Is Ebay discontinuing Turbo Lister?

[canuckcoin]

Is Ebay discontinuing Turbo Lister? Just heard this on a LinkedIn Discussion. Is it true?

[pjcdn2005]

Yes it's true.  I'm not sure when...February perhaps?

[recped]

TL discontinued in June 2017

"most of the functionality" to be added to the Seller Hub (they claim). Of course we don't even have the Seller Hub here yet.

I suggest you look at alternatives, I recommend SixBit, not free but worth every penny.

https://www.sixbitsoftware.com/clients/aff.php?aff=242

They have a special promo running for TL users

[cumos55]

TL died for me in August 2015.....  Worked with people at eBay to determine why.....Could not figure out why..... 

Just could not perform an update on TL....

Moved to Auctiva   and will never look back.

Auctiva is easy to use.... once templates were set up.....

TL was a difficult option  with  many corners to work around.

Been listing many new listings on Auctiva and things are adding to very good sales ... specifically with the new listings.....

In retrospect  the loss of TL was a view of things to come in 2017

[Anonymous]

Yes!!  I sure hope so!!  It is just not worth it and hope that eBay will not create a new one!!

[towertreasuretrove]

Turbo Lister is an 'old friend' to me...lol...But good to find out there may be better options out there...

[diracdelta52]

the "better options" cost big bucks...especially if you have lots of items and several eBay accounts!

[recped]

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@diracdelta52 wrote:

the "better options" cost big bucks...especially if you have lots of items and several eBay accounts!

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What do you consider to be "big bucks"? I have the mid-level SixBit edition which is $35/month. If I can avoid one order mix up, pricing error, or out of stock while saving a number of hours and never having to deal with the limitations and glitches of thre eBay site it's well worth it.

If you are willing to learn you can do it all for free by using File Exchange and a spreadsheet.

[cumos55]

For me it is Auctiva  at $14.99 US each month.

Auctiva works for me in ways TL  could never.

And... Another bit of information.... TL  was not meant to be used with more than about 1500 to 2000 listings.

I kept all of my old templates .....  and I had over 4,000 listings templates on TL......  and with eBay that was a  .....  No... No... No...

and  then eBay said that is why TL died for me....

Good-bye TL

[readinglady10]

I for one like Turbo Lister.  In fact I used it when it was called Mr. Lister.   Have had problems at times but never anything very serious.   As for items.  Between templates and actual items for sale,  I have well over 5200 listings.

I have used it for so long that I can move items from US dollar to Canadian dollars and from one user name to another with out a lot of trouble.  

Normally through the summer I pretty much shut things down for selling.   I do however on a weekly basis keep adding new items,  so that I can start with a big bang come fall.

With sixbits or Auctiva and their monthly fees,   one would want to continue selling all summer long.  

They say you get what you pay for but for me I feel that Turbo Lister  was a major asset to me and the cost was nothing

[skylarstuff]

The limits of TL also depended on the horsepower of the computer and ram used.  I have well over 20,000 listings sorted in various fixed & auction folders for Canada and the USA.  I could upload over 5,000 at a time.  I also could batch edit thousands of listings to change the price on retail or shipping in minutes.  For those who knew how to use it, it will be missed.  Looks like I am about to learn file exchange to see how that works.  I know of SixBit & Wonder Lister but don't really want to spend the money just for a listing tool.

But maybe that might change...........I was hopefully that some Ebay employees might have joined together and purchased the rights to TL.........thats a program I would spend some money on.

[ricarmic]

I was a big Turboslister (also since "Mr Lister") fan since it was introduced!

However in the last year or so, I began using "sell similar" because of the belief that that generates more views than sending them in through Turbolister.

I've done that to the point over the last year that I haven't used Turbolister in many months.

The only thing I'm missing is batching (auction) items to all start (and end) at the same time, but one can do that other ways now, and I was considering not bothering with it anyway if and when I ever run auctions again.

Because of the way I "reuse" listings, sell similaring items that have sold isn't costing me any more time to maintain my "master copies" than it did when I accomplished it in Turbolister.

Looks like I was lucky in terms of timing!!

[rose-dee]

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@canuckcoin wrote:

Is Ebay discontinuing Turbo Lister? Just heard this on a LinkedIn Discussion. Is it true?

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Yes, Turbo Lister will be discontinued in mid-2017, so anyone using it currently should probably start preparing and/or finding alternatives.  This was discussed at this week's Board Session -- see post #34(I think): 

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/November-16th-2016-Weekly-Session/td-p/357108/page/2

I really don't think templates can take the place of a permanent listing storage facility, despite Raphael's suggestion.  I've used Auctiva for years and love it because it's always worked seamlessly with eBay.  It allows me to keep years' worth of saved, sold and ended listings, as well as all the pictures I've ever needed, and I can work on listings off-eBay until I'm happy with them, then bulk-upload to eBay (or schedule a later time -- at no cost, unlike eBay). 

