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by Andy Geldman

You have probably heard of sniping and auction management, but there is much more to eBay software than that. There are hundreds of downloadable programs and web-based services out there for eBay buyers and sellers from a large, competitive, and innovative industry. This is a quick guide to the eBay software world.

Listing Tools & Services

Ad Creation

Ad Creators make HTML generation simple by using separate inputs for auction description, title, business terms, pictures and so on. An attractive advert is created by applying standard templates (which can be modified) to the text. The level of customization offered ranges from a choice of quick and simple layouts to a multitude of color, style and layout options.

Ad Enhancement

Ad Enhancements are usually provided through web-based services, which generate code to paste into your auction ad HTML. The main types of enhancement are:

• Marketing — to increase the impact of your auction ad, e.g. video clips
• Communication — to enable dialog with potential bidders, e.g. live chat
• Cross-selling — to encourage visitors to view your other auctions, e.g. galleries

Image Hosting

Standard eBay auction ads come with hosting for one small picture. By hosting your pictures with a service outside eBay you can use as many images as you want, of whatever size and placement best complements your item. All image hosting services are web-based.

Seller Programs & Services

Management

Auction Management software aims to make administration easier for eBay sellers. Typical features include:

• Download of current and recent auction data from eBay
• Customer invoicing, including email generation and printing dispatch labels
• Cost-of-sales calculations including listing, final value and payment processor fees, postage and packaging expenses
• Giving feedback on transactions automatically and in bulk
• Posting new auctions to eBay for listing
• Reporting on auction status and exporting to spreadsheets

With practice and commitment, Auction Management software can greatly increase the efficiency of regular sellers.

Promotion

Promotion tools market your auctions outside of the eBay system. They are normally provided online, as they aim to encourage new or repeat business by promoting your auctions via your website or email. The main types are:

• Marketing to new customers by displaying eBay auctions on your website
• Marketing to previous customers by emailing your current auction information to them
• Marketing to new and previous customers by offering a discount on repeat purchases

Analysis

For many sellers fine-tuning their auction listings is a trial-and-error process. Analysis tools help improve selling strategy by:

• Researching completed auctions to determine market prices and the best time to buy or sell
• Analyzing your own auctions to find common patterns
• Providing visitor statistics, such as geographical information and how your auctions were found

Other Seller Tools

Selling on eBay can be a time-consuming, complex and risky business. These tools address issues that may seem simple at first but quickly become cumbersome when sales volume increases, such as:

• Managing and printing dispatch labels for parcels
• Calculating eBay fees
• Sending emails via the eBay system
• Dealing with non-paying bidders

Buyer Tools

Sniping

Sniping is the practice of placing a bid very close to the end of an auction to win items at lower prices or against strong competition. These tools make sniping easier by building a list of auctions you are interested in and scheduling snipes for a specified number of seconds or minutes before the auction closes. Online sniping services (as opposed to software) have the advantage of placing bids when you are offline.

Auction Monitoring

Part of the fun of eBay is tracking your auctions and seeing new bids being made or, for buyers, following a category or product to find new bargains. But it can be a drag constantly visiting the same web pages just to see nothing has changed. Auction Monitoring programs regularly check eBay for updates and alert you when an event that you are interested in occurs - such as a new bid, a new item listed, an item being viewed, or feedback being left.

Searching

eBay's searching feature is key to the success of buyers and sellers. For buyers, choosing the right keywords can uncover a whole new set of bargains that were missed with more common words. For sellers, judging the popularity and market price of items is crucial before buying goods to sell. Searching software automates and simplifies some of the tasks that are difficult and time-consuming (if not impossible) using eBay's search, such as:

• Sorting search results by the number of bids
• Finding items that have misspellings or typos in their titles (and can therefore sell for less than the normal market value)
• Saving search results so they can be browsed offline
• Creating virtual photo albums of search results, with full-sized pictures, to speed up buying decisions

Feedback

Feedback is the cornerstone of the eBay community, but it is sometimes difficult to judge a buyer or seller by trawling through page after page of feedback. Feedback tools help you get more out of the system by:

• Making it easy to find negative and neutral feedback
• Helping you evaluate the trustworthiness of eBayers by analyzing feedback left for them, the feedback they have left for others, and other factors
• Leaving feedback in bulk - entered manually or chosen at random from a list
• Searching for patterns that may indicate dishonesty such as shill bidding (when a seller uses another eBay ID to bid on their own auction)

Mobile eBay

These are applications that run on, or work with, devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. There are three main types of mobile eBay application:

• Services that interact with mobile devices without running on them directly, such as sending SMS (text message) alerts
• Programs that enable you to view eBay information, such as your current auctions, offline on a mobile device
• Applications that interact with eBay in real-time, e.g. searching, monitoring auctions, and placing bids

About the Author:

Andy Geldman is an eBay seller, freelance IT consultant and webmaster of the Auction Software Review, a guide to eBay software and services. For more information visit The Auction Software Review.