DISQUS

JTFM (Just The Facts Man) - Th · 7 months ago

[...] JTFM (Just The Facts Man) - The Auctiva Free to Fee Change Related posts:Auctiva Malicious Content Includes Trojans? NO, Not The Contraceptive Silly Share this article... More » Well, it was late last night...eBay 3rd Party Provider Auctiva Shuts Down Site Due To “MONSTER” Mystery VIRUS? Share this article... More » So now after 5 DAYS…Auctiva “TURNS...Auctiva Alert: Time To Sound The ALL CLEAR! Share this article... More »This morning I am HAPPY to report... [...]
P.S. - Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!

Mitzi · 7 months ago

I'm going to be writing a post about this as well - just before I start re-listing my 600 store listings straight through eBay. Auctiva WAY overshot what their service is worth, and WAY overestimated how many of their customers will want to pony up for a service they used because it was free. :(

KatyDidsCards · 7 months ago

I can't believe how foolish they are being about this. The heat they are taking in the eBay Sellers Forum and in their own forums should get them to rethink this ridiculous move.

I just switched to InkFrog this morning and putting aside the time it took me to choose a template (too many to choose from!) it was simple and easy to get set up.

Auctiva sure shot themselves in the foot with this one (and stabbed us in the back in the process!)

KatyDidsCards · 7 months ago

Gotta love it. The items I listed on eBay with InkFrog this morning still have an Auctiva Scrolling Gallery on the bottom. See item #150348730405.

Amazing.

Cliff Aliperti · 7 months ago

@KatyDidsCards - think you're going to love Inkfrog once you get your feet wet, I've been using it for 2-3 years now ever since I bought my new computer to find out TurboLister wasn't ready for Vista yet! But that's another story.

Anyway, I'm assuming they pushed you right into Inkfrog 2.0 which should have all the Globals etc. that helps you bulk edit. Also, there are some edits you can't do in bulk on IF 2.0, but you can still do so in IF 1.0. In other words, there tends to be a workaround for just about everything.

Anyway, I love this service since I started using it so I just wanted to chime in.

Thanks, Cliff

Mitzi · 7 months ago

Thanks for the Inkfrog tips, while I am nervous to use another listing service because of this Auctiva nightmare, but if Inkfrog comes up with a way for me to import all my listings like they say they are working on, I may just have to try it out - and save myself the hours and hours of work. I just hope Inkfrog doesn't try to get greedy in the future and jack up the price. I guess I'm a little gun shy now! lol

Oh and Cliff, couldn't you import your Inkfrog listings straight into BISI? That's a plus too.

Cliff Aliperti · 7 months ago

Hi Mitzi,

You could import all of your active and/or ended eBay listings into Inkfrog (2.0) right now--but they're going to come in with any exisiting html (Auctiva templates) still there.

In other words, to do it right I'm sure it's going to get a bit messy. But once there they have several Global settings allowing you to edit specific parts of the listing in bulk.

You click a button inside Inkfrog 2.0 to export to BISI which delivers a file. Go inside BISI click Import from the Inventory tab and suck in that same file. Start with a small 10 items or so file first just to make sure it's working as desired.

I really don't know-they doubled the BISI prices recently, but I think those rates are still very reasonable. I've always said Inkfrog delivers way more than I paid for, so I wouldn't balk at a slight increase, but yeah, it would suck if one came right after you decided to try them! Haven't heard anything though and judging by their "Welcome Auctiva Members" page I would think it would a dumb PR move to raise them anytime soon. A lot of you guys are going to fall right into their laps for now.

Hope that helps, feel free to ask me anything about IF (or BISI) as I'm quite obviously a happy customer of both!

Thanks, Cliff

Kat Simpson · 7 months ago

Hey guys - sorry for all the hassle to the changeover but you can put this one back in eBay's lap. Auctiva's 'model' called for them to get revenue through the eBay EPN/Affiliate network. With the changes eBay already made and the changes upcoming to that - Auctiva had to find a way to replace that lost revenue. IMO this one is eBay's choice also . . . . hope your changeovers go quickly and well! Best wishes, Kat

Cliff Aliperti · 7 months ago

By the way, this might be a good intro to Inkfrog, I wrote it back in September 2008 when they first introduced Inkfrog 2.0 and I was getting my feet wet with it.

