roadsmith
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posted on January 14, 2002 10:51:43 PM
Hey, AW, after a year and a half of great service from you, I just want to tell you that the current mess-ups and delays in launching times are for the first time causing me to rethink using AW services.
Tonight a moderator told someone on one of the threads that, since Sunday and Thursday are busy, bad days for launching, to essentially try another night, like Monday (tonight), which currently is NOT busy. There's a reason it's not busy! If we wanted to launch on Monday night we'd be doing that!
That simply is not an adequate answer to what I see in various message center sites as an avalanche of threads complaining about this weekend's service. NOT an adequate answer at all, in my humble opinion. ~Adele
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upriver
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posted on January 14, 2002 11:32:33 PM
Seconded.
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technerd
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posted on January 14, 2002 11:43:32 PM
Dear AuctionWatch,
I have to agree with the original poster. Launching an auction on another day is not an option. We get the highest prices when the bidders have bidding wars at the end of the options.
More people are home Sundays than any other day. This means the most last minute bidding wars occur on Sunday. Last minute bidding wars can double the final price.
So, if we want a 7 day listing, we need to list on Sunday. If we want a 10 day auction (only 10 cents more), we need to list on Thursday.
So far, I have had great service and I love it. I manufacture and sell my own items, which I sell one every two weeks. Since I list the same items every 2 weeks, just setting them up once and then only taking 10 minutes to launch them all is great.
However, if I were to have to launch on another day and therefore lose 10% - 20% final bid prices on my items, I will definitely have to list manually.
Yuck!
Of course, all the services have had growing pains. So, I hope this is just a temporary phenomenon.
Thank you for your ear.
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bidsbids
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posted on January 15, 2002 12:32:50 AM
Take a few minutes or whatever and learn how to post on eBay. Save some money.
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rarriffle
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posted on January 15, 2002 03:19:10 AM
bidsbids, i for one have posted through ebay and was less than happy with it.
i have always been happy with AW services until lately.
i think the server problems in the last few months needs immediate attention on their end. sellers should be able to list when they want if they are paying for the services, not when it is convenient for AW.
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pjrscards
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posted on January 15, 2002 04:21:01 AM
I agree with the poster. Having listed auctions for more than 3 years I know that auctions that close on Sundays around 8pm PST bring the best sales volume for me. Tested other times and days but the Sunday close is best.
This past Sunday had 104 auctions scheduled to launch at 8pm PST and only 23 of them launched. The revenue from this particular launch should return around 2-3 thousand dollars. However now I must wait 7 more days to launch because I do not feel like losing $400-600 dollars.
Sent an e-mail to AW Monday morning asking for an explanation of the problem. Have not heard back from them in the 24hours they say they will respond.
My solution is to look for another service that provides better service. We are now doing this full-time and are building towards 300 launches per week and can not afford this type of service.
Any suggestions for service providers that host pictures, have bulk timed launches, automated record keeping and statements plus customized templates would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
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pelorus
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posted on January 15, 2002 05:45:47 AM
What a bunch of spoiled whiners! Somebody complains that he can't launch 100 auctions precisely at 8:00 on Sunday? Good luck finding another service that can do that, since it's not technically feasible. And someone else is complaining again about the horrendous 10 cents that AW charges you to list a $30 item. Boohoo.
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pjrscards
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posted on January 15, 2002 06:24:36 AM
To pelorus,
Well since I have used A/W service almost since their beginning the one thing that I liked best was the ability to schedule auctions to launch at a specific time. This is ONE OF THEIR SELLING POINTS, AS IS RESPONDING TO QUESTIONS WITHIN 24 HOURS. Right now they are not living up to their commitment. That is my complaint. I have no problem with their costs. Convenience usually costs a little more.
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aliceroad
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posted on January 15, 2002 06:31:51 AM
I have been using AW for a long time and have never had a problem. It is much easier than listing directly through Ebay and the auctions look much better. Thanks AW
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doubleo
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posted on January 15, 2002 07:25:00 AM
When a service I pay for starts costing me money in lost sales and/or bids, and is not concerned with rectifing the problem, I start looking for another service. It's obvious that AW has made cutbacks in other areas as well as the message center. AW's message that there was a 70 minute delay was nonsense, my auctions were listing with over a two hour delay, and then half of them did not list. I time the launch of my auctions to place their end times at what I believe to be the most beneficial ending time for them, with unreliable start times I can not do this. If this continues I will be forced by AW to find another provider of these services.
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pjrscards
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posted on January 15, 2002 08:10:34 AM
Obviously A/W has some serious server level problems as it relates to launches and also notice that overall loading the various pages has slowed down lately. I have DSL so should not experience page loading slow-down.
Anybody out there care to recommend other listing services to compare versus A/W.
thanks
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pelorus
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posted on January 15, 2002 10:29:39 AM
Well, good luck with finding a better service. There are others out there, like www.andale.com and auctionworks.com. I don't know if they are better, but I do know that they are more expensive.
The AW listing delay could very well caused at the eBay end, since everybody in the world wants their auctions to end at 8:00 Sun.
If there are 50,000 auctions that AW users want to start at the same moment, and ebay accepts 500 per minute, how long would it take to get them all done? The answer is 100 minutes.
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petertdavis
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posted on January 15, 2002 10:30:20 AM
But, gee Tom, isn't that Channel a bit slow for you. 
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petertdavis
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posted on January 15, 2002 10:31:42 AM
pelorus wrote:
"The AW listing delay could very well caused at the eBay..."
Ummm, nope. It's the API, either you got it, or you don't.
