eBay Notification Software - Beta Invites For PSA Board Members

gstarling · October 10, 2011 2:16AM

I was really frustrated when I missed an auction for a card that never comes up on eBay. It was listed as a BIN, and it was snapped up well before I ever got my daily eBay notification (I only found it through a completed listing search).

I looked around, but couldn't find a solution to notify me quicker so this is where running a software dev shop has its perks.

My team has created a site where you can get an email or a text message whenever an item is listed that matches your criteria. It polls every 5 minutes so it should be a huge advantage. I'm not sure if we're ever going to sell it or not, but we do need some testers and I thought of you guys.

Here is an invite that will let you have up to 5 searches saved for free:
Earlybird HQ

This will always be free even if we go to a pay model in the future for those of you who want to jump on and help us beta test this.

Beta testing means there will be some bugs, and we hope you'll give us feedback as to what you like and don't like. Feel free to reply to this thread or PM me if you have any problems or suggestions.

bhelser · October 10, 2011 3:28AM

cool,. just signed up - will see how it goes

cpamike · October 10, 2011 3:29AM

I signed up and I'll let you know how it works.

Quick question, how do you add additional searches as I was only able to add one search?

Thanks.

dontippet · October 10, 2011 3:33AM

I signed up, but could only do one search. How do I do five of them?

cadets68 · October 10, 2011 3:38AM

Just signed up and saved my first search

Thanks

Shawn

gstarling · October 10, 2011 4:04AM

That link should have got you in for 5. I'll look at it. One of the bugs I guess. I'll let you guys know as soon as it's fixed.

gstarling · October 10, 2011 5:32AM

Everyone is upgraded to 5 searches who already signed up, and all new people who sign in the link in the first post will get 5 searches by default now. I apologize for the problems.

Do you guys think this is a decent idea?

bking · October 10, 2011 5:40AM

OK, a couple of quick questions:

1. Any reason why the text fields don't show up as boxes? I stared at it for two minutes thinking it wasn't ready for me to enter data before I just went ahead and tried.
2. It wasn't real clear at first that the email address and pasword were going to be used for login. I actually thought for a minute that you were after my EMAIL password.

thunderdan · October 10, 2011 5:44AM

I have a sincere question.

With many of the BINs being wildly overpriced on eBay, I've found very, very few BINs where the price is so attractive that the item gets purchased within 24 hours. I get my saved search email notification almost always within 24 hours. So, this would be a useful service to compensate for eBay's delay assuming there were a lot of good BIN deals; however, I just don't see many BIN deals that get snapped up within 24 hours.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

gstarling · October 10, 2011 7:18AM

<< OK, a couple of quick questions:

1. Any reason why the text fields don't show up as boxes? I stared at it for two minutes thinking it wasn't ready for me to enter data before I just went ahead and tried.
2. It wasn't real clear at first that the email address and pasword were going to be used for login. I actually thought for a minute that you were after my EMAIL password. >>

Good feedback. I'll take it to the team, and hopefully, we can get it updated by the end of this week (this is getting fit in between "real" work).

gstarling · October 10, 2011 7:26AM

<< I have a sincere question.

With many of the BINs being wildly overpriced on eBay, I've found very, very few BINs where the price is so attractive that the item gets purchased within 24 hours. I get my saved search email notification almost always within 24 hours. So, this would be a useful service to compensate for eBay's delay assuming there were a lot of good BIN deals; however, I just don't see many BIN deals that get snapped up within 24 hours.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

>>

For me, a few of the things I look for are not expensive, but are rare. For instance, I am building a fairly low priced, but unusual set. The commons are typically listed with a BIN of $15-$30 in PSA 10. These cards show up so rarely that if I don't grab them, one of the 3 other people building the set will before I get my eBay alert. In this case, sellers don't realize the bidding war they are missing.

I imagine there are countless examples of items that if listed, people would grab. That's why we have price parameters on the site. If a card pops up with a BIN within your price range, you have a chance to grab it before everyone else.

My dad does vintage cars and he's in the same boat with rare original parts. It's not the price as much as the fact certain items almost never show up to buy period. Coins, paintings, collectibles, precious metals etc. I was frustrated I couldn't find a service to pay for that allowed me to have the 1st shot to either buy or turn it down. I'm just in a lucky enough spot where I had a team of people that were able to help me solve my problem. Whether or not we ever make a dime, the team learned a lot about dealing with APIs and text messaging. Two benefits we are already employing in other aspects of our core business.

pauldrolkees · October 10, 2011 7:29AM

interesting, you running on IIS/7.5 with ASP.NET

cpamike · October 10, 2011 7:47AM

Fix is in. I've added my other four searches. Thanks.

