posted on March 14, 2001 05:39:29 PM new
Hi - I've got 3 questions (with a few subquestions)...if you can answer any of them it would be a help.
1. Can I relist a (former) AW auction thru Ebay? What do I need to change, if anything?
2. Does anyone use Mr. Lister? Is it awful or what? I downloaded the beta version and combined it with V's scheduling tool for prelisting and it seemed easy and convenient (I put my pics on my ISP), but there's little talk about it. What am I missing?
3. Does using html slow down the loading of the page? I have a dialup connection so none are ultrafast, but I want it to load fairly quickly for buyers in the same boat.
Thanks for your help!!
Not fraidykat elsewhere
[ edited by fraidykat on Mar 14, 2001 05:45 PM ]
posted on March 14, 2001 06:01:31 PM new
I don't use Mister Lister, but as to questions 1 and 3...
I'm sure you can relist an auction through eBay that was originally launched through AW. All you have to do is go to the original auction listing and click the "relist" link.
I use HTML all the time on my auctions, mostly for layout - tables and such - and I know many other sellers do as well. Just don't get carried away with tons of animations or huge background files, and PLEASE don't use music!
In my experience the thing that really slows load time is excessively large pictures. Use a graphics program to resize your pics to a reasonable size. Depending on the item, my pics are usually between 300 and 500 pixels in width. I want to make sure the bidder gets a good look at the item, so I won't go any smaller than that.
One more thing about using HTML, make sure you know what you're doing. Close all your tags properly, etc. I've seen auctions where the seller screwed up the HTML so badly that it was impossible to place a bid!
posted on March 14, 2001 06:12:41 PM new
Joanne - thanks, I was worried that since I not only launched it on AW but created it there as well...there might be some code problems or something...
As far as gaudy - I don't plan major bells/whistles and definitely NO music. I've noticed sites with backgrounds load slowly for me so I'd about eliminated them...at least as to the entire page. I've been resizing my pics and/or scans with my scanner software to shrink the size and cut out superflous space but I haven't done the pixel width thing because I've put off learning Corel. (Maybe it's time for that too)
posted on March 14, 2001 06:17:25 PM new
There are lots of free graphics programs you can get just for editing pics for eBay - ones that won't hog your hard drive like a full featured program will. I'll go do a quick search and see what I can find.
posted on March 14, 2001 07:02:17 PM new
Joanne - thanks I bookmarked it and will check it out. I have Coreldraw8 hogging space but haven't had the time! This might be the answer.
Vargas - thanks, I've used some of their tools but I'm a pretty small seller in the scheme of things so probably overlooked "power relister" as being for the big boys! Remember though...I didn't only launch them from here - I listed them here too.
posted on March 14, 2001 07:44:24 PM new
Once upon a time, not too long ago, your choices were two: list auctions using the forms on ebay.com or use Mister Lister.
Mister Lister is pretty awful if you are writing it all into a file by hand. The idea is that you would have a program generate it for you. My (non-eBay) profession is software so I was able to whip up something that does the job. I don't know how many other software packages ever existed that produced ML input.
THese days, mister lister is kind of a relic, since we have tens of auction management websites that do it better than ever, and you don't have to deal with the file format and the email messages. At least, eBay was quick to act and put a gui front end on mister lister to try to keep it relevant and useful.
I would be curious to know how many folks are still regularly using mister lister. I use it like gangbusters and I would really suffer if ebay were to discontinue it.
posted on March 14, 2001 08:41:51 PM new
You can relist your auction via ebay without incurring an AW listing fee, but your images could be a problem if you are planning a straight relist with no editing of your image hosting site.
Remember, unless you're registered for a "plan", you don't have access anymore to your AW-stored images on auctions that are launched after the fees were implemented. I think, though, that with the "new" program of 10-cents per image, which doesn't start charging until April, you would have access to those images providing you are registered for the standard plan and use the "old" image hosting site. Then, I think it works that if you list offsite (or relist in this case) you wouldn't owe AW anything for images. I think.
To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if what I'm saying is right or not!
posted on March 15, 2001 07:50:46 AM new
Hello again, fraidycat-
It doesn't matter if you listed them through AW, you can use vrane. Just do it before vrane's new fee kicks in, since you're only interested in relisting one item.
I just did a relist through vrane of an item that was launched a couple of weeks ago from my AW inventory and it launched just fine, picture and all. And I have not signed up for any AW plan.
posted on March 15, 2001 11:36:40 AM new
Thanks so much to all for the tips, hints, sites and advice! Greatly appreciated not to mention time & error saving! You are the best part of AW!!
I used MisterLister since day one of rollout. I have never use any of ebay's software. I decided not to trust ebay management and took some time out and wrote my own frontend in fox. Based on the number of posts regarding problems with ebay's composer, that was the best decision I ever made.
ML works pretty well when the email server is running properly. email server usually is up and running. Most problems with ML is related to the composer and submission of batches. It is nuts to have download and reinstall ML from scratch whenever there is a problem with ML's composer. I think this probably more frustration among the user base than any other weakness of ML.
Of course, ebay is rolling out fee-based SA. In my opinion, you have to be crazy to sign up. ebay's support has always been nonexistent. To have a whole bunch of newbies on SA with bugs is not what I would choose for an auction launching software.
My only concern is that ebay will eliminate ML in the future. Need to address that problem sometimes as I will try to steer away from ebay software.
My backend is also all fox-based and thus I have been able to stay away from any auction management software. I just want a simple environment to work in. Don't need all the bells and whistles.
posted on March 16, 2001 02:44:18 PM new
tomwiii - Thanks for posting the pic cruncher/optimizer site! I must have missed in the earlier posts. I tried it out today for a non-auction related purpose and it is SUPER!
