Section 9.2. Third-Party Software

9.2. Third-Party Software

eBay has spawned an entire industry of companies whose business is making it easier for you to sell. Some, like Andale and Terapeak , have official links to eBay as "certified providers"; others don't. (eBay screens certified providers before they can fly the eBay logo on their site; certified providers have to pass a certification exam, provide references, and prove extensive experience on eBay. You can see a list of certified providers and the products and services they offer at http://developer.ebay.com/programs/certifiedprovider/catalog.) There are about as many software programs as there are tasks to organize and automate. A few are free, and most of those that aren't offer a free trial. Shop around and try several, until you find the program that best fits your business needs and work style.

If you want to see what others have to say about these programs before you commit, check out the software-review resources on Section A.5.

Note: The main disadvantage of using tools and services provided by companies not affiliated with eBay is that when eBay makes a change, the tool can break. It can take a week, sometimes longer, for the company to catch up and get the tool working again.

9.2.1. Market Analysis

Researching the marketin other words, the stuff everybody else is selling on eBay and who's buying ithelps you decide what products to sell and what to chargefor them (Section 7.1.1). Do prices drop on 3- or 4-megapixel cameras when a snazzy 7-megapixel model comes out? Could Cabbage Patch dolls be making a comeback as a collectors' craze? If you're a serious seller, market analysis lets you stay on top of the trends, positioning you to keep your sales in high gear.

9.2.1.1 Web-based market analysis

An advantage to using Web-based market-analysis software is that its information stays up-to-the-minute. Of course, you have to be online to use these services, although most offer reports that you can print out or download and study at your leisure.

Note: Downloadable market-analysis software for Macs is about as rare as hens' teeth. If you use a Mac, your best bet is one of the online services in this section.

9.2.1.1.1 Vrane.

Amherst Robots/Vrane (www.vrane.com), shown in Figure 9-21, updates its statistics daily. The site offers a variety of free and fee-based services, including these:

• Sale Analysis . Provides daily or monthly sale figures, fees, and success rates, including charts . Register on the site and import your sales data from eBay to use this free service.

• Sale Reporter . Creates a comprehensive report, including graphs of daily and monthly transactions and an itemized summary of all your transactions. Fee-based.

• Free stats . In the Stats category, click Sale, Hits, or Categories to compare your sales data with an eBay-wide snapshot. These statistics record data for sellers using Vrane products, but they offer a quick overview, updated daily, of typical eBay activity.

Figure 9-21. Amherst Robots' Web page (www.vrane.com) tracks daily sales data. The left-hand table shows successful snipes in the top row and average hits per auction in the second row, including the percentage change from one day to the next ; track these to find the best days to end your auctions. The table below shows the average successful sale price (per day) of sellers using Vrane products. The middle of the page lists Vrane services. The top-right graph charts average hits per auction by the month, and the pie chart below it displays the most popular categories.

For its fee-based services, Vrane charges by what it calls universal credits . You buy a number of credits for a specified price, and then pay with those credits as you use the company's services. You can share credits with your friends and use them for a variety of servicesthat's why they call them universal.

Tip: Credits expire, so start with the cheapest package and see how long it takes to use up the credits while you're learning the site.

9.2.1.1.2 Andale Market Research.

Andale, known for its popular auction-page hit counters (Section 6.3), sells a Market Research Pack for a monthly fee. Go to www.andale.com to subscribe. The Market Research Pack includes these reports:

• What's Hot . Best-selling products in different categories.

• Price Finder . Average selling price, price range, and success rate.

• How to Sell . Selling strategies based on actual market data.

• Sales Analyzer . Detailed analysis of your salesand suggestions on how to do better.

• Counters . A record of how many shoppers look at your auction.

9.2.1.1.3 Terapeak

Terapeak (www.terapeak.com) offers subscription-based market analysis at two levels: Research Lite ($9.95/month) and Research Complete ($16.95/ month). Both levels cover this info :

• Analysis of three months' worth of completed listings to help you set the right price.

• Category analysis of the best time, day, and season to sell. Also covers auction length.

• Hot list that predicts the next big thing.

