Cross Listing Posting Tools and Software

[Libby]

I am interested in using a cross listing/ posting tool and doing some research. I currently have all my inventory on ebay and manually crosspost some of my listings to other platforms (poshmark, mercari, craigslist, letgo, offerup, facebook, etc). I have about 4,000 items and a wide variety. Any suggestions or things to avoid? Thanks in advance. If this has been covered, I couldn’t find it, but feel free to point me in the right direction on the forum!- Libby

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Howdy: No one tool is going to handle that many platforms, or atleat ones most normal people can afford. The more popular ones like SixBit, WonderLister, InkFrog can handle two or three, but even then you have to pay as you upgrade to the version that will handle them

Search Troy Satterfield or T-Sat and you will find his method for using codes in the custom skew field to handle Mercari, Posh and Etsy while only using the Mid Range cost plan of SixBit.

We use the SixBit Duo version to handle Ebay and Etsy in almost automatic mode [almost]. But Troy has a system whereby he uses sku codes added to his inventory numbers to track which items are on which platforms. But when he makes a Sale on one of the odd ones, he has to enter a manual Sale Order to keep the financials correct and remember to delete that sale on all the other platforms.

To me this sort of takes away the use of 3rd party software to help reduce the work load. Instead, in my opinion, may be back to putting in as much time using SixBit as he was using his own spread sheets. Don’t know. Probably need to see if Troy will see this and respond. But he has been very tied up with a ton of things to handle, so he may not be onitoring SL much any more. I know I have cut back on SL as well.

But if you search the forum some months back he does explain a little of how is setting it up to keep and eye on and track a larger number of platforms.

Don’t know if any of this was of any value. Good luck with it.

Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art

[Libby]

That is great thank you! I know there isn’t one to handle everywhere I list, but I was hoping to find one that worked for ebay, poshmark, mercari . . .I have read some of T-Satt information on SixBit, but that is not for me. I have a POS software I use to ring all sales and track inventory already since I do consignment. So appreciate your response! -Libby

[Jay]

Yeah, there’s no one service that automatically crossposts to every platform. Mainly because each platform demands different kinds of info in different formats.

I’ve heard of sellers hiring Virtual Assistants (usually from Philippines) to manually cross-list. But I think this method of more effective for commodity items.

So if you have 4000 items now, what’s your sales like across platforms? Curious how much more in sales crossposting would create.

I’m trying to imagine what it would belike to maintain a 4000 inventory across 5+ different platforms. The Customer Service alone seems daunting.

[Winchester38]

Also currently exploring options for both cross listing and data backup.

We have about 1,900 listings on our main account. For the last few months, we have been manually crossposting all new listings to poshmark in both Canada and the US.

Hoping to find something to crosspost to Posh, and possibly Mercari.

In the same vein, we’re starting to think it might make sense to use a third party service to back up our photos and descriptions. Haven’t explored these services much yet though, admittedly.

As for process when things sell, for us, we use the custom sku field. It contains the item location (clothing rack number, etc). If it’s been crossposted to Poshmark, we add “P” to the sku. When an item sells on one platform, we immediately remove it from the other two.

[Libby]

Yes, this is similar to what I have been doing as well.

[Libby]

Yes, we share some viewpoints I see! I had pared down to just ebay at some point, and I use that as my basis (everything gets listed on ebay). I had come to the conclusion that it was not worth the time or effort to cross post (with the exception of large furniture items). I started to branch out and cross post one item per day, starting with the higher value items to other platforms just to see what happens. Platforms other than ebay account for about 15% off my sales at this point. Doing it manually is barely worth it monetarily.
Why do I do then? I am working to build my brand independent of ebay. I would like to know that if ebay went away or I got suspended, I have other venues. This is especially important because I do consignment, and consignors depend on me to sell their items.
Would love to hear thoughts or feedback, I have been all over the map on this issue! -Libby

[Jay]

I am working to build my brand independent of eBay. I would like to know that if ebay went away or I got suspended, I have other venues.

