Question
Can anyone recommend some type of email management program? Here's what I'm looking for. I used to use a pay auction management service (TimberCreekSoftware Sold!). I quit using them and now just use the free Auctiva. There's one thing I miss about Sold! is the canned email messages you could send at each stage of a sale... ie confirmation, payment received, item shipped and so on. The emails would automatically include the customers name, amount they paid and so on. Are there any programs out there that deal just with email... I'm not looking for an entire auction management solution. Thanks for the help!
Answer
I've used Word or WP to merge that type of data from a spreadsheet. Using Word & Excel I created eBay Listing html, Address Labels, EOA notices, Combined Invoices, Late Payment Notices, Payment Rec'd Thank You's...
But unless you are willing to export from Auctiva to a spreadsheet each time you are ready to do mailings, WP/Word merges are not going to be efficient. And if you have many auctions, cut/paste isn't a good option either...
I was only running about 50 ebay auctions live at one time and controlled EVERYTHING from my spreadsheet... I tracked EVERYTHING in my spreadsheet... auction URLs, item numbers, number of times items were listed, buyer info, auction title, item description, everything...
ANYWAY, WP/Word both have VERY strong form letter/merge capabilities. I don't know of any free package that will reach into your Auctiva files and create e-mails for you. I imagine that is what you pay for with a paid version.
Answer
AuctionSage does an excellent job with post sale management. It's not free - but only $10 a month and less than that if you pay by the year. (And you get a free trial month.) It's a complete auction thingee but you can use the post sale tools regardless of how you list your items.