Research Complete throws in these goodies :

• Competition analysis by category . Does your category have room for more sellers, or is it too tight?

• Analysis of eBay listing promotions . Is it worth the extra money to boldface your title or spring for Featured Plus? This report tells you which extras might actually help your sales.

• Saved research . You can save your Terapeak searches and email them to yourself, then use them offline, like when you're creating listings with Turbo Lister.

Tip: For a free monthly report on which categories are on the way up and which are sliding down the slippery slope, check out eBay's own Hot List (Section 6.3). It's free and available at http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/hotitems.pdf.

9.2.1.2 Downloadable market-analysis software (for Windows)

If you use Windows, this section describes a couple of good choices.

9.2.1.2.1 AuctionIntelligence.

AuctionIntelligence (www.certes.net) includes software and a subscription service; upgrades to the software are free for as long as you subscribe. AuctionIntelligence searches eBay, including eBay Motors and the British and Australian sites, to find the information you need to scope out the competition and improve your auctions. Features include the following:

• Search by title, seller, category (or a combination of these).

• Run searches in the background while you're viewing a report.

• Acquire detailed information about every auction in your search, including complete Bid History.

• Generate a variety of reports to analyze the raw data you gather. For example, you can get reports on the most profitable categories, the most effective keywords, changes in a product's price over time, and even the sell-through rates of other sellers.

9.2.1.2.2 HammerTap's Deep Analysis.

Deep Analysis, shown in Figure 9-22, analyzes eBay data to uncover market trends and help you develop your sales strategy.

Figure 9-22. On the Deep Analysis Welcome page (www.hammertap.com), type in your search criteria and then click the Start button to launch your search. You can search from 500 to an amazing 100,000 auctions. In the upper left, use the Research categories to analyze Auction, Seller, or Category data. Use the tabs above the main window to view results in report form, by individual auction, or by seller.

You can search by keyword or category within a time period or price range you specify, by keyword type, or by auction type. View the results by seller or auction, or in a report that tells you the number of auctions, average price, overall success rate, and success rate by seller. The report also breaks down data by the following:

• Auction type (regular, BIN, Dutch).

• Feature analysis (bold, highlighting, gallery, and so on).

• Starting and ending days.

• Auction length.

• Top sellers.

Deep Analysis is available at www.hammertap.com. The first year costs $179 and the annual renewal fee is $49.95, but you can try it free for two weeks.

9.2.2. Listing and Auction Management

Listing tools streamline the process of creating and starting auctions. Auction-management tools make it easier to run, keep track of, and follow up on those listings. A complete auction-management tool includes everything you do from start to finish in the course of an auction: listing, auction watching, relisting, after-auction emails, printing shipping labels and invoices, and following up with feedback. Not all the auction management tools discussed here include all these functions; decide what's important to you and see which one best meets your needs.

Note: Some of these products and services are free; others will cost you (but many offer a free trial). Check individual Web sites for pricing.

9.2.2.1 For Mac fans

It wasn't that long ago that there were no auction listers or managers designed for Macs. Now, Mac fans have a number of choices.

9.2.2.1.1 eLister and Auction Monitor.

Just as eBay has created Turbo Lister and Selling Manager to work together to create and monitor auctions in Windows, Black Magik Software (www.blackmagik.com) has paired up eLister and Auction Monitor, shown in Figure 9-23, to give Mac users the same capabilities. ELister lets you create auction listings offline and transfer them to eBay at your convenience. It comes with a variety of built-in templates. You can preview your listings and get an estimate of insertion fees before your auctions go live. Auction Monitor notifies you when an auction gets a new bid, when negative-feedback bidders try to jump in on your auctions, when you receive feedback, and when an auction ends.

Figure 9-23. Black Magik Software's listing and monitoring tools are available for OS 9 and OS X. ELister works with auctions using U.S. dollars only, and it doesn't work with eBay Motors. Click More Info to read about and download the software.

9.2.2.1.2 CALC for OS X.

Cycline3, a company that offers graphic design and software services, developed CALC (Cycline Auction Listing Creator) to help sellers create professional-looking listings without knowing a single HTML tag. CALC lets you choose a background and colors, insert tables and photos, make your text look great, and preview your listing, all by pointing and clicking. CALC works with OS 8.5 through OS X. Get it at www.cycline3.com/calc.