Other than hiring helpers to help you list, I haven’t heard of software that automatically posts across all those sites.

But if you do google searches, there are people coming up with ways:
https://is.gd/rB5feo

Here’s one lady showing some service:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLEINxORyOY&feature=youtu.be

[Libby]

Yes, so far this is one of the tools I was going to research! List Perfectly. Thank you!

[sonia]

Let us know what you find out and decide re: List Perfectly. I’ve heard some Poshmark youtubers mention it, but it hasn’t been brought up by anyone on Scavenger Life before (that I can recall).

[Libby]

Yes, I will keep you posted, they have a free trial but it is only 3 days or 20 listings and I don’t feel I can test with that limitation.

[Old Dad]

Don’t forget to factor in the extra work you will have in maintaining inventory if you are listing the same product on multiple marketplaces and have limited quantity, and also the potential issue of overselling before you can adjust. At some point, it becomes impractical unless you are willing to pay for an automated inventory management system. I’m basing this suggestion on my own experience, I eventually started using ecomdash to manage my inventory and the reduced headaches is worth their monthly fee.

[Libby]

Yes, I hear you, the inventory management is why I originally stopped cross posting, it got overwhelming and I had the storefront to consider as well. This is a huge pain point, so I think any cross lister I use will have to manage that as well. Great point!

[The_SEAM_Store]

I use List Perfectly for a few weeks now. I was drawn to it because it was created by/for a woman who suffers with arthritis and back pain, which I struggle with on a daily basis, and am always looking to find ways to make my process easier.

I do not use the listing tool to create listings at this point, but only have used their cross-posting extension on google chrome. It’s very easy to use, but you do have to edit the title and description at times due to character limitations. If you are already putting your best keywords in the first 55 characters of your ebay title, it should not be an issue. (BTW, you should be putting the most important keywords in your first 55 characters on ebay, since that is all that is shown when the buyers is searching in gallery mode.)

For my cross posting endeavor, I have been moving some of my non-consignment items to poshmark to try to expand my audience. It can be a pain because Poshmark requires square photos, and not all my ebay pics are square. So, I have been specifically targeting items that I know have square photos. The process is super simple once the chrome extension is installed. Simply log onto both sites. The extension adds crossposting buttons next to each active listing, click the button on the listing site, select the site you want it cross-posted to, and the extension automatically pre-fills as much of the listing as it can. Make a few adjustments and post the listing. Typically takes me less than a minute per listing.

Their site does allow a limited number of managed listings with the listing creation tool. Here, you can create the listing, see how the title will look on each platform, set all your specifics and description. Then click one button to send to all your desired platforms.

The basic subscription is $29.99/ month. If you are just using it to cross post existing listings, this is the one you want. If you want to create listings and have some inventory management, go for a higher subscription. So far I am a big fan.

Side note: I have not made any sales on poshmark, yet. But I am sure they will come once I can build my follower base up a bit. It’s a lot of work on the front end with all the silly sharing and stuff. I was able to cross-post about 90 items in a couple hours, while watching netflix in my evening down-time.

Since I am only cross posting from ebay to poshmark from existing listings, inventory management is not too bad. When I make the cross posting, I add “POSH” to the end of my ebay sku number to indicate it is also on Poshmark. When an item sells on ebay with the POSH SKU, I know to end it on poshmark. And since every item on poshmark is already on ebay, I know to end it on ebay when it sells on poshmark.

[chaoticgood]

I’ve used two cross posting tools, and have done cross posting manually. So far, I haven’t found either tool worth my money (I’m super cheap). At this point I don’t have more than 200 listing in any platform. I sell mainly on Ebay, with Mercari and Poshmark behind that. I also have an Etsy storefront.

List Perfectly: I only did a three-day trial. It was relatively easy, and used an extension in Google Chrome. It was during a time when a lot of people were also using a free trail, and it was kind of slow and clunky. There were a few hours of down time.

