Comparison of Macintosh eBay tools

At 12:46 PM -0800 2/11/05, Adam C. Engst wrote:
>The DealBITS Drawing for iwascoding.com's GarageSale, which helps you
>manage things you're selling on eBay, was (to me, as someone who
>doesn't use eBay much) surprisingly popular.

Adam -- I signed up only because I had helped to shake down the new
Dealbits process, along with a number of others. I don't use eBay
and didn't have any particular interest in the prize. Some fraction
of the drawing entrants might have come from a similar motivation.
--
_______________________________________________________________
Keith Dawson Layer of ash separates morning and evening milk.

On 2/11/2005 12:46 PM, "Adam C. Engst" wrote:
> That got me thinking; perhaps it would be useful to run an article on
> tools that can help Mac users use eBay. In fact, it could probably be
> two separate articles, one focusing on buying and the other on
> selling.

For buying, selling, and even just maintaining Macs, the most helpful tool
I've found is MacTracker. It provides comprehensive information on every
Apple product ever released.

<http://www.mactracker.ca/>

<http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macgems/2004/09/mactracker/index.php>

>And if not, having comments about the different tools in a thread
>here will be useful in its own right, so please, write in with your
>thoughts.

on run ebay (
        get item;
        run wife();
        goto bank (deposit);
        )

on run wife(
        # magic happens here
        )

--
Andrew Laurence
atlaurenuci.edu

Adam - I'm glad you brought this topic up.

I've used Black Magic Software's "Elister,"
(http://www.blackmagik.com/elister.html ) which is rather elegant in
some aspects, but lacks a bulk lister, so a quasi-pro (tons of CD
stock in my garage) finds it pretty much useless. (Plus, the
developer is abrasive. Anyway, it's a Mac Ebay listing application.

I hope someone has a better one. Auction site tools (like the
official Ebay bulk lister) seem to all be WINDOZE-only.

-Allan

I use JBidWatcher, which is a cross-platform application written in Java. While the interface is a little inelegant, it seems to get the job done. That job being monitoring auctions and bidding and sniping. I am no eBay junkie and have only made moderate use of it's features, but it seems to do it's job well. And it's free.

I use JBid Watcher.

http://www.jbidwatcher.com/

It is not for listing, but for watching/sniping and tracking my own
auctions w/out having to ebay.com, it is great!

I use Cniper for bidding and Auction Listing Creator 6 for listing.

I picked up iSale http://www.equinux.com/isale at the Macworld Expo. I'm just starting to try it out, and so far it seems pretty intuitive.

Adam,

I haven’t tried iSale, but it looks like it should do the job.

http://www.equinux.com/us/products/isale/features.html

I can report that the Jbid program works great, although before it
would fit on my Pismo’s screen, it needed a little ‘Terminal’ tweaking
because otherwise I could not reach Jbid’s resize box.

The programmer - Morgan Schweers - gave me very clear directions (see
below).
Jbid is ‘Donation Ware’ and I quickly & very cheerfully set some $ his
way via PayPal.

---alan

“After you close JBidwatcher, launch Terminal, and go:

open -a TextEdit ~/.jbidwatcher/display.cfg

At the top is:
height=#
width=#

Change these values to something smaller than your screen resolution.
(So if you're running at 1024x768, set it to height=600 width=900, or
smaller.) Note that screenx and screeny indicate where the program
displays, so you probably want to set those to 0,0 for now.

After you get it running so you can reach the resize box, you can
adjust it to a comfortable level.

I'll try not to make that mistake again when I do the next release.
(I think I may have already put code in that checks the screen size,
and fixes it automatically, but that's in the 'next release').

-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!“

I’ve also used eLister.  I like the built-in listing templates (about 50+) that help professionalize one’s listing.  Far more elegant that ebay’s Turbolister, which works only with Windoze.  Unfortunately, eLister is subscription software-- I would rather purchase the software outright.  Thus, I’m looking for an alternative.

Another option is AuctionGenie (www.luxcentral.com/auctiongenie/) which is built on FileMaker.  It captures ebay auction data, including photos if desired.  I don’t like the built in templates for listing but it works well for bidding and managing ebay auctions.  One flaw is you can’t track cost of goods sold in the report generator, which I found limiting in trying to use as a business tool. It, too, uses a subscription model.  If it had an easier listing interface and broader selection of listing templates I would like use AuctionGenie exclusively.

Given the shortfalls of both programs, and their reliance on subscription fees for their use, I’m still shopping for a better program.

