eBay

mam98031 · ‎02-03-2020

I just got this message and I wanted to make sure as many people see it as possible. I'm saddened by this news as no matter what Ebay is saying, the Seller Hub does not have enough features to replace the main uses of TL. For me I am very unhappy by this news.

Starting July 2020, we will stop supporting Turbo Lister. Downloads of the Turbo Lister listing tool in the US have not been available since 2017.

Because many eBay sellers continue to rely on Turbo Lister to list items quickly and easily, we want to give you plenty of time to transition to other listing options. We’ve already integrated many popular Turbo Lister features in Seller Hub to support you during the change.

We’re committed to providing you with the best tools and functionality possible, and we’re working diligently to develop a solution that will enable you to continue to list on eBay with maximum ease and efficiency. The new solution will offer many of the same popular Turbo Lister features and functionality, including the ability to manage and edit listings offline. We’ll let you know when it is available.

In the meantime, many Turbo Lister features are available in Seller Hub at no cost. You can bulk list, edit, and manage your listings from the Active Listings tab. You also have the option of using other eBay bulk listing tools such as File Exchange. Learn more.

We appreciate your business.
Thank you for selling on eBay.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

mam98031 · ‎02-03-2020

I think it is clear from the email they sent out that all functions of TL will not be found in the SH by this summer. I would also think that what we have in SH is what we are getting since the email calls out some of the current features and says nothing about any new ones coming soon.

@twnpopcards

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

mam98031 · ‎02-03-2020

I'm unsure of your point. I think we have all been aware that the days left for TL have been numbered. Ebay has made no secret of that. But it doesn't lessen the impact now that they have announced an actual time frame.

My point was that eBay has given an "actual" time frame at least twice before, and not enforced it. And I never suggested that "it" would lessen any impact (whatever "it" is and whatever is being impacted.)

****************************************

I understand that, but those other dates that were released by Ebay were not announced / emailed to Ebay members that I'm aware of and I keep a pretty close eye on this stuff. It appeared to me from the links you provided earlier they were statements made outside of Ebay, so while some members may have seen them it isn't likely they were widely known about.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

eldogofasticus · ‎02-04-2020

If this is true, and mind you they've said this before, then I'm done with Ebay. I'm an ORIGINAL Ebayer, back from a time when it was a COMMUNITY and not a money grubbing corporate machine. I'm also a power seller (in my spare time). I generate TENS of thousands of dollars of sales for Ebay yearly. This is another move by a company that has continually shown that, with each passing day, they grow more myopic. Ebay has shifted to a "give us our money right now" vs. a "when you make more money, we make more money" approach. This move will result in the demise of someone's career for sure. Why do I say that? Well, even if whatever alternative they come up with works as well as TL (and let's face it, that won't happen), nobody has addressed the issue of transferring current TL data. I have 18 years of auctions... over 3,000 in fact and I will not be starting over. This is the case with a few others I know as well. For years I've been upset with the roughly 10.5% of my sales I give to Ebay, now I finally have the impetus to start my own website and be done with them for good. I don't auction things anyway, only BIN so no really biggie. I've grown to where I have enough customers to leave and not suffer too much. Add an extra 10% in my pocket and... well, thanks EBAY!

jobs-7 · ‎02-04-2020

Your posts here always give me a chuckle. Anytime a poster complains of slow sales, you say yours are just fine. Anytime a poster speaks of Ebay's struggling stock, you play financial semantics to prop it up. Yet you will walk to the end of earth and back in an effort to avoid paying Ebay a listing fee. The fact you will go to the lengths of opening 10 accounts to avoid paying $700-$800 in store fees (some of which can be credited back with lower FVFs) tells us all we need to know about your "great" sales.

lacemaker3 · ‎02-04-2020

@luckythewinner wrote:
...

I have thousands of in-stock items stored as offline listings in TurboLister. I only list when I get free listing specials (I got about 10,000 free listings last year), so I use TurboLister to store the listings offline. (If I left them on eBay they might "age off" my ended items lists if I did not get enough free listing specials. )

But if Turbo Lister goes away, I will not longer have any way to take advantage of those free listing specials - because there is no way I am going to sit down and redo the work of creating 100, 200 or 500 listings in a few days if I happen to get a listing special.

So without a Turbo Lister-like tool, my only reasonable alternative will be to create a dozen or more selling accounts and use the 50 free monthly insertions to keep 800-1000 of those items as active GTC listings that renew each month. Then as items sell out, I will replace them with new items from my inventory.

It's not a great solution, but I am not really intersted in investing my time to do the same work over and over because eBay chose to ditch a valuable tool.

@luckythewinner, here's a suggestion that may work for you.

TurboLister is a program that runs on your computer, not online on an eBay site. So even after eBay stops supporting it, TL will continue to run and work on your computer as it always has.

The only part that eBay would be not supporting anymore, would be the uploads and the syncs to eBay. So, you could still store your auctions, descriptions, and pictures in the TL database, and view them on your computer. But you would have to copy and paste them into new listings.

I know, this is far less convenient that just clicking the upload button and waiting while they are automatically copied to the site. I haven't listed anything for quite a while, but it always used to take minutes for an upload, for me. So I would click to start it and then go make dinner or something.

So it would be less convenient, but you would still have the offline storage capability, for free.

It would probably be a good idea to store several copies of the TL download (not just the link, but the download itself) on different hard drives, because they will probably remove the page with the link before too long.

http://download.ebay.com/turbo_lister2/TurboListerInstall.htm http://download.ebay.com/turbo_lister2/TurboListerInstall.htm

luckythewinner · ‎02-04-2020

Anytime a poster complains of slow sales, you say yours are just fine.