Vendoo: I have been using this during the beta period. I like it pretty well, but I don’t think I’ll use it when I have to pay for it. It’s very focused on clothes, as I think it was developed by and for Poshmark users. I also find that I like to go into the listing afterwards and make sure everything is how I expect it. For example, I have had some (user errors) with shipping on ebay. Another thing I like about Vendoo is that you can unlist and relist items. This is good when items have been on Poshmark for a long time, as the algorithm seems to favor newer items. Ebay makes this easier to do on their site, but Poshmark doesn’t have a similar function. I also use it to relist on Mercari for items I have multiples of.

Cross posting manually:
What I typically do is list on one network, give it a few days, and then crosspost to another network if no one bites.
My main tip would be to take all photos in SQUARE mode. I think that is the requirement for Poshmark and Etsy. It works for Ebay and Mercari.
My challenge was always that I would need to delete the photos off the phone, so I couldn’t cross without taking new photos.
When posting manually, I usually just copy fields between apps. You may need to be in “edit” function of the particular listing. It does take some time, but I usually reserve this task for my captive time, such as riding in a car or bus, at a doctor’s office, or my kid’s weekly karate class.

I need to figure out my ratio of sales. Ebay is definitely my strongest network, and Mercari and Poshmark seem equal. Poshmark is requiring a lot more work for the same profit, and I’m continuing to evaluate if that platform makes sense for me.

[Jay]

It really does make a difference whether you have 200 or 2000 or 10,000 listings.

I can imagine that listing 200 items across multiple channels is relatively easy, as well as keeping track of everything. But 2000 items+ is going to be a tough challenge. I cant picture in my head how we’d do that with 8000 individual items.

[Old Dad]

I have posted items to multiple marketplaces for 8-10 years now. As this has evolved I learned to start out a new listing by focusing on what is common across all sites so I don’t have the problem of converting an existing listing to force it to work on another site. For instance, all my photos are square and 1000 x 1000.

As far as tools, I recommend you check out ecomdash/ I have used it for years to manage my cross channel inventory but they also have the capability of pushing out listings to multiple sites. They actually describe themselves now as a Multichannel Selling Platform‎ instead of an inventory management system. Cost is tiered bases on monthly sales. The headaches it eliminates and time savings are well worth it for me.

[Jay]

How many individual items do you have listed? Since you dont post weekly numbers (not required), I just dont have a sense of your store.

I imagine you may have a small amount of skus but lots of quantity for each one?

[Old Dad]

Jay, I’m not sure if that question about individual items was for me.

I currently have 3017 active listings on eBay and Shopify store, 2805 also listed on Amazon, many have multiple quantities (~30,000 total). Having multi-quantity increases the work of keeping inventory in sync manually, although the pain of errors might not show up as soon.

I ship an average of 60-70 orders per week with an average order size of $25-$30. My COG is under 10% but I report on a cash basis I don’t have a weekly or monthly breakdown. My overhead costs are very low and I currently have no employees. I can easily see how much I sold each day/week/month from a spreadsheet I use, that is enough sales information for me but not meaningful to anyone else I think.

I found ecomdash worked the best for me to manage inventory, I started using them 5 years ago when my inventory was 1/3rd of what it is now. I upload new products to them by csv, generated from the same master spreadsheet used for cross-listing. They get sales information or other quantity changes from the various marketplaces and push the new quantity out to the other sites. I like that their sync interval is every 10 minutes, other services do that once an hour or even less frequently.

I use a daily order pick list I generate from ecomdash to pull orders, that list also shows the remaining quantity allowing me to do an instant inventory audit on multi quantity items when quantity is getting low. I find and correct 1-2 discrepancies per month. I used to spend (waste) time trying to figure out why, but now I generally just update. When I have dug into inventory discrepancies in the past, it was almost always errors on my end such as sending a replacement or putting a return back in stock without adjusting, inputting the wrong initial quantity, etc. I get an error report if an inventory change fails on a specific site, which has happened a few times on eBay due to site issues.

