@pocomocomputing wrote:I noticed you use simple text descriptions which is the direction eBay is moving to. Third party listing tools have description templates which you should not use in my opinion. So do not consider them a feature.
Not all templates are created equal. SixBit uses a "description wrapper" which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The wrapper defines what you want to do to your description text when the Item is posted. You can make it as simple as you want or as complicated as allowed.
Mine, for example, directs SixBit to include the Item Title (setting the font size larger and making it bold), then a blank line, the description text, a blank line, and then a snippet which contains my 'terms' for my souvenir coins. That's it -- all plain text, with the terms being a set of bullet points. (a snippet is best described as something you want to use over and over but don't want to type each time.)
I currently use a basic, plain text format for my souvenir coins -- especially now that mobile devices account for half or more of my sales. I used to use a much 'fancier' wrapper/template, but these days, lean & clean seems a better way to go (my opinion changed not long after I got my tablet, and especially after my first true smartphone, and I started seeing what my old listing format looked like on non-desktop screen).
-Bob.
@tiger7eye wrote:Ebay's handling of drafts is extremely annoying. In fact, it does not retain drafts 30 days after they were last edited, it will delete any drafts 30 days after they were started, edited or not.
I also need a tool that will save drafts indefinitely and auto-post in some way to Ebay when I complete the drafts. While I have used text files stored on my hard drive for this, it is a laborious manual process that does not serve my purposes.
Thanks for those suggestions, pocono.
I would also like to be able to archive listings. Ebay's archiving function is a joke -- those are also deleted after 30 days. What kind of archive is that??
You are definitely talking about a 3rd party tool of some kind here, especially since the things you are looking for are easily solved when your data is on your computer. That puts you in charge of how long you keep it around, and what you do with it in the meantime.
There are a lot of tools available, some better than others, some free but most with some level of fee. Be careful of the fees -- you won't always get what you pay for, and in some cases, the bigger you grow, the more you pay.
My tool of choice is and always has been SixBit. The Home & Hobby level would work well for you and allow you to keep that draft data (description, pictures, pricing, categories, shipping, payment) available until you tell SB to delete it. H&H is $20 a month, which can be steep if you are only posting 50 listings a month, but becomes a whole lot cheaper when you increase to as little as 200 a month.
SB stores Items (those 'drafts' you were talking about), their Listings (running & closed, sold & unsold), and their Orders (paid, unpaid, shipped, unshipped), along with buyer information and history. Keeps everything until you get tired of having it around. And you can look things up by words in the title, UPC code, SKU, or just about anything else related to the Item, Listing, or Order (depending on what you want to do).
Whatever you are looking for, you're likely to find more of what you want in the 3rd party area than on eBay. Most of the 3rd party tools were developed by and specifically for sellers. And there is a vast difference between an employee seller whose food budget doesn't depend on their sales for the month and the average seller who does. I prefer my tools to be designed around my needs and developed to provide me with sufficient flexibility to do my work my way, while still allowing others to use a different approach.
Good luck in your quest!
-Bob.
@dollybeauty wrote:
One question...Does the H&H support export functions of active listings?
That one I will have to look into. It's a feature I personally use a lot -- it allows you to create CSV and XML files, which is useful when you want to post inventory to non-API/non-supported sites. The mirror process would be the ability to import CSV & XML files, to create/update data within the SixBit database, like creating Sales records from sales data from non-API/non-supported sites.
I know it's in Small Biz & above, but I will definitely need to ask about H&H. Even back when SB was in pre-release testing, I had two selling IDs, converting my old buying ID to selling around the time SB went public.
I know H&H has restrictions in other areas, like messaging, templates, presets, etc. But I'd never thought about the import/export functions. I'm going to learn something new!! 🙂
-Bob.
PS: the whole pre-release testing process was, for me, quite exciting. I'd just 'retired' from programming, doing pretty much the same thing (in general) that the SB staff was now doing. To be on the user side of the equation was both thrilling (new experience!), annoying (I would have caught that!), repetitive (I will not divulge how many times pre-release users had to 'restart', because that's WHY you do pre-release testing), and satisfying (I still like it when good automation comes together with good design). Very exciting!
Note to self -- next time, check the SixBit site before you answer, if you're not entirely sure. End Note.
Yes -- H&H does support import/export of data from/to various file formats. It's on the Pricing page features chart.
If you were considering using SB as your database (it manages everything you need, after all), you would need to manage what was Listed via some field on the Item record. I would check first into using of the the Custom Fields -- Item record details you create for your own needs. I've only dabbled a bit, but that would be a 'safe' place to store that type of data (and it should still be available for Search and Sort) -- 'safe' from the fact that the database does undergo occasional upgrades, and one possibility is that a field you are using may change.
An alternate way to track, especially for H&H users, would be to use the SKU field. Product ID & Product ID Type are used for UPC coding, and SKU is generally considered to be an internal-to-the-business data field -- it's something you use to track your stock that would mean nothing outside your business.
Another option, depending in your inventory and level of OCD tendencies, would be to create different Folders for different sites & statuses. You have sub-folders as well, so you could create new inventory in the default folder, then move it to SiteA-Unlisted folder for posting, and move it to SiteA-Running once you've exported from SB and imported into SiteA. I generally use a single "Sold Out" folder for inventory I've sold out of and don't expect to have more of soon (I don't have any true 'suppliers' where I can order a specific Item that I sell). Currently I have two -- one for my elongates, once for pretty much everything else.
I've dabbled with various other venues, still have accounts on most of them, but never really got past the "OK, this works but is it Daily Workable?" stage. It's one thing to take 100 Items and post them on Bonanza to see what sells. It's something totally different to do it daily and work out all the annoying "I know I can do this better/more efficiently" issues.
SB does include the ability to store pictures as the actual pictures, as URLs to online resources, or as links to files on your PC. I use only the first -- loading my pictures into SB but retaining an external copy for my own OCD-tendencies. I've also used SB with pictures stored externally to the database - from within the application, you see no difference, but the SB pictures are actually stored in a file external to the database. This is primarily used when your database approaches the 10GB limit of the free version of MS SQL. H&H users shouldn't ever need to do this -- but if you're looking for a single seller database for an active single seller, then you will want the pictures external to ensure maximum inventory/listing/sales data within the database. Pictures are HUGE, even if small in size. Lots of bytes of data -- moving pictures out of a database can reduce it from 10GB to 1GB. If you're using a single template, compact description text, and keep your unsold Listings trimmed out (this skews the tracking of #listings - which could affect how you track when to simply clearance an Item and move on), that 10GB limit can be a LOT of data.
Probably more answers than needed...another of my "personality features" 🙂
-Bob.