9.2.2.1.3 GarageSale.

GarageSale is available at www.iwascoding.com/GarageSale, or you can get it from the Mac OS X Downloads page, shown in Figure 9-24. (Go to www.apple.com/downloads/macosx, click Productivity Tools, and search for garagesale .) GarageSale is a listing tool with everything you'd expect: templates, support for multiple accounts, easy access to photos, and the ability to create and preview listings when you're offline. In addition, GarageSale lets you use the iSight Webcam as a digital camera for auction photos and access your iPhoto library from right inside GarageSale. There's even an active GarageSale group on Yahoo! (http://groups.yahoo.com/ group /GarageSale_Users): get help, share tips and templates, or just chat with other GarageSale aficionados.

9.2.2.1.4 iSale.

iSale (www.equinux.com) integrates with iLife, Apple's suite of media programs, to simplify auction creation and tracking, online or offline. Use iSight to take digital photos, upload those photos to the iDisk storage area of your .Mac account (saving money on photo hosting), get buyer details with a single click, and track the status of completed auctions. iSale's Smart Groups feature lets you create categories, such as Last Week's Sales , and automatically sorts your listings into them.

Figure 9-24. eBay-certified GarageSale is compatible with Mac OS X. This easy-to-use program works with eBay Stores and eBay Motors, as well as regular listings. It also works with many international eBay sites.

9.2.2.2 For Windows

There are tons of third-party programs out there for sellers who use Windows. Most of them offer the same core tools: for listing, monitoring auctions, and following up sales. When considering different auction managers, focus on cost and ease of use; when it comes to bells and whistles, make sure the extras offer something you actually need.

9.2.2.2.1 Lister Pro.

Andale's Lister Pro (www.andale.com) is an offline listing tool, shown in Figure 9-25. Lister Pro is free, but to use it you need to subscribe to one of Andale's listing plans, which start at $2 a month to list 10 auctions. Here are some of the features Lister Pro offers:

• A Design Center with more than 100 ready-made themes and layouts.

• Recommendations for the best title, category, and pricing strategy for your item, based on Andale's extensive eBay research.

• In-auction price comparisons for BIN auctions; convince shoppers your auction is a great deal by displaying similar items that sold for a higher price.

• Listing archives and templates.

• Bulk listings and immediate automatic relistings.

• Inventory management.

• Auction tracking and monitoring.

Figure 9-25. Most of the buttons in the toolbar are self-explanatory; there are also buttons (not shown) for bulk editing and restocking . To create a new listing, click New to open Andale's One-Step Lister. The left-hand menu holds folders to organize your auctions.

9.2.2.2.2 Auction Wizard 2000.

The folks who developed Auction Wizard 2000 realized how hard auction management could be back in the late '90s, when they found themselves faced with the prospect of selling off a 3,000-piece collection of Hollywood memorabilia. Swamped by all the responsibilities of high-volume selling, from creating listings to inventory management to answering emails to following through on sales, they realized automation was the key to maintaining efficiency and sanity . Auction Wizard 2000, shown in Figure 9-26, was the result.

When you've downloaded Auction Wizard 2000 from its Web site (www.auctionwizard2000.com), start by creating an Auction Profile , which collects the settings you'll use, including auction site (eBay, Yahoo! Auctions, and so forth); your ID, password, and email account for that site; email and feedback templates for bulk responses; tax profile; and optional settings for auction length, listing template, consignor, store category, and so on. You may eventually want to have several Auction Profiles; you need at least one to create your first listing.

Auction Wizard 2000 is easy to learn. When you get up to speed, here's a sampling of what you can do with it:

• Create listings from your inventory database.

• Edit photos with a built-in image editor.

• Categorize inventory and track stock you've listed or sold.

• Send and receive email automatically using email templates.

• Create an email address book.

• Identify repeat buyers .

• Print invoices.

• Create combined invoices for multiple-item buyers.

• Track and report sales tax.

• Track income and expenses with a built-in ledger.

