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Well this doesn’t help you out, but just for the record, we were able to access ours on April 1st mid-morning, placed our order and receievd product by the first weekend.
Good luck. Surely it must be a glitch.
mike at MDCG
Completely understand. my daughter only uses her hpone for everythign even the cell phone version of Polaris [a MS Office] look alike. She pulls up spread sheets and her company’s database on her phone all the time.
Here is one for T-Satt. Could you see yourself doing all the work you do on spread sheets ona cell phone screen. I wear tri-focals and even enlarged it is hard to see on a phone, much less all the scrolling that needs to be done. Zowie, think about clicking on all of the precedents and dependents function in excel and finding all the related connections. Holy Crackers Batman LOL.. 🙂
I have two giant monitors connected to one of our rigs and in that it is hard to see some things that are connected with all those “blue lines”. 🙂
Anyway Sonia, perfectly understandable.. everything has it’s place and time. Some things are just better left to deal with at another time. No right or wrong.
Like the old saying .. When you are to your butt in alligators it is difficult to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp. 🙂
And all the changes at Ebay, they aren’t making it any easier. 🙂
mike
T-Satt: I talked with JC at SB about a year ago when I was comparing the size of the WL and SB datbases and I brought this up and thought he told me SB could go on the cloud as a server but only in the Enterprise version and it was costing. thought he also told me they did some propriertory coding for a few private business users for the cloud, but I could be wrong. Sometimes i mix up the WL and SB teams and what they each can and can’t do and what they are working on. Like when WL got all of the Photos to get paced in the cloud [Google drive] in order to reduce the size of its database and SB had not done this.
I sent my database to both tech teams about a year ago and what took SB to load in over an hour went to WL in less than a minute. But think JC and Ryan [the senior tech supprt guy at SB] have overcome that issue now. But maybe SB won’t operate directly from the cloud.
But again as I was saying to Sonia, this is all behind the scenes stuff not part of a user having to maintain a database. The actual program can be loaded or reloaded from anywhere. it is to make sure your database is backed up in multiple locations and that is just smart computer user technique and procedure. I could loose my whole hard drive right now and by tomorrow have bought a new hard drive, formatted it and down loaded about 96,000 files [I think that is what I have backed up]. I also use carbonite as a paid back up source.
So on a side note, a suggestion, make sure all user make it a policy to back up your computer. as they say, it is not a matter of IF, it is a matter of WHEN is your hard drive going to crash. 🙁
mike at mdcg
Hey Sonia: These apps are self installing. They maintain themselves and do their own back ups automatically. Updates is no harder than updating any other app. WL is set to back up daily automatically. It auto rotates between a back up on my hard drive and the next day onto our free google drive account. Same place we store our photos.
The use of either of these apps is the same as oening up Ebay and using it’s listing app only you open WL or SB and a blank listing form is right there.
A main difference is that you can customize a lot of what you want to see and how you want to see it. The other is the flexibility you have in what data you want to see and what is included in a report. It is no harder to list and view reports than it is in the Ebay Dashboard.
As far as maintenance goes, it maintains itself.
as far as the cloud, yep both have versions that can be loaded into and run from the cloud but the question is why? Well the advantage to having the main application in the cloud is that multiple people can access it remotely from various regions and locations throughout the world. If you hire and trust assitance from other countries or other states or local counties you can have any number of people working for you and on the application at the same time. Other than that we personally would not need an in the cloud solution and doing so is very expensive.
If you have a harddisk crash, the app can be redownloaded and self installs in minutes. where are your photos and the single database, it is already stored in 3 places, atleast for us. One copy is on our hard drive, but if it crashed, then that is gone, but the second place is on a small external hard drive we bought for $60 that sits on top of the computer and the third place is on the Free Google Drive.
Where are your phone contacts stored and how hard is it to have a copy of those being saved. WL & SB is no harder than that. Wonder how many people have 3 back up copies of thier phone photos, contacts, texts and emails?
