We are working on a web based Turbo Lister Alternative. Share your thoughts!

[6eu]

Hi,

we are two German CS students and the developers of the ebay third-party tool "dewabit". You can imagine our software as an alternative for the discontinued Turbo Lister. Our software is a pure Windows application, but we started to develop a browser based solution.

And here is my question: If anyone wants to test our current work, feel free to drop me a message. You can use our web based tool for free for three months. In return you will just have to provide some feedback 🙂

You can find our tool at https://dewabit.com/en. I hope that this post is not regarded as SPAM. If so, please delete it or drop me a message and I will take it down.

[dollybeauty]

I gave you a 'helpful' above because we are always looking for alternatives. But...

1) Is this free for at least 50 items per month?

2) Do you have an offline option?

IF you can not answer yes to both questions, you are not an alternative to TurboLister. You may be an alternative to SixBit (I think may they may have an offline capabilities), or other listing programs, but not Turbo.

I am more concerned about your online reviews. Prominent are the ones from 2019 (good review), and the one from 2017, quoting no customer service (with a marketplace that can change twice a year, can your IT keep pace with ebay?, if not will need you need GOOD customer service!)

Let's see, 1 review + 1 review = 2 reviews. We need to see more reviews to take you seriously.

BTW. Please read the community rules (especially 13) - https://community.ebay.com/t5/About-the-Community/Rules-of-Engagement/m-p/26164369?nobounce=

[shipscript]

@6eu 

Since Turbo Lister is slated for retirement, members are definitely looking for an alternative to Turbo Lister (TL), but as @dollybeauty  mentioned, TL is an offline (desktop) tool. The major reason sellers still want TL is because they can create and archive listings and photos on their own computers and can resurrect listings a year later. And it's free to use.

The biggest problem with eBay's online tools that makes them inferior to TL is the 90 day limit on archiving.  That is followed by the inconvenience of being online to perform routine tasks like writing all the item descriptions and then returning to add photos and shipping details.  Network latency can significantly decrease workflow efficiency.

A true TL replacement would be offline, but that leads to platform problems. eBay's TL is rooted in Windows, with its native web transfer capability, and eBay never created a cross-platform version, so Mac users could never use TL unless they installed the Windows OS on their Mac computers. Tablets never had a chance.

Going to a web-based system gets around the platform problem, but then introduces all of the reasons TL users are not happy with web-based alternatives, such as the two major issues of loss of desktop archives and loss of offline data entry.

Solve both of those issues and you would have some very happy new users.

Additionally, to keep pace with eBay changes, you will need to be on top of their ongoing updates. These come out regularly, so plan on bringing out updates at least every quarter, if not more frequently.

[6eu]

@dollybeauty 

Thanks for your reply. In general, our tool is free to use with 10 active items. Beside the web client we also have a Windows client that is offline compatible. You are right, we do not have many (english) reviews yet, but it's not that easy to get some. That's why we are asking for feedback here. We started the development of the Windows client in 2016 and we are providing regular updates to keep track of ebay's changes.

Regarding rule 13: Sorry, did't see that. If it is against the community standard, the thread can be deleted then.

@shipscript 

With our windows client you can exactly do that. It is offline capable and can archive listings. The problem with the client is, as you already mentioned, that it is only for windows. That's the reason we started developing dewabit web. And we made some great steps towards offline capability. We are using service workers and a browser based database to create draft listings. So you can create offline listings and save them as draft. When you are back online, your items synchronize with our server.

[bitsofsiliconvalley]

Sorry about the late comment, but I just ran across your product yesterday. I have a couple of questions.

The first is more curiosity than a real concern: you said above that you have a three-month free trial period, but I recall that your web site says 30 days. I wonder about the difference: have you changed the trial period since August?

The second is a serious concern. You said that you're two CS students. I admire your initiative for writing such a useful program and building a business on it while still in school, but I'm concerned about your business's stability. If I come to rely on Dewabit and you go out of business, how would I be affected? I'm aware that some "offline" listing programs let one work offline, but still depend on the vendor's servers for their day-to-day operation. If your servers were shut down would your program cease to function, or immediately default to a Private account (ten listings at a time), or could I continue using it for a reasonable period while I chose and shifted to an alternative?