Question
I came about third party softwares thorugh Honesty, I needed photo hosting, plain and simple, and I loved Honesty. ...and this place(just so Crystal doesn't get offended )
never really did use ebay after that, but every now and then I list a few items through them to keep "in the know" of how to use the page...er ah pages to list.
I find ebay cumbersome, I have never used their offline lister.
I had all my auctions erased a couple of years back, thank God for Auction Watch, they still had all my inventory on file...never lost a thing, but learned a valuable lesson.
NEVER keep all your eggs in one basket.
When the bill comes in and I look at it and go, geez I spent 100.00 or 200.00 unneccessary dollars on 3rd party listing softwares and services this month, I just remind myself of the cost of insurance. I will never be with out a back up plan again.
what are your arguments with yourself to justify who you use or why you don't use them....
Answer
Originally Posted by gabs-a-lot
what are your arguments with yourself to justify who you use or why you don't use them....
I have an auction management program which has a listing function. I really like the way it's set up- template modifications are a snap. The downside (and the reason I don't use it to list anymore) is that it lists auctions so painfully slow that I find it impractical to use.
It essentially does automatically what you would do manually- going through each of the SYI pages and filling in the info. And we all know how *speedy* a process that is, don't we?
I use TurboLister to list, because it's free and it works well enough for me.
Answer
Originally Posted by gabs-a-lot
what are your arguments with yourself to justify who you use or why you don't use them....
I consider my time to be worth $20 an hr-but even if I pay myself below minimum wage, I figure I am being very cost effective and way ahead financially, by using an eoa program that costs me less than $100 a year. Whether Its 5 or 20 hours of my time in pay, its untold hrs of time saved.
Answer
I used Auction Watch until they imposed the fvf fee. I would've hung with them forever except for that.
I switched to Auction Tamer and never looked back. I purchased the program when they offered it for a one-time fee of some ridiculously cheap price like $39.95 or something, and have never spent another dime on listing or post-auction management costs. Occasionally someone will sign up with AT based on a link from my auctions, and AT offers me a referral--I just tell them to keep it. The program has saved me so much time and money that I sometimes feel guilty about how I'm benefitting from it.
Like Mr. P, I find it slow to list--it takes AT about 1 to 1.5 minutes to page through all the SYI bull per listing-- but it's not a big problem for me most times, since I just do other things while it's listing. But on days like today when Ebay is glitching, I have to do more babysitting than I'd like. When Ebay doesn't interfere with the process, my Auction Tamer just runs in the background while I go about my other daily chores.
My EOA chores are so ultra-simple with AT that I literally spend only seconds each evening.
I keep a backup of my files in case of disaster, but so far have not had to use them (knock on wood!).
I did try Turbolister once but preferred AT despite its slow listing speed, so I just stick with AT. The folks there are great about coping with Ebay's unending changes, and my AT program has never failed me on FLDs or special promo days the way Ebays TL has failed some.
I turned away from those high-cost programs long ago and have never regretted my decision. But if it came down to choosing between a fee program and no program, I'd pay the fees just because of the amount of time saved.
Answer
after posting this, I went over and did some relists off ebays pages.....what a PITA.....
Mostly, I just don't like ebay having 100% control over my inventory, and I don't want to rely only on my own computors to maintain my listings, so hence, a third party for storage.
But the time saved, and paying a dime to set a delayed launch, holy cow that is expensive, I figured out approximately how many delayeds I do in a month, it would cost me about 60.00 right there for extra fees minimum.
and picture hosting at .15 each, well there would be another 350.00 - 500.00 per month to ebay ....guess third party isn't so bad after all.
how do people use these services and actually make money these days.
I never did figure out the template charge, that would probably be another 100.00 bucks I would have to pay them, of course I would not use it if I was listing through them.