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Libra63
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posted on January 15, 2002 11:06:41 AM
I have tried listing on each day and I find that no day is better than the next. The only time I don't want my auctions to end if Television is good that night. If your item is one that someone wants they will bid no matter what day it is. It is only the sniperns that don't like it because they make themselves available for that one day to snipe and lo and behold it doesn't end on the day they want it, they lose. If eBay would get back to the auction that it is supposed to be there wouldn't be any BIN's or sniping. Think about this if eBay and Andale, AW and any other service all launch auctions at 8 pm what a mess it is. Who's auctions do they launch first? You tell me.
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ok4leather
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posted on January 15, 2002 11:44:22 AM
Tomwiii, I use the same channel - If you do this for a living you need reliable backup for those slow days. I agree that when you schedule a quantity of auctions to launch then they should launch - Times are hard on the net and corners are cut regulary = service problems. Ebay is not helping things either. All the auctions I scheduled Sunday evening (on my back-up service) Launched perfectly but half of them failed to Index properly at ebay and I had to update each by hand. What do ya do ! Its hard to tell where the problem happens as no one wants the blame.
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DianaAW
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posted on January 15, 2002 12:56:02 PM
Dear roadsmith,
I answered your post in this thread:
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=15&thread=64251
This is an issue that we are taking seriously, and please note that we did not recommend that you launch your auctions on Monday rather than Sunday - rather, we said "As a temporary workaround, you might consider scheduling your Sunday and Thursday evening auctions to launch earlier than you normally would, as these are high-volume "peak" times."
Thanks,
Diana
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dman3
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posted on January 15, 2002 02:37:02 PM
You all might as well want to concider some of the slowness you seem to have is conected to ebay its self.
I launch auction at various days and times very rare to have a problem.
Dont schedule all your launches at the same time stager them by 5 or 10 mins launch 10 to 12 at time time over an hour or two rather then at the same time when everyone does the same thing at the same time it will slow any system down.
as well everyone launching auctions at the same time actually in the end lowers the views on your items people can only look at so many listings at a time.
if you launch your items at a time when only 50,000 others are launched you have a better chance of being seen then if you launch with 2 or 3 million.
http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
Email [email protected]
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pjrscards
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posted on January 15, 2002 03:17:42 PM
Dman3, you make some excellent points. Sometimes the the answer to a problem is not nearly as complicated as we tend to make it. Your point about staggering the times to every 5-10 minutes in groups of 10-15 makes excellent sense. I will be trying it this week.
Thanks to all for suggestions.
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REAMOND
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posted on January 15, 2002 03:39:11 PM
If you have to stagger the listings, why use the service ? List them yourself on eBay.
I have never had a problem listing on eBay and am at a loss why anyone would pay for something they could do well themselves.
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petertdavis
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posted on January 16, 2002 07:36:06 AM
Tom, very interesting. I assume you're using the same computer?
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tomwiii
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posted on January 16, 2002 07:40:42 AM
Peter: NO! My PC was "lost" by the movers during the move & I replaced it with a SONY VAIO P4/ 1.8gHz monster!
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petertdavis
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posted on January 16, 2002 10:06:30 AM
Yea, those moveing companies have a tendancy to "lose" valuable items. I hope you had all your important files backed up. I was wondering, when you were complaining about the slowness, if it might have been just that your computer didn't like the CA website. I guess we'll never be able to test that theory.
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tomwiii
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posted on January 16, 2002 01:05:48 PM
Peter: I think that CA quietly fixed some routing problems + I think there are MANY PROBLEMS with MEDIAONE AKA ROADRUNNER AKA AT&T BROADBAND!
BellSouth DSL here in FL is FAR SUPERIOR to the CABLE INTERNET OF MANY NAMES I used up in Boston!
AT&T is sooooooo bad here that the City of JAX is taking them to court!
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petertdavis
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posted on January 17, 2002 06:40:05 AM
I guess I'm just lucky then? I got the cable modem a couple years ago when they were still MediaOne. I've never liked AT&T, but haven't had any trouble while they've owned it. Who knows what will be next, but so far it's worked nearly flawlessly (except a few outages of USENET). Of course, you always knew that I just thought you were imagining it.
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DianaAW
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posted on January 18, 2002 12:36:33 PM
FYI...
AuctionWatch and eBay, working together, have corrected an API interface problem that had been causing some users to experience significant delays when listing items on eBay.
Both eBay and AuctionWatch are 100% committed to providing excellent service
for sellers listing auctions using AuctionWatch services. To maintain our
level of service, eBay and AuctionWatch are jointly developing systems to monitor performance and processes for proper response time if any issues arise.
We appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to serve you.
Jeff Jordan
SVP & GM, eBay US
Rodrigo Sales
CEO, AuctionWatch
[ edited by DianaAW on Jan 18, 2002 03:50 PM ]
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roadsmith
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posted on January 18, 2002 02:54:33 PM
Thank you, Jeff! I did notice last night that my auctions loaded like clockwork. I appreciate the help and the work I'm sure AW had to go to, to get things fixed. ~Adele
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bidsbids
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posted on January 18, 2002 07:46:18 PM
I guess the AW users have no problem with any eBay fee increases. What's a little bit more.
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aliceroad
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posted on January 18, 2002 08:12:36 PM
I do not know if it is worth an answer, of course we have problems with ebay price raises.
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bidsbids
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posted on January 18, 2002 09:19:26 PM
AW may toss me for this but is it worth the additional fees paid to AW for their services? Didn't the free listing day AW fiasco take some of the enthusiam away? To set the launch time would be a nice feature and maybe eBay should charge a nickel for that option. If eBay did indeed do that very thing do you think many AW users would cease using AW?
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