Overall I have been very satisfied with ecomdash. Last year I did a trial with a competitive service, it did not come close to measuring up. The monthly cost is sales quantity based but very economical in my opinion. They also have a function for listing new items and pushing them to multiple marketplaces, but I already have a good system for that. Also, an order shipping function that I might start using once I find time to dig into the details compared to ShippingEasy.

[Jay]

Thanks for the detailed answer. Sounds like you have a great business!
–How much do you pay ecomdash per month for their service?
–You mentioned having a Shopify store. How much do you sell there and how do you get people to find your own website? Some sellers here dream of having their own website, but I am skeptical of being able to drive enough traffic to make it worthwhile.

[Old Dad]

My last bill from ecomdash was $90. That’s quite a bit of money to me personally, I’m sure it is to most, but when I consider the time savings compared to manually adjusting inventory in 2-3 places, and the reduced hassles of overselling due to an inventory error (I hate that), along with the time savings of not having to do a physical inventory audit, it’s worth the cost for me. The time saved is better used for things that make me money, like creating new listings and sourcing products.

[Jay]

You mentioned having a Shopify store.
–How much do you sell there?
–how do you get people to find your own website?

Some sellers here dream of having their own website, but I am skeptical of being able to drive enough traffic to make it worthwhile. I also assume theres a hosting cost there as well?

[Old Dad]

My Shopify store is not profitable. I don’t have transaction fees but do have a monthly fee and most months I come out with less than selling the same thing on eBay or Amazon. I have spent money on Google ads with no noticeable effect. The biggest issue is that I sell auto parts and do not have a parts fitment lookup function. There is a round-about way to sort of do that within Shopify, but I don’t want to spend the time to do that work. I keep telling myself this year I will do something with it, but haven’t.

[Jay]

Understood. I’ve heard lots of scavengers dream about their own Shopify store so no one can tell what they can and cannot sell. But I’ve never seen anyone in our circle run a successful Shopify store.

Attracting buyers is going to be the most difficult thing. Unless you have a very popular online personality, or are selling a very niche item that you can advertise for on google/facebook, I think it’s more a dream. Happy to be proven wrong.

[Libby]

I am doing a cross listing experiment. I guess I was having a serious case of FOMO. I stopped listing on other platforms about 4 years ago becasue ebay accounted for 95% off all my sales and it was really not worth my time and energy to list elsewhere. Has this changed?
Not sure, but I will let you know . . . I subscribed to list perfectly for a month ($70), and will spend 5 hours a week cross posting to mercari, etsy, poshmark, tradsey and facebook marketplace. I will post results weekly if you would like to know how it is working. I am a variety seller with 4,500 items in my ebay store. Hopefully, this experiment will answer some questions for all of us.

[Jay]

I’d love to know what you learn after a month.
–do you like the process of listing everywhere?
–Is it difficult to manage the same item across multiple platforms?
–Are your sales better overall (more things selling?)
–Do you price differently on different platforms?

[Libby]

Hi Jay, I will sure post the update, and yes, I really want to know the answers to those questions as well!

[Retro Treasures WV]

Thank you for being willing to share your experiment!
I’m looking forward to your results too!

The main thing that keeps me from cross posting is photos.
If a service came along that would automatically download my ebay photos, add white borders to make them square then upload them to the extra sites, auto manage ending listings when things are edited or sell then I would be all about it.

[Libby]

Week One.
Time Invested 7 hours.
Percents are a percent of total dollar value sold.
Update Week 1: Ebay 86.4% Facebook Marketplace 12.6%, Poshmark 1%, Mercari 0%, Etsy 0%, Grailed 0%, Tradsey 0%

[TopNotch]

Hey Libby–I’m very curious how your month using List Perfectly went!

[Libby]

Sorry for the delay, I liked List Perfectly, and will probably keep the low level subscription for another month. However, based on this results, I think just listing on ebay is the most profitable way for me to spend my time!

