Hi Andre -
I set up my wife in an Antique Selling business last October. I've tried
some web-based auction management tools, but they all seem to fail
miserably: being a graphics and marketing guy, the online services generate
very ugly listings, and offer clumsy interfaces.
I tried using A.I.D. too, and found their listing options somewhat tedious.
Also, inquiries to their support folks seemed slow and uncaring. It's true
that ebay changed the way that outside vendors access their API, and I don't
think that the A.I.D. folks are going to continue.
Then I found eLister, by Black Magik Software:
http://www.blackmagik.com
Although the eLister program is shareware, it's a slick and intuitive as
you'd expect ANY Boxed Retail Mac software to be. Timothy Brown responds
quickly to questions, even the dumb ones that are answered in the manual.
And the manual is VERY thorough.
He provides about 25 templates, all of which can be modified very easily
with Simpletext or BBedit or the text editor of your choice.
For listing, I'd recommend eLister. It's the best $$$ you'll ever spend on
ebay listing software. Again, since ebay changed the API, the fee is annual
(since the software vendor has to pay per API call, this is entirely fair).
BUT as far as sales histories, P & L's, and regular business stuff, you'll
need to get some type of accounting package. And DO NOT get QuickBooks 5 for
OS X. You'll be so sad, you'll probably have to go into therapy. Save your
money, and try something else. Our volume is so small, the wife doesn't do
the accounting thing on the computer.
One thing you probably haven't discovered is picture management. In Antiques
and Collectibles, buyers want to see lots of pics. Managing these can get a
little hairy, so I wrote an Applescript that takes a group of shots from the
camera, moves them into a folder, and renames them with their Item Name and
a Date Code. You can find this script by searching for "eBay" on the
Macscripters.net BBS. You'll have to do a little tweaking to make it work
for your, but it does work nicely.
Hope this info helps. Feel free to reply off-list if you have more
questions.
Rich Graham
http://www.richgraham.com
On 3/12/03 4:39 PM, "Andre Ruegg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said something like:
> on 3/12/03 1:18 PM, Ted Burford at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> I would like to know if any one on this list is selling on ebay. If so
>> how do you keep track of your auctions? If someone is using a database
>> I am interested in getting a template.
>>
>> Ted
>
> I have used A.I.D. In the past and liked it. It does work in Jaguar but eBay
> has apparently changed things to make it more difficult for third party
> software to interface with their site. eBay seems to want people to use
> their own web-based auction managing software. This has resulted in various
> aspects of A.I.D. not working anymore. I don't know if there is any future
> for A.I.D. so it may not be a good investment at this time but I still use
> it and work around the features that don't work.
>
> Andre
>
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