specimens
- 6 images per item
- Regular borders and purple hover states
A premium listing offers the following features;
- Priority sorting ensuring you’re the item is at the top of non-sorted views
- Position in the featured auction sections with larger images, on both the home page and sellers page
- 10 images per item
- Bold border and gold hoverstate
- Higher likelihood to be used as part of Der Hammerstein off-site advertising activities
The procedure for invoicing on Der Hammerstein is managed within the Seller account, under billing and invoicing. Der Hammerstein automatically notifies both parties of a successful sale via e-mail, providing direct links to the invoice.
Creating an invoice
After receiving notification of a sold item, navigate to the account section and select the billing an invoicing tab. Beneath the billing administration header is where you will find all sold items awaiting invoicing, as well as items where the invoice has been created. Items that have not been invoiced are located at the top of the list and populate in chronological order.
If you wish to bill immediately, select the lines you wish to invoice why checking the tickbox to the left, then select create invoice. This will automatically generate a basic invoice for individual customers with single items.
But what if you have a customer that has bought multiple items or has asked to consolidate orders? Der Hammerstein can do that for you, too. Depending on how many items, it can be worth applying a filer to identify items for a specific customer so first, locate the drop down menu to the top right and select the customer. Once the filter is applied, you can select the lines you wish to invoice by selecting the tick boxes. However, before you create the invoice, you must select the merge invoices for a single buyer check box. This will pull all of the individual line items into a single invoice. Finally, select create invoice.
Once the invoice has been generated, you can then apply shipping, discounts and add notes as necessary. This is done beneath the Invoicing header. Again, all invoices are ordered chronologically so your newest invoice will always be on the top. To amend details, open the options menu to the far right and select view invoice.
Much of the content of the invoice are pre-populated, however, you can add a discount value, postage and a note. Enter these values, or leave blank if you so choose, and select update invoice. This will apply your discount, shipping and comments to the invoice. Keep notes brief but concise and do not add personal comments if at all possible.
Once your invoice is complete, select the invoice line or lines, and send the invoices using the send invoice button.
Statuses
Each invoice can have a status applied automatically, or in some cases, manually. When processing correctly, all statuses up to awaiting shipping are applied automatically. You can also apply manual statuses if there is an issue with a line item or invoice.
- Invoice not sent The invoice has not been sent to the customer
- Invoice sent The invoice has been sent to the customer
- Payment received The customer has paid (This is automatically applied if the item sells through paypal or manually applied if not)
- Awaiting payment Payment has not been received
- Awaiting shipping The item has not been sent
- Cancelled The invoice has been cancelled
- Outstanding Payment has not been received within a suitable length of time
- In Dispute Can Only be applied once an invoice has been marked as outstanding
- Refunded Buyer has been refunded
- Complete Payment received, item sent
For all other technical issues relating to Der Hammerstein, both user and dealer related, please contact admin@derhammerstein.com.