• Print shipping labels.

• Generate and print sales reports.

Auction Wizard 2000 offers a generous, nothing-held-back free trial for 60 days. After that, you pay an annual subscription fee to keep using the software.

Figure 9-26. The first step in using Auction Wizard 2000 is creating an Auction Profile to store information you'll use again and again when creating listings. To make a new listing (Auction Wizard 2000 calls each listing a lot), make sure you're on the Auction Lots page (if not, click the far-right Auction Lots button), then click the toolbar's plus sign and start filling in your information.

9.2.2.2.3 HammerTap.

Besides Deep Analysis market-research software (Section 9.2.1.2.1), HammerTap (www.hammertap.com) offers a number of tools of interest to sellers:

• Auction Informant . When one of your auctions receives a bid (or someone retracts a bid), Auction Informant sends you an email to let you know.

• BayCheckPro . With one click, you can get any eBayer's selling, bidding, and feedback histories. Useful when you're unsure about a bidder who's been sniffing around your auction.

• BayMailPro . You can send email to eBayers by their ID, without knowing their email address. BayMailPro also lets you send bulk email (but watch out for eBay's no-spam policy; you can't send unsolicited commercial email), create an address book, and save mailing lists and email templates.

• Fee Finder . This tool is useful in keeping track of all your feeseBay insertion fees, eBay FVFs, PayPal, shippinghelping you make sure that your expenses aren't eating up your profits.

Note: You can get these tools individually, but HammerTap offers a package called HammerTap Value Pack, which bundles together the tools listed here for $54a 20 percent savings. If you want market research, too, HammerTap Studio throws in Deep Analysis (Section 9.2.1.2.1), but the price skyrockets to $209.

9.2.2.2.4 Other Windows-based listing and management tools.

There are dozens of software companies out there that would love to help you set up and manage your auctions (as long as you're running Windows). Here's a selection you might want to check out:

• All my Auctions for Sellers (www.rajeware.com).

• Auction Sage (www.auctionsagesoftware.com).

• CALC (www.cycline3.com/calc)see Section 9.2.2.1.2 for a description.

• Spoon Feeder (www.spoonfeeder.com).

• Shooting Star (www.foodogsoftware.com).

9.2.2.3 Web-based (Windows or Mac)

If you're uncomfortable typing your eBay ID and password into a non-eBay Web site, you won't be able to use an online service; they need this info to sign in to eBay and act on your behalf . On the other hand, there are several advantages to using online auction-management services: it doesn't matter what kind of computer you use, you can still manage your auctions when you're on the road and away from your computer, and you don't have to worry about how downloading and configuring strange software might mess up your computer. You do have to be online to use them, but even the offline listing and management programs need to jump online once in a while to interact with eBay.

If an online management service sounds good to you, take a look at the services listed in this section. Many work by subscription; some charge a percentage of your sales and others a per-transaction fee. Trial periods and fees vary.

9.2.2.3.1 Andale One-Step Lister.

Two minutes after they start using eBay, a lot of sellers are already sick of the time it takes to slog through all five steps of the Sell Your Item form (Section 5.4.2). Andale (www.andale.com) solves that problem with One-Step Lister, shown in Figure 9-27. Do everything you need to create your listing all on one page, then click Preview to see the results, save to come back later, or Launch to start your auction.

Figure 9-27. Andale's One-Step Lister includes all the sections listed at the top of the page: Market; Title, Category & Price; Layouts & Images; Market Profile; and Checkout Profile. Click any of those links to go to the section you want. One-Step Lister works with regular eBay auctions, eBay Motors, and eBay Storeseven Yahoo! Auctions.

9.2.2.3.2 Auction Hawk.

For a flat fee that allows a certain number of listings per month from $12.99 a month for 110 listings all the way up to $89.99 a month for unlimited listingsAuction Hawk (www.auctionhawk.com) offers a one-page lister, picture hosting, easy checkout, automated after-sale tasks and emails, plus a few extras:

• Auction Hawk imports all your eBay listings when you sign up, so you don't have to figure out how to get your preAuction Hawk auctions onto the site.

