Bulk Listing Nightmares

[illudius]

I have to say that in general I try to be positive about EBID and take into account that it's free, run on limited resource and has lots of other good points. However, bulk listing is now driving me round the bend. Why?

1. The spreadsheet is now ridiculously complex, particularly postage options.
2. The spreadsheet format changes on a regular basis, invalidating all my previous spreadsheets, forcing me to edit them heavily if I want to relist items. I don't get informed of these changes until one of my new BULK uploads fails.
3. New options are introduced (like more countries and store fronts) which I can't easily apply to my current auctions. Instead I have to cancel them all and submit update spreadsheets (back to point 2)
4. I'd love to use gallery pictures (which would in turn be a potential source of income from EBID) but I have to upload separately. This take much more time than I can afford.

Stores etc. are all very nice and I do like them, but IMHO investing time in a robust, simplified bulk loading system would be a MUCH better use of resource as it will allow masses of sellers to list quickly and easily.

EBAY didn't create Mr. Lister, TURBO LISTER et.al because they thought it was a laugh. They did it because it allowed even the most technophobic people to list enmasse, with options and pictures galore. I know EBID doesn't have anywhere near EBAY's resources at it's disposal but please consider providing something which will hide all the numerical option switches, automatically upgrade previous listings to new formats and allow gallery uploads as part of the auction upload.

My 2p (+ VAT) worth

Illudius

[twosides]

I like the spreadsheet. I can use my favourite spreadsheet program (Open Office) on my favourite Operating system (Linux) and not have to be annoyed that eBidLister needs windows 98 to run.

As far as I am concerned CQout has it right. They have a lister program, but it saves a spreadsheet which then you upload on the website. So if I could be bothered I could make my own and still be able to use bulk uploading. But with eBay I don't think this is possible.

[*artsbanquet*]

Agree about the spreadsheet. Many sellers have adapted to it well, but these are usually people who are already familiar with excel and computers in general. Having a bulk uploader program will DEFINITELY see a huge increase in the number of listings on this site. G & M are probably working on it as we speak!

[mypleasureisland]

4. I'd love to use gallery pictures (which would in turn be a potential source of income from EBID) but I have to upload separately. This take much more time than I can afford.

Illudius

Oh yes, this is the thing which is driving me slowly insane. I try to upload about 20 pics per day to the ebid server and amend by copy and paste the picture location in my spreadsheet. I find this very tedious and a very time consuming thing to do. My pics are already sitting on my websites server and are called from there for the auction anyway.
I upload my spreadsheet every 10 days, so each time around 150 items are added to gallery. I will need to update over 1000 auctions before they all get gallery pics. I did ask if the gallery could pull the images from my server thereby saving storage space for ebid but there was no reply, other than a few supporters and someone who thought I was trying to avoid paying the fees.


regards

Jean

[mypleasureisland]

As far as I am concerned CQout has it right. They have a lister program, but it saves a spreadsheet which then you upload on the website. So if I could be bothered I could make my own and still be able to use bulk uploading. But with eBay I don't think this is possible.

CQOut has it spot on. For £40 (money very well spent) they designed me a lovely HTML auction template and uploaded all my auctions onto their system for me. They even put the CSV file I sent them into a more appropriate format for themselves inserting categories, payment processors etc and sent it back to me for future use. Now I just make any amendments such as additional product or deletions and they upload it having cancelled all previous auctions for me. What a timesaver it is.

Sales have been about as good as here. Could be better but then again someone is selling the same as me at ridiculous prices i.e cost plus VAT plus pennies. But that is business and I will stick around until they have had enough :-)

[illudius]

But with eBay I don't think this is possible.

You can import a CSV file into Turbo Lister so there's nothing to stop you preparing the listings in Excel or a similar program.

Illudius

[illudius]

Oh yes, this is the thing which is driving me slowly insane. I try to upload about 20 pics per day to the ebid server and amend by copy and paste the picture location in my spreadsheet. I find this very tedious and a very time consuming thing to do.

What I find really strange is that the gallery is a pay feature (assuming you sell) and therefore a source of income. It would make sense to make it a lot easier for bulk uploaders who could potentially sell lots of items.

Illudius

[mypleasureisland]

What I find really strange is that the gallery is a pay feature (assuming you sell) and therefore a source of income. It would make sense to make it a lot easier for bulk uploaders who could potentially sell lots of items.

Illudius

I have been thinking that for a long time.
I have a further 800 products to add to my spreadsheet and a new range on lingerie, around 500 items plus my current range which I don't list here. I currently have around 1300 items listed which is less than a half of my total product range.
I intend to add a new template for my auctions which will call my database and create a web page for each one in seconds. Tested it and it can create 1800 web pages in HTML in 22 seconds. I just need a year of my life spare to do all the copy and paste and upload all of the pics for the gallery.
I know the boys work very hard and we will eventually have a turbo lister. Probably the day after I complete all of this work!

regards

Jean

[twosides]

I'd also like to be able to use images on my webhosting as a gallery image. I can't imaginge it would be very hard to implement this. but I'm sure it isn't a priority, so I'll be patient.