Syncing your Current Site with Ebay

No doubt - Ebay sells items wel

[8foldpath]

I had some returns and extra inventory that I put on Ebay.. Sheesh. The stuff sold like crazy. i've been doing it on and off now.. but it needs to be more efficient. Dealing with the web app is slow and there's no easy way to export order/customer info.. I'm not sure if I need to intagrete with any API's.. I'm thinking I just need a 3rd party program to import my Products and Export the Sales Data.. The exporting part is really important because I want to inject the Ebay Sales into my Order System once they are paid for.. Does anything else do something like this?

[sniffer]

We have been discussing the ebay option just htis week. The main problem that I can see is the staff time/effort for each sale. I'd like to hear from other ecomm. folks too

[numnutz]

Hi - eBay have a tool called Turbo Lister to enter many items at one time and you can upload the same item for multiple sales.

There is also Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro these have output in CSV format this may be entered into a database.

Another application that could be useful is Auction Sentry Deluxe, mainly for for sniping, it also has some seller functions as well although I haven't tried it as yet.

hope this helps

nn :)

[8foldpath]

numnutz - Will the selling manager export customer data. I'd like to output customer data and order data and make a script so these orders just get integrated into our system.

Because like Sniffer said, the staff costs of answering 'bid requests', handling paypal payments and getting those orders in queue is a lot of work. It's not very scalable. I'd love to know exactly what the output CSV contains. I'm curious if the Ebay manager will allow you to keep your SKU's in an extra field (even though they'd be hidden)and if it assigns a unique 'Ebay Transaction Id'.

[jsinger]

I see little merit in selling our sort of products on Ebay. Too much work. Many items receive no bids, and the ones that get bids go for peanuts. It doesn't make sense to compete against dirt-poor housewives who are just cleaning out their garages and are thrilled to get a few nickels.

Yes, the average sale (even when sales occur) is tiny for all the effort involved. I've considered bundling some similar products to make the sale process more efficient.

Our shopping system has the new ability to list products on Ebay with a few clicks. Tried it a few times and it still wasn't worth the effort in billing and shipping.

[8foldpath]

it still wasn't worth the effort in billing and shipping.

That's exactly what I'm stressing.

[numnutz]

Hi - I haven't used ebay to sell for quite a while. I know that the you can download files that contain your sales information without using Selling Manager Pro (that costs money). I assume these are in CSV format, however I have nothing to download so I am afraid I cannot answer the question of what is actually in the file.

I assume you get all the information you require but I would suggest you go to 'my eBay' selling manager and see what can be downloaded and if it is suitable for your purposes.

I don't bother with eBay any more to sell, it is ok for the odd personal item but too much bother and expense for regular use especially if items don't sell on the first auction.

nn :)

[philbish]

I've looked breifly into the eBay and Paypal API's and it looks like with a bit of programming work, I can make eBay sales quite smooth and painless - except for the barrage of stupid questions.

Idealy, listings for either auctions or inventory listings will be fully automated on a daily cron job.

Then, when payment comes in, an order will be created in my online store. It will have all the same information like items, shipping address, shipping method, etc. And it will have an eBay flag with related auction info.

If we put our whole catalog on eBay, and had an easy way to manage it, I think it would cause a huge increase in sales. I bet at least a 50% increase!

[8foldpath]

I'm not even sure you'll need the API.. You mentioned DAily Batch files. I think that the Turbo lister and Ebay Accounting Manager could do everything. Basically, at the end of the day, you just want to merge your data. This would be good to do while you test the concept and keep things smooth.