Maybe I'll try to update it a little over the weekend and put together one of my guest posts over here if anyone thinks it'll be a help.

Thanks, Cliff

phoenix2000us · 7 months ago

I insisted on using InkFrog over Auctiva 3 years ago, but people should just move to buyitsellit.com.

My former employer had over 1500 sku. eBay dictates a return policy. Change the listings. No watermark names in images. Change the listings. eBay says no checks and money orders. Change the listings. Postal rates rise. Change the listings.

When you are busy changing all your listings every couple months, you ARE NOT out finding new stock, you are not spending time learning new techniques and programs AND YOU ARE NOT moving your items to a new venue.

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE! In addition to the increase of Auctiva fees how about the Final Value Fee for, uh, picture hosting, templates, scrolling gallery, frozen pages, malware... why is Paulie Walnuts here taking his "taste" out of your pocket?

You ought to sell on your own, on buyitsellit.com and you, the business owner can control the means of production.

So just take your customer's email addresses and invite them to your new home. The "venue" that is your "partner" does allow your to have YOUR CUSTOMER'S email address, right?

Mitzi · 7 months ago

Thanks Cliff, it's good to have someone who has used IF for a while now to give us the scoop! I think it would be a bad PR move for IF to raise prices too - but in 6 months that might not be the case...

Since eBay made photos in pottery & glass, collectibles, and antiques free, I am still feeling like I might be better off just to list straight through eBay with a simple, easy to bulk edit template that will make handling any future changes easier. At least if I list thru eBay it is only their crap I have to deal with! ;)

But, that means re-listing 600 store items - so importing into IF has it's appeal!

You know, it isn't so much that Auctiva is not free anymore that is the problem - on the boards most people said they would be willing to pay a reasonable flat fee similar to IF's - but Auctiva went from free to one of the most expensive services out there!

They keep saying that most of their users will be paying less than $10 a month, but in order for the fees to be that low you have to be a very casual seller. And those fees don't include image hosting - which they have made ridiculously high! Any seller with more than a handful of listings will need the $35 a month unlimited image hosting, and that's on top of all the other fees. It looks like I would end up paying them upwards of $100 a month - their service just isn't worth that!

Mitzi · 7 months ago

Oh and Kat - you are absolutely right that eBay has cut off Auctiva's revenue stream, prompting this change - so some of the fault does lie with them for sure. But Auctiva over reached and set prices way to high - responsibility for that is right in the CEO and his team's lap.

Have you seen the responses from CEO and other Auctiva employees on their message boards? I think my eyes about rolled out of my head a hundred times just reading a few of their posts. They aren't defending themselves very well, and CEO has a real attitude in some of them...

Cliff Aliperti · 7 months ago

Mitzi,

With image hosting, best move (I think) is to pay $4-$5/month for a GoDaddy site, publish images there and embed the URL's in your listings. This is what I do w/Inkfrog. I started doing this about 5 years ago after I left Auctionworks/Marketworks and realized I had to save 7,000+ images that I had on file with only them! Royal PITA, will never happen to me again.

Cliff

John · 7 months ago

I am going to go with Cliff on that one. Images are your MOST important component of selling on eBay. Without an image your items do not sell. If there are outages on these hosts, you can get over listings not posting for a while. But having all your images go down at once can kill sales completely. Also had folks separated their images from the posting provider they would have avoided the Auctiva Virus scare earlier this year.

HOWEVER, I must URGE all of you to have BACKUPS of every single image in your own in-house file. DO NOT DEPEND on these platforms for your pictures without having a backup. The most time consuming thing about making sales online is the pictures. Keep a local copy, storage is extremely cheap and all PC's have at the very least a CD burner so space is unlimited to keep a full copy of all your pictures.

John