Excel Spreadsheet versus 3rd Party software

[lcbergh]

I have been using Easy Auction Tracker Excel Spreadsheets to track my inventory.  (It did a lot more, but has gone away.)  After trying the suggested alternative inventory trackers, I'm wonder why the hell I'm doing this when I still have to use an excel spreadsheet because I have pictures in my spreadsheet because my items are all unique.  It helps me manage my physical inventory and confirm my inventory is accurate.  That would be nearly impossible without images.  

Are you a shop that uses excel spreadsheets to track inventory?  Are you using 3rd party products? 99% of what I'm selling is on eBay.  Can you think of anything other than cost of shipping materials (which I wouldn't get from eBay) that would lead you to think I need a 3rd party versus just continuing with excel spreadsheets to manage my inventory?  Thanks! 

[the_fancy_fox]

I think it comes down to personal preference. 

I created several excel spreadsheets and  I track everything about each sale down to the cost of the box and the cost of the bubble wrap per foot used. Which when all is said and done calculates the actual profit on an item, total fees, etc

I have another simple sheet that lets me know where my inventory is located and how much of it I have and which website(s) something is listed on. 

And others for business expenses etc..

A few years back I used a program I wrote in Access but over time I figured out it was faster for me to just type it in excel. 

[slippinjimmy]

I've been using SixBit and it's predecessors for 22 YEARS. It's does a lot more than just inventory management, it's an end to end product that can take care of 98% of what you do on eBay (there are a couple of things that still need to be done through eBay such as INR/NAD claims).

https://www.sixbitsoftware.com/clients/aff.php?aff=242

An alternate lower cost program is Wonderlister, I have not used it but it's pretty much a clone of SixBit.

[luckythewinner]

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@lcbergh wrote:

Are you a shop that uses excel spreadsheets to track inventory?  

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I use my eBay listings to track my inventory. 

[nuclearomen]

i use excel for everything, inventory, sales record etc... you can use gazillion other programs etc... but you'll always go back to excel no matter what you use/do cross check or backup or whatever reason, excel is vital and I just see no point using others when can do it all right there. That's my 2.5 cents worth of thought. 

[chapeau-noir]

I use Excel spreadsheets with formulas set up to calculate fees, etc.  I'm a really small operation, though sell on multiple websites so it's not eBay exclusive - does the same thing for all marketplaces, though, on one sheet.

[reed-sales]

I have used Turbo Lister and Blackthorn in the past.  Both were extremely slow once any real number of listings were added with them.  Perhaps newer listing tools work better.

Excel is all you need!  You can write macros to handle virtually any task and to track all expenses.

I have worksheets that update MAP pricing and cross reference on multiple selling platforms.   Also this gives me a location where all of my descriptions and images are stored in case they need to be uploaded or ported to a different platform.  Technically speaking my images are not on my Excel spreadsheet, but I have a macro that pulls the image live off of my server or my vendors with the click of a button and displays it so I can compare or edit if needed.

When I create a new listing from a vendor I use a macro to pull stock images off their websites.

At one point a few years ago, I even had Excel create programmical uploads to edit or remove listings from eBay if the item sold on another site or in our retail store.  eBay has since made this more complicated and no longer allow uploads in the same manner, but I can still create update reports daily to keep inventory in line.  I just have to manually upload to the Reports section on eBay.

My current spreadsheet has over 80 pages.  I even made some pages to perform basic Tax functions for Schedule C reporting.

I created a separate spreadsheet for my Point of Sale terminal at my retail location.  My eBay and POS files are linked together and I have been using the same system for FREE for over 15 years.

If you don't know about this site: https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/  I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is in the selling game and does not want to rely on eBay's latest listing tools.

Best of luck!