If we had a crash, WL could be downloaded to a laptop in less than 2 minutes and then when you go to open a file, you would just go to Explorer, click on the Google drive icon and viola’ there is your recent database. And if by chance it was not current one clcik on the tab synch with Ebay and it will make you current right away. By the way our database synchs with Ebay every 10 minutes automaically. Anyone using SixBits will synch with Ebay and Etsy in about the same amount of time, and again automatically.
So all of 3rd party users spend way more time talking about the benefits here on SL than we ever spend maintaining the actual systems. Now someone like T-Satt, is doing nothing more than accessing the power and flexibilty that these programs offer. An example is MS Word. You can either use it to just type a one page letter or use it to create a web site or a full color, two sided, fold over brochure. But that ability comes from knowing how to really us all of the cow bells and whistles that come with and are available with the software.
But the caveat is that one does have to learn to use the program. Just like trying to show someone how to list using the Ebay app. At first it is the easy lister-editor. Later comes learning about bulk editing, later comes creating templates and going back to them.
Just an opinion completely but I would venture to say, using WL or SB is actually easier and quicker to use than using the Ebay app and certainly safer in some cases. Think I just read Ryanne and another member saying about a bunch of lost drafts after so many days. Never would have to worry about that within WL or SB. And the fact we can customize the whole screen layout of the listing form, that once that is done one time, then the felds you enter data in is lined up in the order you want to enter it in. try changing around and rearranging Ebays listing screen. don’t think it can be done, but not sure now.
but in any case, back to maintaing, just really doesn’t pose any problem no more than amintaing any other software. And by the way WL database size is very compact and is much smaller than that of SB. But SB was going to work on that and maybe has reduced it’s size by now, but that is a techie, engineering type of thing, not a worry the the actual user.
Now those that are more tech savy on WL & SB may have different thoughts, but just my opinion. I can hear Jay saying, “whatever you are comfortable with”. LOL 🙂
mike at MDC Galleries
Calling him directly is something we did not even think about, since we have never done that before. good idea.
Yeah he really wasnt happy. He may even think we sold it to somebody else for a higher amount, then it got returned and now we want to try to resell to him. PLUS.. I also said in anearlier email to him, if we ever did find it we would sned it along to him for FREE! as a consolation for the error.
Thanks t-Satt but think I will go along with AE and Susan. Just move on, no big deal with our first negative in 16 years and let it disappear. As Jay told me, “Welcome to the Negative Feedback Club”. I still want some sort of a badge for joining the club 🙂
If I get this guy going again, he just may have too much time on his hands and then he comments on the second effort to contact him.
If you ever come on board with something like WonderLister or Sixbit it would not take up any brain space at all. Once you set your rules and scheduling, all of your listings then would get taken over by the software and either WL or SB will handle everything for you. Then any templates you create you save with all of the item specifics and formats you want. Then get a new item, open a draft-template, click submit to Ebay when finished then from that day and hour going forward the software will handle the listing, ending and relisting automatically. WL & SB both have customers who have tens of thousands of listings and do this. In WL we can also create a small rule that will “append” either the title of the “description” and add a rev. [revision code] to the listing and then we can filter and look at how many times an item has been ended and then relisted each time.
There are other things that both of these programs will do to / with your listings at the time of re-listing but that gets into how to use these programs.
And to throw something in about the often used phrase rare, unique, hard to find item.
One of the things we seem to be finding, is that finding the rare and unqiue items are getting harder and harder to find.
What I mean by that is two fold. One that the actual procurement of items in fairly good shape that are really unique is more of a challenge these days because more people are getting into online selling of them and TV shows and recycle shows are pushing more people to become sellers so, there are more sellers buying everything up faster. But als in turn, then those items are shwoing up on Ebay faster and faster and where we used to list something and we were one of only 2 or maybe 3 like items, we find these days, we find a fairly unique item from the 1940’s, 1950’s, list it, and search it and there are 80 others just like it.