• Auction Hawk takes hourly hit counts and produces bid-to-hit ratio reports.

• BuyScraper checks your bidders' histories for negative feedback and sends you a report to help you avoid potentially troublesome bidders.

• Email Ping notifies you when a buyer reads email you sent.

9.2.2.3.3 Meridian.

If you're an official Trading Assistant (Section 7.5.1) or if friends and family are always asking you to sell stuff for them, see what Meridian (www.noblespirit.com) has to offer. In addition to the usual auction-management features, Meridian lets you manage your consignors (the folks whose stuff you're selling). Each consignor account you create contains contact information, commission plan, and room for notes. You can view a list of all consignors or of the items you're selling for a particular consignor and filter by item status. Especially useful is the ability to create a variety of commission plans, so you don't have to charge your little brother the same fee for selling his skateboard that you charge the fancy antique dealer across town.

9.2.2.3.4 Vendio .

Vendio (www.vendio.com) gears its Sales Manager editions (not to be confused with eBay's Selling Manager, described on Section 9.1.2) to two distinct kinds of sellers:

• Inventory Edition . This tool works best for sellers who sell many items in multiple quantities : computers and consumer electronics, clothes and jewelry , sports gear, car parts , books, CDs, moviesany seller who makes money by moving multiple items quickly. Vendio designed Sales Manager Inventory Edition to let high-volume sellers create and edit multiple listings fast, save time with automated auction launches, and keep close track of their inventory.

• Merchandising Edition . If your specialty is one-of-a-kind items, such as antiques , coins , collectibles , handmade items, and so on, Sales Manager Merchandising Edition can help you create listings that attract the buyers you want, with free custom templates and photo hosting.

The Merchandising Edition is simpler and easier to learn; the Inventory Edition offers more automation. You'll invest some up-front time learning it, but if you're a high-volume seller, you'll more than make up the time. Rates vary depending on the level of service you want; check the Vendio site for details.

9.2.2.3.5 Other online auction-management services.

New auction-management services spring up just about every week. Here are some that have been around for a while:

• AAA Seller (www.aaaseller.com). Offers extra-large "SuperZoom" photos.

• AuctionHelper (www.auctionhelper.com).

• AuctionTamer (www.auctiontamer.com).

• ChannelAdvisor (www. channeladvisor .com).

• HammerTap Manager (www.hammertap.com). Most of HammerTap's products are Windows-based, but not this online service.

• InkFrog (www.inkfrog.com). InkFrog 's i-Tools include i-Showcase (a clickable gallery of your other listings) and i-Checkout (Section 9.2.3).

• ManageAuctions (www.manageauctions.com). If you like this service, you can make a few bucks referring your friends.

• Marketworks (www.marketworks.com).

• SpareDollar (www.sparedollar.com).

• Zoovy (www.zoovy.com).

9.2.3. Email and Feedback Automation

Most auction-management programs have some kind of email and feedback automation. But maybe you're not looking for a full-blown auction-management program. Maybe you just want some help staying caught up with email or feedback duty. If so, these tools might help (prices, of course, vary):

• Amherst Robots (www.vrane.com) . Offers a variety of Web-based options for automating both email and feedback. Auto Mailer checks for completed auctions once a day and sends notification emails to the winners; Power Mailer can helps you deal with Dutch auction winners and combined shipping when one buyer wins two or more of your auctions. Feedback tools include Power Feedback Gold, which sends a "thank you" email to your buyers at the same time you leave them positive feedback.

• Customer Manager (www.vendio.com). Imports buyer info from eBay to build a searchable database of your customers, making it easy to find emails relating to a particular transaction. Filters help keep out spam and organize incoming email. Web-based.

• InstantFeedback (www.pctechzone.com). Automatically responds in kind to positive feedback and lets you know when you get hit with a negative or a neutral. For Windows.

9.2.4. Other Tools

A few seller's tools fit into the "miscellaneous" category. They're not essential, but if your selling process could improve and you've got a few minutes to kill, check them outthey might be useful.

