Looking for Online Auction Seller Software
I have been a seller on eBay for a number of years and have dabbled a little bit with books on Amazon. What I am looking for now is some GOOD auction management software. I’ve tried quite a few different things in both the online and local environments including: Merlin, Auctionwatch, Auctionworks, Mr.Lister, and Shooting Star among others. In all cases they each had features that were great but for this casual eBay seller I was finding they were or became too expensive to run, or they just didn’t have what I needed to do the types of auctions I wanted to perform.
So lets get into that… What kinds of auctions do I run? I think this is critical question to ask when you are determining the software that you want to run. For example if you have an item or two and you only sell those items do you need to have the full blown package complete with inventory management? I’d guess not but then each seller likes to run things differently.
My items include: flea market and estate sale items, collectibles, home decor (50-60 items that can be stocked, ordered and drop-shipped), overstocks and returns, basically a real eclectic mix of things.
For me the critical things are:
1. An inventory management system. I have many items that I have in multiples that can be re-ordered, and others that are of the one time purchase variety. Because I am a “data hound” and I never know when I might be able to get the items again I want to be able to keep track of all of the inventory and then list to the auction sites from my available inventory to sell. I also want to be able to run a “storefront” for the item that I currently have in stock.
2. Seamless integration with the auction site’sg checkout including integration with Paypal. I don’t want my buyers to wonder what is happening in the checkout process. I don’t want them to be redirected to some OTHER place and wonder if they are being spoofed.
3. At a glance status or dashboard would be nice. I want to know how all of my auction are doing… Not only the ones that are running, but the ones that are complete. Am I waiting on payment, do I need to ship, am I waiting for checks to clear, do I need to post feedback, has feedback been posted for me, etc??
4. Scheduled listing. I don’t want to have to babysit the process of listing items. If today I want to list 30 items for sale I’d like to be able to schedule which of those items I would like to list and on which auction venues and just forget about it.
5. Financial reporting. I need to know what the items cost (from my vendor) , the listing fees (auction venue) , the selling fees (Paypal, auction venue), the selling price (buyer), shipping charges charged, shipping charges paid, packaging materials, insurance, etc. etc. etc…. I need to be able to know if after all is said and done with an item whether there was any profit made on the item and if so how much. An export of this P&L information would be helpful to other accounting software like Quickbooks as well.
6. Image management. I don’t necessarily care if there is hosting of images but the ability to upload, delete, and include image links in the auction listings would be important. For any item there could be any number of pictures and being able to tell the items story with pictures is extremely helpful.
7. Flexible auction templates. I would like my auctions to look professional and include a lot of “standard information” like return policy, shipping policy, terms and conditions, etc.. but I would also like the flexible information to be fully integrated so that the auction as a whole looks like one complete “flyer” of information.
8. Storefront. I’d like to run my own based on what is in my inventory. Just because it isn’t on auction doesn’t mean I won’t sell it. I’d like to make all of my in-stock items be available to buyers. Preferably as part of my auction management solution, not as part of the auction site. (ie. Not a fan of eBay Stores)
So what have you all found that can help me out here? I’d be interested in links to reviews, your own personal choices and observations, any information you have at all..
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I found http://www.inkfrog.com in a web search today. If you happen to be a user of inkfrog I would love to hear your thoughts about this service… Price seems to be good. I didn’t see a “store” option
We were sellers on many auction/P2P sites and often felt powerless and at the whim of the major players (eBay, Amazon, etc).
When Yahoo! closed tje doors on its auction site in June, we decided it was time to create a tool to help “untether” ourselves and our feedback reputation profiles.
The end result was Repatoo (http://beta.repatoo.com) . Repatoo lets you bring together all of your feedback profiles in one place and reference them via a link or image.
Thanks for the pointer Pete… I will go check it out… I currently only sell on eBay but I think I will be looking at other venues and Repatoo gives a quick and easy place to offer a complete view of feedback. Have you met with any resistance on the auction sites with putting a link to your site something like “Check out my Online Feedback” or something similar?
Hi Bill. We haven’t met resistance yet, and I emphasize the word yet. However, we stand strongly behind our belief that feedback information generated by an online seller, regardless of venue, belongs to the seller. So if they do begin to resist, we have a plan and resources to push back.
Otherwise, we have been speaking/working with the smaller, independent auction sites (such as eCrater, eBid, WeBidz, etc) who have generally been very receptive to the tool.
I have to wonder if a Yahoo/eBay deal goes down, perhaps conventional wisdom will shift and Yahoo! will (in an attempt to “do no evil” and compete with Google) open up the eBay feedback platform… just a thought.
One more question Pete… Have you considered doing, or is there a service that you know of that allows for non-auction feedback. For example I have my own website where I sell product but there is no methodology for allowing my buyers to leave feedback. A system that would allow this would help the small mom and pop sites develop and online ecommerce reputation.
Yes. We have definitely considered it and are planning on heading in that direction. We haven’t found a service out there that currently does it effectively, primarily because it is a very difficult thing to do… Hopefully we will have an equitable solution in our next major release (scheduled for early Spring)
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