posted on June 25, 2001 11:15:54 AM new
I am a relatively high volume seller with feedback over 3000. We have a lot of in-house developed software to aid us in our selling but still use eBay's standard sell your item form, transferring item descriptions from our data base to the description field. Our problem is that we sell across many categories - antiques, collectibles, pottery and glass, toys, sporting goods, and more. With ebay's recent changes we are getting killed in the amount of time it takes us. It used to be that all categories were on the "sell your item" page and we could enter items in a minute or less. Now, if we change the main category we essentially have to start over waiting forever for the "item info" page to reload. In addition, the item page now comes up defaulted to store items and has to be changed to auction items which also takes a a lot of time. Doesn't matter whether we use netscape or internet explorer - both just grind away on all of ebay's javascript.
Are we alone in this problem? If not, how are others getting around it? Thanks ahead of time for any help.
posted on June 25, 2001 02:10:21 PM new
It isn't a question of being stupid.....it is a question of eBay constantly making redundant changes to the sell your item form.
A while ago eBay went to a different platform with the ultimate goal to force services who have developed software to access the SYI form to pay a license fee for access. All of the code and scripts added to the SYI are directed at this goal.
Unfortunately it sounds as if you have developed your own software that does essentially the same as the services such as Auction Watch and Auctiva to upload auction information by transferring it from your database.
Quite a while ago I came to the conclusion that it was more cost effective in time (and aggravation) to pay the annual fee to a service to avoid these problems. I use one of the services and pay about $120.00 a year but the time it saves is worth it and more.
The SYI form is a nightmare of codes and scripts. Ebay is also evolving the SYI form to default to use IPIX and Billpoint using a complicated set of JAVA scripts. If you don't use IPIX it is an exception and the scripts to ignore the JAVA argument to use IPIX are badly written and very buggy. The addition of the Store fronts has added more scripts and made the form such a complicated mess that I am surprised it works at all.
Anyway.....about the category nightmare..... I printed out all 26 pages of ebay listing categories, subcategories and sub-sub categories, etc..
This way I have a list of the numbers which is what the SYI wants anyway. I have spent more time than I care to think about making my own database of categories ordered in a way that I can find category or sub category number quickly. I downloaded Mr. Lister and went into the program and found the category list and copied all 26 pages of it to Word and then to Access to create a database. I don't know if this is any help, but at least you will know that you are not alone. Susan
posted on June 25, 2001 03:07:46 PM new
Susan, thanks for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. I was considering listing out the categories and sticking them somewhere so I could search on them to come up with the category number. Perhaps keep that info in another open window. Sounds like I will need to do that. I have found that by going to a completed item and clicking on relist I can get an "item info" screen with the main and subcategories. I can then change all the item info to anything I want and go on my merry way. (This is not circumventing fees or anything as long as I use a sold item as the basis for the relist). I only wonder how long this will continue to work.
posted on June 25, 2001 04:24:22 PM new
Now that you've mentioned it, one of the several EBAY members who post here will make sure it stops working.
After all, eventually they hope to force all sellers to purchase EBAY's auction management software, or suffer the penalty of trying to use the item form that they change weekly.
