Listing Services for eBay

This weekend there was a big kerfuffle in the Auctiva camp, as several of their servers were hacked and had malware installed that also was affecting their images. Google posted the Red Screen of Death (reporting them as being dangerous) when you tried to log in or even supersize and image that was hosted on their website, which was a big pita for sellers, as I am sure it drove some customers away. They got it all worked out by this morning, but it was a nasty time all around, with some reports of people being infected by Trojans during the initial stages.

The worst part was this happened on the weekend, as Sunday is a big listing day for a lot of types of items, especially tobacciana, which I have been working a lot with of late. I was completely unable to get things listed, which irked me no end.

I have since been looking at other listing services, including Vendio and InkFrog, but am not sure I'll make the switch. Vendio is 'way expensive, and InkFrog, even though they are a paying service, doesn't have some of the things I like about Auctiva.

I am in conversations with one of the tech guys at InkFrog now to see if they'll consider some add-ons that will do what I need to have done, we'll see how that goes. But I'm not going to take down and relist some 750+ listings unless I have a really good viable alternative, and I haven't quite found one yet.

I don't give a damn about cutesie templates, I want clean, simple, uncluttered pages. I want to be able to list my item description, TOS (terms of sale) including payment and shipping terms, I want to be able to give the usual warning about customs fees for my overseas customers, and I want to be able to include my grading system so there are no questions about how I grade my items. Sounds simple, but can be anything but.

I have no desire to mess with FTPing files. A regular old Java uploader is fine with me. I don't have any desire to have to format my info with HTML myself, my god, that went away years ago (although I did do that back in my early years on eBay in the late 90s.) I want WYSIWYG formatting, multiple images (close up ones!), adjustable layouts, and good customer support. I'd even be willing to pay Auctiva for same if they got their tech support act together. Maybe if they started charging a small fee they could hire some more IT guys? Just a thought.

Well, back to work, have lots of items to list to catch up now. Many sales to you all!