<< 1. Any reason why the text fields don't show up as boxes? I stared at it for two minutes thinking it wasn't ready for me to enter data before I just went ahead and tried. >>

I agree with this comment in that the text fields were white on the white background so it made it hard to realize where to enter the logon information. I would think a different color background or text field box would do the trick.

The test search feature seems to work very well.

gstarling · October 10, 2011 8:05AM

<< interesting, you running on IIS/7.5 with ASP.NET >>

Yes, we are. Why do you find that interesting?

thunderdan · October 10, 2011 8:46AM

<< 

<< I have a sincere question.

With many of the BINs being wildly overpriced on eBay, I've found very, very few BINs where the price is so attractive that the item gets purchased within 24 hours. I get my saved search email notification almost always within 24 hours. So, this would be a useful service to compensate for eBay's delay assuming there were a lot of good BIN deals; however, I just don't see many BIN deals that get snapped up within 24 hours.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.

>>

For me, a few of the things I look for are not expensive, but are rare. For instance, I am building a fairly low priced, but unusual set. The commons are typically listed with a BIN of $15-$30 in PSA 10. These cards show up so rarely that if I don't grab them, one of the 3 other people building the set will before I get my eBay alert. In this case, sellers don't realize the bidding war they are missing.

I imagine there are countless examples of items that if listed, people would grab. That's why we have price parameters on the site. If a card pops up with a BIN within your price range, you have a chance to grab it before everyone else.

My dad does vintage cars and he's in the same boat with rare original parts. It's not the price as much as the fact certain items almost never show up to buy period. Coins, paintings, collectibles, precious metals etc. I was frustrated I couldn't find a service to pay for that allowed me to have the 1st shot to either buy or turn it down. I'm just in a lucky enough spot where I had a team of people that were able to help me solve my problem. Whether or not we ever make a dime, the team learned a lot about dealing with APIs and text messaging. Two benefits we are already employing in other aspects of our core business. >>

Fair enough. That hasn't been my experience with BINs on eBay at all, but sounds like it has been yours. I buy relatively rare cards that don't show up often on eBay. When they do show up as BIN, they are priced high enough where I have never lost out on one due to it selling before I get a notification from my eBay saved search. BINs are so cheap these days, that the vast majority of sellers, again in my experience searching for vintage cards start their initial BINs quite high. I would love to see what % of vintage card BINs sell within 24 hours. I would imagine this to be an extremely low number, likely < 1-2%.

That said, I hope it is useful for others. I'm not trying to shoot down your idea, because I love it when people experiment with different technologies to make a consumer's life easier. I just haven't experienced the problem on eBay that this is trying to solve.

Best of luck with it. I hope it goes well for you...

gstarling · October 11, 2011 12:10AM

We modified the fields to be darker and added some explanation that your email is your login. Thanks for the feedback.

We've had 20 people sign up through this site so any feedback is greatly appreciated. I hope you all find it useful.

1acid · October 11, 2011 12:38AM

Signed up, now youve officailly one international...

Will give it a try, and send any ffeedback ur way...

peace

DavidPuddy · October 13, 2011 12:39AM

Greg, PM sent.

cpamike · October 13, 2011 1:15AM

Just wanted to let you know I've received no email notifications yet while getting my usually eBay emails. Anyone else not receiving email notifications from the site yet?

DavidPuddy · October 13, 2011 1:46AM

<< Just wanted to let you know I've received no email notifications yet while getting my usually eBay emails. Anyone else not receiving email notifications from the site yet? >>

I set it up for text messages, but have yet to receive one.

I'm sure Greg will work out the bugs.

mfreeman · October 13, 2011 1:50AM

Awesome, that's a great idea! Will give it a shot.

bking · October 13, 2011 4:22AM

Yeah, I haven't gotten any alerts either.

Nascar360 · October 13, 2011 4:22AM

No e-mail or Text's yet.

DavidPuddy · October 22, 2011 12:07AM

I started to receive text messages last night.

Actually bought 1 item because of it.

Good job Greg!

gstarling · October 22, 2011 12:31AM

I apologize for the problems early. We had a glitch where when a user deleted, anyone below them in the database stopped receiving notifications.

This has been fixed. Thank you so much for the feedback and trying this out. I hope it becomes something you all use, and anything I can do to make it better, please let me know.

vladguerrero · October 22, 2011 12:55AM

yeah, nothing for me yet (emails)

scashaggy · October 22, 2011 1:01AM

Just signed up.

jbox · October 22, 2011 1:16AM

I'm in. This could be helpful for sure.

jbox

eBay Notification Software - Beta Invites For PSA Board Members

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