{snip}

tells us all we need to know about your "great" sales.

My sales are not "great", and I have always admitted to being a part-time hobby seller with mostly low-demand items and a sub-5% sell-through.

What I have posted repeatedly is that my sales are consistent, and that I have not experience any "sudden drops" in my sales or any "dry spells" in my sales or any "rolling blackouts" in my sales.

When I reported that my sales were up about 30% over last, I also mentioned that I had more listings that year as well. My sales correspond amost exactly with the number of listings I have and the demand for the items I list.

Anytime a poster speaks of Ebay's struggling stock, you play financial semantics to prop it up.

I do not play financial semantics to "prop" eBay up. I believe if you check, my last post on the subject referred to a 5% drop in GMV and that the site is "treading water".

But when people post about stock price and then try to connect that to their sales on eBay, I will always post the corresponding GMV numbers - because GMV is a caslty superior indicator of how much is being sold here ... because it measures how much is being sold here.

Yet you will walk to the end of earth and back in an effort to avoid paying Ebay a listing fee

That is because - as I have explained many times before - my items are very low demand and my sell-through under 5%. As it is, I make over $50 an hour for the small time I spend sourcing, listing and shipping. If I paid $800 in store fees it would not be worth the effort.

luckythewinner · ‎02-04-2020

The only part that eBay would be not supporting anymore, would be the uploads and the syncs to eBay. So, you could still store your auctions, descriptions, and pictures in the TL database, and view them on your computer. But you would have to copy and paste them into new listings.

I know, this is far less convenient that just clicking the upload button and waiting while they are automatically copied to the site. I haven't listed anything for quite a while, but it always used to take minutes for an upload, for me. So I would click to start it and then go make dinner or something.

The automatic bulk uploading is exactly the part I rely on. When I get a free listing special, I select 500 items from my inventory, and click upload all. Sure it takes a couple hours, but I can watch TV, pack items to ship, or have dinner while that happens. The actual time I spend working is about five minutes.

Even with photos and descriptions saved locally, copying and pasting those listings - along with UPC numbers, item specifics, shipping methods, etc. - is time I am simply not willing to spend. Even at 90 seconds each, it would take more than 12 hours of constant work. That's a 14,200% increase in time spent.

earlyant-77 · ‎02-04-2020

@wvdisney wrote:
Similar to you other folks, I'm in the same boat. Been around since the 90's. Used Mister Lister, thought it was fantastic because you could do everything all on one page! Super simple and easy! Turbo Lister to me was more complex (you have to open a pop-up window to do your listing)...but heck, we all got used to it.

And now looks like they've really set a final date. What I don't understand is why Ebay doesn't come out with a "premium" bulk listing tool...something even better, smoother than Turbo Lister, and charge a fee? Heck I'd gladly pay $5 a month...even $10 a month.

I moved to SixBit a couple years ago when ebay announced the end of Turbo Lister. I used it for about a year or so, it was a decent tool, but often when I uploaded listings, the images didn't go up with them! So frustrating to upload 100 items and then have to go back and revise 40 of them to add photos. When it became clear that ebay wasn't really ending Turbo Lister, I came back and started using it again, lol.

I suppose SixBit is the next best thing...but it's $20 a month and in my opinion, inferior to Turbo Lister. I sure hope Ebay is listening and brings out a new bulk listing tool, even if they charge a fee. If it's less than the $20 a month for SixBit, I'd pay it.

I use Wonderlister - it's only 5 bucks a month(2 ID's, billed quarterly). I've been using it for over 2 years, no problems, and no problems switching from TL. It's about the same as TL.

mrdutch1001 · ‎02-04-2020

I don't know about the .com free listing promos as I don't receive those, but as a Canadian seller using the free listing promos offered to me on .ca, Iive always used "re-list" and "sell similar".... no problems...

the key is to "activate" the offer FIRST!

mam98031 · ‎02-04-2020

Hey, is anyone that currently uses TL having this issue.

In the screen shot below, it is asking for a CAPTCHA. Except that if you click on it so you can get the captcha, nothing happens. I've brought my computer down and back up, tried again and nothing seems to work. I currently can't get into TL.

Any Ideas ????????

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

brian@ebay · ‎02-04-2020

@mam98031 wrote:

Hey, is anyone that currently uses TL having this issue.

In the screen shot below, it is asking for a CAPTCHA. Except that if you click on it so you can get the captcha, nothing happens. I've brought my computer down and back up, tried again and nothing seems to work. I currently can't get into TL.

Any Ideas ????????

Hi @mam98031, I think you'll need to contact the Turbo Lister support team to get this issue resolved. You probably already know, but you can contact them by calling regular customer service and asking for the Advanced Apps team.

Brian,
Community Team

luckythewinner · ‎02-04-2020

@mam98031 wrote:
Hey, is anyone that currently uses TL having this issue.

In the screen shot below, it is asking for a CAPTCHA. Except that if you click on it so you can get the captcha, nothing happens. I've brought my computer down and back up, tried again and nothing seems to work. I currently can't get into TL.

Any Ideas ????????

Do you have Javascript enabled in your browser?

That is what the message says is the issue.

mam98031 · ‎02-04-2020

@luckythewinner wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
Hey, is anyone that currently uses TL having this issue.

In the screen shot below, it is asking for a CAPTCHA. Except that if you click on it so you can get the captcha, nothing happens. I've brought my computer down and back up, tried again and nothing seems to work. I currently can't get into TL.

Any Ideas ????????

Do you have Javascript enabled in your browser?
That is what the message says is the issue.

Yep!! I checked it a dozen times. LOL

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999