9.2.4.1 Auction checkout

Some sellers dislike eBay's checkout process; either they want to accept credit cards directly, without using PayPal, or they want access to their payments faster than PayPal allows. Others want a checkout tool that makes it easy to search and find information about past sales. If any of these sellers sounds like you, consider one of the following software programs:

• Andale Checkout (www.andale.com)

• Auction Checkout (www.usaepay.com)

• InkFrog i-Checkout (www.inkfrog.com)

Warning: eBay buyers like PayPal. If you're looking for an alternative checkout merely to avoid using PayPal, think again. You'll lose potential buyers. Other checkouts work best when they include PayPal as an option but also let buyers pay directly with a credit card.

ALTERNATE REALITY
Get Creative with Unusual Tools

Most sellers' tools and services perform the same basic functions, but Ethical Technologies (www.ethicaltools.com) has some innovative ideas that just might shake up your auctions. The company does offer the standard seller tools (image hosting, a customizable listing tool, an auction scheduler, and a relister), but here are some tools you won't find in any run-of-the-mill selling solution:

• Price Dropper . If you're sick of items sitting there day after day without a bid, Price Dropper will hold an automated sale on your behalf. Set the lowest price you're willing to accept, the increment by which you want Price Dropper to lower the starting price, and the time intervals between price drops (from 12 hours to six days).

• Sell It Now . Ethical pitches this tool as a way to speed up your auctions and go straight to the sale. When you activate Sell It Now, it checks all your auctions and ends any that have bids, making the current high bidder the buyer. Be warned that Sell It Now checks all your auctions when you set it loose, so don't use it if you think one or two of your auctions are heading into a bidding war. You should also give this tool a pass if your auctions have a lot of watcherswho might turn into snipers in the final seconds.

• Category Rotator . Get your auction more exposure and do a little market research at the same time by trying out a listing in different categories. With this tool, you select up to five categories for listing your item and specify a rotation time (from six hours to two days). After the amount of time you choose has passed, Category Rotator automatically revises your listing, placing it in the next category. (Once your auction has a bid, you can't revise categories, so it'll stay in the category where the bidder found it.

  You also can't revise a category during the last 12 hours of an auction.) Find out which categories attract bidders and which don't.

• Title Rotator . This basic idea of this tool is the same as for Category Rotator, but instead of changing categories, you try out up to five different titles for your auction, letting you experiment to find the most effective keywords. As with categories, you can't revise an auction's title after someone's made a bid or in the auction's last 12 hours.

• Item Rating System (IRS) . If you ever wonder what shoppers and bidders really think of your auctions, here's an easy, free way to find out. The IRS tool puts a rating system in your listings; anyone who visits one of your auctions can rate it on a scale of one to 10. You get a report that shows the average rating for each of your listings that received votes .

• Thank You Tool . This one has generated a lot of buzz. It establishes early contact with bidders, with the idea that the personal touch turns bidders into buyersrepeat buyers, if you're lucky. When someone places a bid in one of your auctions, the Thank You Tool does just what it promises; it sends an email thanking the bidder for his or her bid. You get three prewritten emails to choose from. Just saying "thank you" can make your auctions stand out.

Even if you decide not to use any of these tools, it's worth going to www.ethicaltools.com/Toys to play some auction- related games . In Shipper, boxes roll down conveyor belts, and you have to catch them and load them into the right truck. And when you need to let off some steam after filing an Unpaid Item dispute, there's nothing better than a quick game of Whack a Nonpaying Bidder.

9.2.4.2 Seriously miscellaneous: FVF calculation and bombing

Sometimes you don't want to go to all the bother of opening a big program to get a little information or perform a simple task, like calculating FVF fees or ending your auctions early. In these cases, go to www.vrane.com for a quick FVF calculator, shown in Figure 9-28, or to bomb your auctions. Bombing your auctions means that you cancel all bids and end your auctions early with just one clicka quick way to protect your feedback rating if an emergency arises or you take off on a spur-of-the-moment vacation.

Figure 9-28. Instead of wracking your brain trying to calculate your Final Value Fees, use Vrane's FVF calculator to figure them out for you. Go to www.vrane.com, click FVF calculator, and then type in the final price (no dollar sign). The calculator displaysand explainsyour FVF for that amount.