Okay, here are the results after approx 35 hours of work: Ebay 80.2%, Poshmark 2.5%, Facebook 1.3%, Mercari .3%, Offerup .5%, remaining sales are other from other avenues such as our antiques mall booth, and existing customers.

[Jay]

Thanks for doing that experiment and sharing the results. Did the software make it easy to list to multiple sites at the same time? Based on how others talk about their sales on other sites, I’m really surprised at the low sell-through rate.

[LittleElm]

I am going to take a couple guesses on the reasons for the low sell through rates, as I mainly sell on the other sites, and not Ebay. For Poshmark, I am guessing that Libby isn’t self sharing her closet daily, which would bump her in the search results. With Mercari, its hard to sell anything unless you have free shipping, from my experience.

I can give my experience as a newer seller, because when I came into the Posh/Instagram reselling community last year, cross posting was considered the norm for the larger sellers that I followed, because they weren’t really selling on Ebay. So when I started listing, I would post everything to Poshmark, and crosspost to Mercari. The idea being that I had to self share and be active on Poshmark to sell, and Mercari would be the list it and forget it platform. When these new services came in, I pretty much just ignored them, because it doesn’t take more than an extra couple minutes per listing to cross post, so it wasn’t saving us that much time.

–do you like the process of listing everywhere?
We like the process, but it’s biased because we really don’t know any different. The reason we like it is because we aren’t dependent on only 1 platform. We have days where Posh is dead quiet and Mercari will pick up sales and vice versa. Also spreading our sales means we can have great results with each platform doing mediocre for us. So for instance, last night we had 5 sales on Poshmark, and 3 sales on Mercari, so our day looks amazing, but neither platform had to go gangbusters, and 8 sales is only slightly above our daily average these days.

–Is it difficult to manage the same item across multiple platforms?Yes and no, it’s easy enough because we sell one off items for the most part, so it’s not like we are tracking quantities and we have really built in a routine where we deactivate the item off the other platform as soon as it sells on one. However that doesn’t mean we don’t forget sometimes and have had the same item sell on multiple platforms, we try our best to keep that from happening, but we are human.

–Are your sales better overall (more things selling?)In the last year we have had 1,100 sales on Poshmark & 256 sales on Mercari, so 23% more sales that we would have just being on Poshmark alone. We also list our expensive items on Ebay, and have had 40 sales from there, & they were all really healthy profits, but it’s not something we have the time to grow currently.

–Do you price differently on different platforms?Yes because of how the platforms are set up. Poshmark has the buyer pay the shipping label, so we set our base price on there. With Mercari, when a buyer wants to buy your items, Mercari defaults to sending an offer that’s 15% below the sellers asking price. Since that’s the default, we bump up our price accordingly, so that the end result is still the same. Ebay we list high and forget.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by LittleElm.

[Libby]

I was hesitant to post my actual numbers, but maybe they tell a better story than the percentages:
Ebay $14,403, Poshmark $449, Facebook $228, Etsy $0, $47 Mercari,Offerup $84

I like ListPerfectly, and it does make it easier to crosspost. I had shared on Posh daily during the experiment time.
I will continue to keep all of my other platforms open because I don’t like to rely on just one in case something happens to ebay or my account, I can easily ramp up another.
The conclusion for me is that my time is best spent listing on ebay, and to just maintain my other platforms but not spend more than 5% of my time on other platforms.
This is just me, I am not suggesting it might be the same for anyone else. However, it has been interesting to see exactly what my numbers are when crossposting so I could make an informed decision on how to spend the majority of my time.

[Libby]

Sorry, I should have said the raw data I posted was across 2 months, not 30 days.

[LittleElm]

Thanks for the context, your Ebay numbers are amazing, and yeah if Poshmark is so down despite sharing then its definitely not worth the hassle outside of the 5% you were talking about with cross posting.

[Author]

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