Because I have a rotating catalogue of GTC sewing patterns that I reprint and relist when they sell out, I can upload those listings from Auctiva in small batches as required, along with a few new listings each month.  So I've never had to pay more than the basic $2.95/month for all the Auctiva services I use (you can upload 15 listings per month for free to eBay).  

All in all, I've always felt it was money well spent.  If you need a much larger Auctiva listing capability each month, you can get quite a lot for the $14.95/month fee.  I don't know exactly what that number is off hand, but 'cumos' would probably be able to say. 

[rose-dee]

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@ricarmic wrote:

Because of the way I "reuse" listings, sell similaring items that have sold isn't costing me any more time to maintain my "master copies" than it did when I accomplished it in Turbolister. 

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How do you avoid losing the occasional sold listing you might want to use again if those drop off the back end on eBay?  

I tried doing this (using Sell Similar, taking old listings to make new ones) as an experiment for a while, but found that it was very frustrating when a key listing I wanted to use that was in the Sold batch timed out and got deleted by eBay.  I started trying to keep them perpetually "alive" in Frankenstein-like fashion by creating drafts or templates out of useful bits and pieces, but then some of the drafts dropped off my list before I got back to them.  I ended up having to keep a watch on two lists -- beyond annoying.   

I finally decided that trying to keep track of my old listings to make sure they didn't disappear before I could clone them wasn't worth the effort, and went back to using Auctiva exclusively.  I only had a couple of hundred listings to manipulate.  I couldn't imagine having to keep track of thousands of listings this way, I'd be demented after a month or two!

[ricarmic]

Hi Rose!

Well other things are also happening in my world, I think you've seen my "new" and very very much abridged wordings.

Here's an example of one of the abridged description wordings:

A topical collector generates these from millions of stamps they sort every year, often including some nice postally used!
As with any mixed group there may be light duplication, & some mixed condition
The pictures are the ACTUAL stamps in this lot!
APS, CSDA, RPSC, & BNAPS member

I keep masters of the base wordings in a draft email message for situations like that. There are only about 25 of them, and given they're so short if a new one shows up it is trivial to adjust...

[diracdelta52]

"What do you consider to be "big bucks"? I have the mid-level SixBit edition which is $35/month. If I can avoid one order mix up, pricing error, or out of stock while saving a number of hours and never having to deal with the limitations and glitches of thre eBay site it's well worth it."

Turbolister is free and works well. I can save listings on my computer. They can be moved form my account to my hudband's to my son's and daugfhter's according to listing sales etc In all we have about 15,000 listings that get put up on 6 different accounts at different times i. Price that out and it is big bucks considering they are relatively low value listings in collectibles categories, TL is free and works even if it is klunky. If no economical replacement comes we will stop selling.

[recped]

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@diracdelta52 wrote:

"What do you consider to be "big bucks"? I have the mid-level SixBit edition which is $35/month. If I can avoid one order mix up, pricing error, or out of stock while saving a number of hours and never having to deal with the limitations and glitches of thre eBay site it's well worth it."

Turbolister is free and works well. I can save listings on my computer. They can be moved form my account to my hudband's to my son's and daugfhter's according to listing sales etc In all we have about 15,000 listings that get put up on 6 different accounts at different times i. Price that out and it is big bucks considering they are relatively low value listings in collectibles categories, TL is free and works even if it is klunky. If no economical replacement comes we will stop selling.

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Yeah we all know TL is (was) free.

You didn't define "big bucks" as I asked, can you define "economical"?

[skylarstuff]

recped I wanted to ask you a few questions.  I was told that sixbit is very close in design to TL.....does it look similar.

Also in sixbit can one end say a thousand auctions at once, or change the price on say a couple of thousand listings.  Also can you bulk list a few thousand.  Right now they have a free trial as well as a discount until June 2017

[diracdelta52]

$20 per month if usable for unlimited listings on multiple accounts would be OK.  $35 for a relatively small number and likely on one account is too much for me. We pay enough in fvf fees. Bay should provide the tools.

[recped]

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@diracdelta52 wrote:

$20 per month if usable for unlimited listings on multiple accounts would be OK.  $35 for a relatively small number and likely on one account is too much for me. We pay enough in fvf fees. Bay should provide the tools.

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eBay offers File Exchange, it's free to use.

The $35 SixBit package is 5 seller accounts, it's much more than just a lister, full order management, sales analysis and inventory control. There are no additional per listing or percentage fees like the heavyweights such as Channel Advisor.

Lots of automation features in the more expensive edition plus Amazon and Etsy integration.