Blink, blink, blink. Three months have gone by. Yikes. Time really does fly by. I apologize for not keeping up, I even had one person say they missed the articles. Wow, that means at least one person is actually reading them! So I guess I need to pick myself up and get back in the race. That’s life. That’s what people say…
So here, finally, is the posting I started so long ago. Hope you enjoy it!
You got all this stuff and you want to sell it online. What a hassle. First, you have to organize it, clean it up, write descriptions, take photos and then go through the tedious process of posting them on your favorite auction site. Then you have to submit it, track it, answer questions, receive payment, and finally ship the item and provide feedback to your buyer. Seems more trouble than it’s worth. But if you could minimize the work on the second half of the process, it could just make your auction experience more tolerable and potentially more lucrative! Let me show you a few apps that can help you toward that goal.
Cycline Auction Listing Creator, otherwise known as CALC, is a straightforward, easy-to-use application with versions for OS 9 and OS X. For quickie auctions without a lot of fuss, and minimal cost, this is the app for you. I have outlined some pros and cons to the app below.
Pros- Outline/Wizard format walks you through process, everything is pretty much explained for you.
- Decent interface, not stunning, but makes the process easy to figure out
- Host pictures on your website
- Preview in browser
- Font selection
- Page and table background images
- About Box has great linking feature, I know not really crucial to the function of the app, but it was nice enough in my opinion to point out
- Support for OSX, Win, Linux – the only one that supported all these platforms
- Supports eBay, Half, Yahoo, ROL – if you’re not an eBayer, the ability to use other auction sites is a plus
Cons
- No eye-catching layouts – to me this is a deal breaker at any price. If it appeals to me, it should appeal to potential buyers
- Doesn’t support Drag & Drop of pictures – should be a given in OS X, but since it supports multiple platforms, I can understand why
- Doesn’t support Drag & Drop of text – same as above
- Doesn’t support iPhoto – same as above
- Layouts don’t appear to have default text settings (what you see isn’t what you get)
- Tools popup is oddly implemented (but reduces space requirements)
- Poor support for pre-formatted text, and for applying styles – back to ease-of-use, I want to cut and paste formatted text and have the app understand or translate it
- Does not interface directly to eBay – detracts from the time-saving concept
Price
Inexpensive! $9.99 for download version
I Was Coding has put together a great product, taking advantage of many Mac features including iPhoto, Drag and Drop of text and pictures, Cover Flow and more. Beautiful templates and tight integration with eBay makes the auction creation process much faster – once you learn how to get around. There were few things to find wrong with this app, which is why I ended up buying it.
Pros
- Complete interface with eBay
- Excellent template design
- Excellent interface with OSX/iTunes technologies
- Support for Search Attributes
- Supports Drag & Drop of pictures
- Supports Drag & Drop of text
- Supports iPhoto
- Supports eBay, GarageSale, .Mac, FTP, WebDAV picture hosting
- Dynamic theme switching
- 104 Templates – auto download and install
Cons
- No support for other auction sites
- Somewhat overwhelming at first
- No cost estimate for auction
Price
$29.99 for use on 2 computers by same user. Nice demo feature allows for 3 auctions on eBay.
Another interface jewel, iSale really shines. It has a zillion templates (ok 168 – almost a zillion), nicely designed even though space inefficient and has many of the same support of OS X features as GarageSale. The only reason I didn’t jump on this app was that the license was more expensive and allowed for use on only one computer.
Pros
- 168 Templates – auto download and install
- Complete interface with eBay
- Excellent interface with OSX/iTunes technologies
- Supports Drag & Drop of pictures
- Supports Drag & Drop of text
- Supports iPhoto
Cons
- Templates well designed but they don’t relate well to categories and do not seem to shift up based on amount of text. Take up too much space.
- No HTML list support
- No tooltips
- No contextual menus
- No cost estimate for auction
- No highlight of additional cost items
- No support for Search Description
Price
$39.99 for use on 1 computer. Also allows for 3 auctions on eBay (I think there is some competition going on…)
Sold to that man in the plaid jacket! And I bet with any one of these apps, you can do more selling online. Got an online auction story to tell? Let us hear it. Where’s the furthest you’ve shipped something? The largest item? Most expensive thing? Inquiring minds want to know.