EasyLister is the only free listing tool that works with TradeMe and it would be brilliant if it delivered all that it promised. However, I have tested it and I can only give it a limited recommendation due to some bugs.
A listing tool is software (it can be on your computer or on a website) that you use to list items for online trading, instead of listing them directly on the trading website. Once you have created an auction using a listing tool that tool puts your auction up on the trading site for you. Listing tools offer features and conveniences that trading websites don’t have.
EasyLister calls the items that you are selling ‘products’ (here’s why), and if you want to create a new auction you create a new ‘product’. In this post I have used ‘auction’ instead of ‘product’ because it’s a familiar term.
Let’s have a quick look at EasyLister, then I’ll show you how I use it and why.
The theory
In theory you can, for example, tell EasyLister that you have ten identical items that you wish to sell and, once you’ve entered the item details and set various rules, it will do everything automatically: this includes making fixed price offers when an item is unsold and relisting the item when the fixed price offer is closed. Theoretically EasyLister will monitor your stock levels and reduce the stock count in your virtual warehouse whenever a reserve is met, a fixed price offer is accepted, or a buy now option is used. Theoretically EasyLister will keep on making fixed price offers and/or relisting as per your instructions until every item is sold, then cease activities with that item.
The practice
As far as I can see there are bugs with the stock control system. I had items listed twice when I only had one of them, and stock control problems like this one appear time and again in the support forums. Obviously, if EasyLister is insane and cannot correctly monitor your stock levels (i.e. reduce the ‘available stock’ count by one when one is sold) then it will at times relist an item despite the fact that you have none in stock, as well as doing other daft things like listing an item twice when you have one of them.
How I use Easylister
I have tested EasyLister to find out what it will reliably do, and my conclusion is that it’s very useful for the initial creation of listings and that’s all. If the other features can be made to work well at some point in the future I will expand my use of EasyLister.
With Easylister you can start your auctions immediately or later: I’ll tell you about delayed starts in the next section of this post.
There are three steps in my method of using EasyLister:
- Create
- Activate
- Delete
Create: I create a new auction by clicking Products>Create new product and tick the ‘Inactive’ option at the top right: ticking ‘Inactive’ puts my auction on standby and it won’t appear on TradeMe until it’s activated. Once I’ve entered all the auction details I click Save. If I want my auctions to start immediately I proceed to…
Activate: once I have a bunch of new auctions created I click Products>View products and select them all by ticking the box to the left of the column titles. Now there’s two steps to actually getting my items up on TradeMe:
- I use the drop down menu (look for ‘update selected…’) to activate all my auctions and then I
- select them all again and click List Now. Lo and behold, my auctions are now running on TradeMe.
Delete: once my auctions are running I again select them all and delete them, so that Easylister can’t cause any catastrophes. Relisting and fixed price offers are done as usual on TradeMe.
All this might seem like a bit of fluffing around, but in my experience it’s the best way to do things and it’s quite simple in practice.
Why do I use Easylister in this way?
- I like the EasyLister method of creating auctions. When you list an item on TradeMe you have to click through various pages: with EasyLister all the data entry is done on one page and this makes a surprising difference in regard to ease of use.
- I like the EasyLister feature called ‘shipping groups’ (Settings>Shipping group setup). Imagine that you have a group of items which can be shipped via regular post at $4 or courier at $5. You also have another group of items which can be shipped at $5 or $6. You can set up a shipping group for each one, and when creating a new auction you just select the appropriate shipping group: the prices and descriptions will appear on TradeMe in the usual place.
- Having all my auctions starting and closing at the same time makes relisting and putting out fixed price offers easier.
- It may be that I want all my auctions to start and close at 8:30pm for more bids at closing time, but find that the evening is not a convenient time for creating auctions. With EasyLister I can create my auctions at a convenient time, put them on inactive/standby, then come back at 8:30 and start all my auctions with a few mouse clicks. If you’re busy and/or forgetful setting an alarm clock is a good idea.
- I can create one or more auction templates by creating a new product and making it inactive: these templates will include every possible detail of the auction. When creating the template you can make the ‘Product name’ ‘Template 1′ because only you will see this, and the public will see the ‘Title’. To use your template click Products>View Products, open the template, and click on ‘Copy’. NB: earlier I described selecting all products/auctions to activate and delete them. If you have templates you’ll need to select all auctions and then deselect the templates. You can click on the column headers to sort by name and there are various sorting and filtering tools that are also helpful. If you make the product name ‘*Template 1′ then it will appear first when you sort by name.
- I can click on ‘Home’ and see three useful graphs: sell-through rate for the past week, sold/unsold/total auctions for the last nine weeks, and a weekly sales total (in dollars) for the last nine weeks.
Conclusion
EasyLister makes the initial creation of auctions easier and gives the benefits described above, therefore I use it for that purpose. Sadly, my experience is that it’s not safe or practical to use EasyLister’s other features at this time.