-- Glenn

Hello from England. My attention was drawn to GarageSale by the DealBits draw. I didn't win, but I was prompted to buy the software, which I am now pleased to offer my whole-hearted endorsement. GarageSale is, simply, listing software - it doesn't watch or snipe - and it does the job superbly well. The interface is elegant and intuitive, and there's no subscription - just the initial cost of purchase. I'd been looking for something like this for many months, having previously used a PC to run eBay's own Windows-only TurboLister. GarageSale regularly imports the ever-changing, eBay categories, and users receive timely notification of software upgrades. Pictures are easily imported from iPhoto, or elsewhere on any accessible drive. My eBay listing requirements are fairly simple (no bulk listings, for instance), but I think more intensive users would also find GarageSale incredibly useful. The lack of a decent eBay listing tool for Mac was a big problem for many - and now it's been solved. Congratulations to iwascoding for identifying a niche, and filling it with such elan.

>Given the shortfalls of both programs, and their reliance on
>subscription fees for their use, I'm still shopping for a better
>program.

I wonder whether there are any programs that work under OS9?

Robert

I used the 3 free trials in both GarageSale and iSale to load some auctions up to eBay, and have decided to purchase GarageSale.

My reasons are the nice preview option that let me see what the auction would look like, as well as the easier way to get photo's in (direct from the camera).

The main negative compared to iSale, was that iSale more closely resembles the iApps in its interface, with for example a submit button in the top right that looks like the burn button in iTunes.

Hope this helps anybody else who comes along and has to make the decision.

Charlie

I came across your question while searching for an alternative software for listing on eBay. I had tried to purchase elister, but when I asked for a refund for Auction Manager after I accidently ended up paying for it (the wrong program) from Black Magik's site, the owner blacklisted me from ever using elister. So I even purchased the extra software, but he says the payments for BOTH have all been refunded.

He wrote me: "You are permanently prohibited from using, possessing, or holding any license for any of our software, whether paid or free." "All your payments have been refunded".

So I'm looking for other software for creating listings offline, and then uploading them.

Suggestions? For Mac OS9?

> I used the 3 free trials in both GarageSale and iSale to load some
> auctions up to eBay, and have decided to purchase GarageSale.

At some point, I decided that I was ready to purchase an eBay listing
software package. I had remembered iSale being mentioned on TidBITS,
so I downloaded it, tried my first three auctions and purchased it
without looking elsewhere. iSale reminds me of a lot of Apple's iApps,
you won't achieve zen, or rather you won't "realize" the real power of
the software in just three listings. After using it a couple more
times, post purchase of course, I quickly realized just how awesome it
really is. That realization was something analogous to when, years
ago, I figured out what "smart playlists" in iTunes were all about!

GarageSale looks good as well, and I imagine that I would have been
happy with it had I gone that route. I would recommend that anyone try
both before making a decision. I can whole heartedly recommend iSale,
and I am not even using the new 2.0 version. The 2.0 version on Tiger
would be quite powerful, especially when combined with Automater and
SmartFolders in Mail.app.

I would also tell you that in dealing the the company, customer support
seems very responsive, which brings to the ONE thing that I do not like
about iSale- licensing. The only time I had to deal with customer
support was for a post sales, post-activation licensing question.
iSale is licensed to your Mac's hardware ID, so if you need to move it,
or let's say you had one of the many iMac G5's that needed new circuit
boards, you have to get a new activation code. In fairness, re-reading
the below, it would seem as though Equinox has this process worked out
to the point where the customer can deal with it themselves via their
website. On a positive note, there is no subscription fee like some of
the other options out there. I don't know if GarageSale imposes this
sort of licensing on it's customers, but iSale does. I believe that
iSale is a bit more expensive that GarageSale too. Here is a snippet
of the conversation I had with Equinox over licensing:

> My reasons are the nice preview option that let me see what the
> auction would look like, as well as the easier way to get photo's in
> (direct from the camera).

iSale has an Excellent preview mode, topped only by it's editing mode
in which listings are created. Not sure about the direct from camera
option, I pull directly from iPhoto. I usually end up deleting some of
the shots I take in iPhoto anyway, so it is not an extra step for me.


> The main negative compared to iSale, was that iSale more closely
> resembles the iApps in its interface, with for example a submit button
> in the top right that looks like the burn button in iTunes.

Ummmm, I really like the iApp interfaces, and I reeeeaaallly like
iSale's!

I bought iSale from CompUSA and was quite pleased. I´ve already created a few auctions and love how easy it is to use. I appreciate this since I don´t have that much time to spend creating my auctions.