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easy, cheap software to create eBay auctions from Excel fields?

lsicalsica Posts: 1,621 ✭✭✭✭
Looking for some easy, cheap software to create eBay auctions from Excel fields. Since my auctions are all formatted pretty much the same, I'm really just looking for something that will replace a few fields into an already existing eBay template.

Is there such a thing?

Philately will get you nowhere....

Comments

  • Can you be less specific?
  • BochimanBochiman Posts: 25,556 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I don't think so as you don't control the ebay page to have the data pulled from an XLS.

    I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment

  • flaminioflaminio Posts: 5,664 ✭✭✭
    Not directly, but if you dump your Excel file to a CSV, you can import it into Turbo Lister and list eBay auctions with that.

    Here's the page that says how to do it.

    Note that I've never done this myself, so I have no idea how well it works.
  • dbldie55dbldie55 Posts: 7,741 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>Not directly, but if you dump your Excel file to a CSV, you can import it into Turbo Lister and list eBay auctions with that.

    Here's the page that says how to do it.

    Note that I've never done this myself, so I have no idea how well it works. >>



    That is the way we do it.
    Collector and Researcher of Liberty Head Nickels. ANA LM-6053
  • I use auctiva its free to use, and they will host your images if you want.


    AL
  • lsicalsica Posts: 1,621 ✭✭✭✭
    I played a little bit with turbo-listers csv import capabilities, and I decided to not use it (after accidently creating an auction on eBay and having to cancel it, oh well only out a 75 cent listing fee)... because

    1) I have a spreadsheet/word doc/mail merge combination that auto-generates image file names, description html, and titles < 55 characters long
    2) You still have to manually select a category - meaning you still have to do some manual intervention
    3) You can't add a start time in your import file - meaning you still have to do some manual intervention
    4) You can't see every option in your auction in any sort of preview mode in the program, only some of them - you need to add the auction to eBay before you can see it

    Maybe there is a way to automate these tasks in turbo lister that I haven't discovered. But, since all I have to do now is cut and paste a few fields (category, title, description, start time, duration, mininum bid, reserve, buy-it-now) into a template I already have saved on eBay, it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

    Thanks to everyone for their suggestions
    Philately will get you nowhere....
  • it says you can import the category id.
  • lsicalsica Posts: 1,621 ✭✭✭✭


    << <i>it says you can import the category id. >>



    yeah but you still have to choose it from the list and enter it. And there's also no way to import the "additional information" from the csv file.
    Philately will get you nowhere....
  • seateddimeseateddime Posts: 6,180 ✭✭✭


    << <i>

    << <i>Not directly, but if you dump your Excel file to a CSV, you can import it into Turbo Lister and list eBay auctions with that.

    Here's the page that says how to do it.

    Note that I've never done this myself, so I have no idea how well it works. >>



    That is the way we do it. >>



    I agree
    I seldom check PM's but do check emails often jason@seated.org

    Buying top quality Seated Dimes in Gem BU and Proof.

    Buying great coins - monster eye appeal only.
  • lsicalsica Posts: 1,621 ✭✭✭✭
    An update on this (for those who may want to do anything similar)

    1) A bit of spreadsheet design solved the auto-category selection issue (yeah I know it could've been done with a macro, but I don't know VBA). Since I store date, denomination, and series seperately in my spreadsheet data, it wasn't bad at all to do.

    2) The page listed at http://pages.ebay.com/turbo_lister/csv.html doesn't seem to work for me for importation into Turbo Lister 2. Maybe that's from an old version? Anyway, I solved that issue by creating a basic auction template in Turbo Lister 2, exporting that to CSV, and using the fields there.

    3) Still no way to automatically program start times into the obvious CSV fields. But I can live without that, it isn't too bad to manually add a time to each entry (and the program does have an "automatically spread auctions X minutes apart" option making that easier). There's a long binary field in the Turbo Lister 2 CSV called "Attributes", probably that information is hashed into there someway.

    4) The "additional information" fields are also somewhere in that "Attribute" field. But it seems to me that having information there as opposed to the auction "description" doesn't make it come up in any more searches. So, simply, I don't use it.

    5) I've learned to live with TL 2's preview function. It isn't WYSIWYG, but it shows all the fields.


    I take the sample CSV, open it up in MS Word, make it into a Mail Merge doc by adding the proper fields from my spreadsheet. Then I run the merge, and store the output file as a text document with a CSV extention. Finally, upload that into TL2. Seems to work fine.

    Philately will get you nowhere....

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