And then to make matters worse, which we mention the other day, a lot of newer sellers don’t resarch and price at the top of the highest sold but are happy with just doubling their money [buy for $2 and then sell for $4 to $5 dollars, when top dollar is $35. All the antique booth guys we talk too trying to go online seem to favor this. So when we now list what was a once harder to find item, now out of the 80 like items they are priced all over the place, from $10 up to $80. we see this everyday.
I know years back Jay said, don’t worry, when all the others sell yours then will be the only one out there and it will sell for our top dollar. well now that everybody under the sun is grabbing anything over 20 years old that is not nailed down and selling online is more mainstream and fairly easy to do, there seems to never be a situation whereby we are the only ones any longer.
This day and time taking good photos is fairly easy with built in phone camera s. steady cam features, gauze and blurr reducers built in, zoom built in, back ground removal. Then apps to show what items sold for in the past at the touch of your fingers, copy and paste both photos and text, not all as hard as it used to be. How many kids are even doing this now?
There is kid that comes with his parents to an auction house we go to sometimes and he sits there with his laptop and researches as items come up for bid in real time and all he bids on is Sterling Silver. he buys it all the time and then he flips it online. We talked with him and his parents one time and since he is not old enough for a craedit card and an Ebay account, they handle all of that for them, but he knows what to buy, the makers mand Hallmarks, silver content, age of the designs, he is very knowledgeable.
But point at hand, there are a ton of people buying everything that is not nailed down and in turn flipping it online and at very low margins. We thought we had a West Bend insulated metal ice bucket we could sell for about $50. well there are tons of them all from $10 up to $125. Where now is the rarer, harder to find fit in. It is maybe 60 years old. Well millions of people are now buying, as Jay says, tons of stuff out there and it is being found and listed by the millions. Just an interesting market now.
That is exactly what Susan just said to me. She said she maybe would just put it in this springs yard sale that we do occasionally. If not then maybe relist early next year.
Thanks AE.Amen to that AE. It still grips me that every time I open my listings or do a search on my items I get a hoard of other sellers images thrown in my face.
One thing I used to do, but not any longer is when I created my description I would insert about 50 lines of carriage returns at the bottom of the listing. The results was when Ebay was showing other sellers items at the bottom, those carriage returns drove that Ebay bar down by a long way. so far I was thinking nobody was going to scroll down 5 and 6 swipes past all that white space just to get the bottom of the listing and only find more Ebay advertising. But after I rebuilt some templates in WL I just stopped doing that. Guess if I wanted though I could use WL and do that in one fell swoop. Just a thought I guess.
Good point and if I sent it to him free outside of Ebay and he then goes and revises the negative feedback and says something about me sending it to him for free, Ebay may see that and come back on me for doing an end run around them, since the initial contact was through Ebay.
The Video by Todd Alexander just starting lsiting the top things you need to do to saty on top of Ebay search, and best match. Man, wish I had relistened to this a year ago. Going to redo some work in WonderLister based on what I am hearing. He also is talking about ending listings and relsiting or keeping listing live. Also now touching on the Ebay bulk lister but just discovered somethig about this video, it cuts short the Q&A at the end that I think used to be on the original upload of it. May be worth a look to see if I can find the original YouTube post. this may be a repost of it, unless I am not remembering correctly about the Q&A at the end.
Wouldn’t it just be easier for everybody to listen to the YouTube video. I am letting it run again right now and it is extremely interesting. The notes I took at the time was in ballpoint pen on a pad on my desk. Those sheets were sticky type and I had them stuck to the bottom of my monitor for a fairly long time. But I think I may have also transcribed them into a MSWord document. I will have to do a search and see if i saved it somewhere. If I find it I will post it. May also be good to start a new thread.. something like What is Cassini, or Prepare to Tackle Ebay Search Engine.
Back to listening to this video, I am hearing things right now, that means a whole lot more to me than it did several years ago, because I now know more about WonderLister, auto listing, categories and Item Specifics. As he is talking about Item Specifics and relevacy scores mean a whole lot more now that Ebay changed that topic and we have now reduced the copy in our description area and placed a whole lot more of emphasis on Item Specifics.
I think I am going to relisten to this video again and maybe take “new notes”, now that I am more experienced.
Got to do some “home handyman stuff with wife for a while now”.
Well guys, here a very interesting situation. The negative we got was because an buyer purchased an item that we couldn’t find and had to cancel and inform him that we couldn’t find it. Also told him if we found it we would send it to him at that time free of charge.
well we went to pull a candle holder from bin #1413 and low and behold there was the winged hood ornament item in that bin. The item he had purchased that we couldn’t find on March 30. The same item he gave us a negative on.
So now the question of the day is, should I contact him,tell him we found it and then follow through with sending it to him for free, or just let sleeping dogs lie? If we send it to him, like we said, he may decide to change his negative feedback or at least maybe we can ask him.
Now the second question of the day is, if we do want to send to him [we have his address in PayPal], do we send it to him which would be outside of Ebay. Or tell him we would relist it for $1 one dollar and free shiping. Let him re-buy it and then refund him his dollar. That would make it totally free for him.
Any thoughts on this since we have now found the item in question?
mike at MDC Galleries
Boy am I late to this discussion. didn’t see it or would have jumped in earlier. But you have outlined our thoughts almost to a “T” 🙂
With WonderLister, and of course you with SixBIt, we can set all of this to happen automatically. Jay’s reference to them trying it, was still the Manual process, even though using “bulk edit”. That still is not creating rules and code as we can in our WL & SB programs. Settings listings to end completely, come off line and then relist with a new, fresh Ebay ID number, get picked up as new, and be seen as new by Ebay is done automatically and behind the scenes within these listing programs. It is about as automated as it gets.
The interesting we also see in WL, is when items are being relisted, if WL picks up a signal from Ebay that a listing now has some type of issue due to Ebay changes, WL kicks it over into a “needs to be reviewed” folder and doesn’t relist it. we then can go to that folder, take a look and correct any type of issue that was reported by Ebay, then click bulk upload and send them on their merry way.We have not done the analysis like you have but have just run more on the gut feel that we are correct, but you have expressed in words what we were feeling all along.
The 60 day number is incorrect as jay says. it is 90 days. Here is where it came from, there is a link here on an Ebay seminar given by an engineer that is an Ebay employee [or was at the time, he has on an Ebay shirt with logo], that was part of the team that developed the Cassini search engine. as he gives his talk about how to maximize and enhance a sellers store and benfit from the at that time newer cassini, that at around the 90 day mark the code they wrote into Cassini begans to see listings as stale.
here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6znSUKtKH0
Listen to this YouTube video. it is eye opener. He explains just how Ebay is looking at listings. But listen carefully, I forgot exactly where he says it, but he tells you at what point that Ebay will just start to consider items going stale [or not as much interest to Ebay]. They also watch other criteria. but another interesting thing is this is a guy Todd Alexander, an Ebay emloyee is explaing how the Cassini Search engine is working. How much more evidence do I need. Not much, since he worked on writing the code for the algorhytm, I think I believe him. Not going to argue with a guy that is explaining to me how they make the dang thing work.
Now that may have changed now, but it is a very interesting explanation and he offers. he tells us that it is not about the lowest price, not at all, so what does cassini look for? well, he tells us. so I said listen closely, I even took notes when I first listened to this. I am streaming it now, and again, I am hearing what we need to do. He just asked how many people in the audience has a single item at a fixed price. he tells how to make it appeal to more people.
So go take another listen and see how it compares up to the charts and rules you are using to analyize your data. You may discover some new insights that may bring a different angle of attack on your data.
Just some more food for thought. especially the Q&A at the end.
