Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

This thing apparently saves me $0.10. But it adds pile of trouble on top of those already on eBay ...

I noticed it automatically selects Sellathon counter. I switch to no counter. Next time I edit the title or price or something else, I see it turns sellathon counter back on. Not that I don't consider Sellathon counter useful, it's just I so much hate pushy salesman. They got me ... Sellathon is much more useful than Auctiva.

Another problem ... I noticed all of the sudden I have 20 auctions in CAD although I specifically made sure they were in USD. So Auctiva decided my listings should be in CAD.
Message 1 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Roman,

Your problem lies with your Auctiva account settings.

We list in USD, don't show a counter and also got rid of the scrolling banner, all for a cleaner look.

In your global settings just choose "USD", "No Counter" and whatever else you would like.

Free scheduling is also a great bonus as we schedule the week's auctions on Monday and don't have to think about until the following week.

Cheers
Bernie
Message 2 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Thanks Bernie.

I fixed the problem with changing to CAD by going to account settings, switching default currency to CAD, saving, then switching back to USD. Not consciously just looking for possible reason and it does not do it anymore.

I signed up for their Sellathon Enterprise. I remember from my trial couple months ago that it was fairly useful and I need the highest level for the amount of listings. Only bastards charged me twice, first time when I signed up with Advanced package, then when upgrading 2 minutes later instead of difference, they charged the whole amount again.

And the reason they are pushing it so much is that they bought Sellathon in 2007.

The only problem I have now is how to apply the counter to all my listings because eBay refuses to add the code to the description in bulk mode with error "Please shorten your description" and I refuse to edit 800 listings manually 🙂

I spent some time playing a bit with Vendio counters, the PRO version costs only $3/m and seems to have most of functionality of Sellathon but had no luck yet to bulk apply it to my listings yet, it pretended to do something but did not apply the counters.
Message 3 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Yes on the Sellathon counters. It is a medium for Auctiva to generate "pay-per-click" revenue. Fair enough, methinks.

I do not believe the eBay counters can be added in bulk. I looked into that last year and had to choose the Auctiva version as it was not possible to do so.

We completely removed counters at the turn of the year as we saw no need for them. One less distraction on the listings.

Cheers
Bernie
Message 4 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Make sure your PC accepts "cookies" or "whitelist" Auctiva.

I believe that merely changing your account settings to USD will not do the trick.

Any listings that previously were listed in CAD may need to be resaved in USD as the new settings (USD) need to be reapplied first. However, I am not absolutely sure of this.

You might have to bulk edit all listings (find and replace) by reapplying your global settings, template or master profile.

If that does not work, open a support ticket.

Bernie
Message 5 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Bernie,

my PC accepts cookies no problem, I never restricted them in the first place. These listings have been CAD before you remember I switched from CAD some to USD 2 weeks ago, so they were all edited from C$ to $ or created using "Create Similar" function.

I am pretty much done with Auctiva and on the look for another scheduling soft. There is two options for me - either use Blackthorne Pro (only $10 above SMP, which I already pay for - and includes it) or update my software to do scheduling, which would not be that hard considering all my store listings were done that way.

As for Auctiva - it's nice while it works. But eBay has enough problems on it's own to be dealing with some "Free" software I cannot even get the support for, because it's free. I posted several questions to Auctiva and they went unanswered. Screw them and their junk and now I mean it in no "South Park" way, but literally.

Roman
Message 6 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

LOL!

That's the downside of freeware. It works well for us but Blackthorne is supposed to really good from what I gather.

If you do go that route, please drop me a line to let me know how it compares to Auctiva.

Good luck!
Bernie
Message 7 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

I use Auctiva as well and really like it. I have never had a problem with what I use it for, as I find it's biggest benefit is creating pro looking listings with their free templates.
I create my listings with the templates that I like and as soon as they post to eBay, I go right in to the eBay listing and revise it, (fine tune it) by doing little things like getting rid of the Auctiva advertising clutter in the 3 places at the bottom, etc.

If it's free, it's for me!

Cheers,
AXE
Message 8 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

AXE, there is easy way to get rid of Auctiva clutter via CSS. If you have own hosting or image hosting that allows any files, not only images, create a MY.CSS file:

#EBdescription>br, #EBdescription>p, #EBdescription+table+hr { display: none }
#EBdescription>center, #EBdescription+table+hr+center { width:1px; height:1px; overflow:hidden }
#EBdescription>div[align="center"] { display:none }
#EBdescription>table[valign="top"] { display:none }

And add it to your template:



I still left them little "Create your brand ..." ad in my listings to be fair, but most of the clutter is gone.

And yes, as I said, while Auctiva works, it's all peachy. The s**t starts when it stops working, you have nowhere to go and you are loosing money. So I would say, don't rely on something that's free with your livelihood, if something happens you cannot even sue the bastards. Now I understand why my former employer was so reluctant to use open source libraries 🙂
Message 9 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

bestbranddeals
Community Member
How do change the position of scrolling gallery ? It always appends it at the top of listing. Is there any way to make it show that at the bottom of listing ?
Message 10 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Ok, I just wanted Auctive completely gone from my listings and will be just using eBay's upselling gallery on the bottom.

The way to do it via CSS (if you already have your own CSS in your listings) is like this:

#EBdescription>table { display:none}

How to change the position of scrolling gallery

It's an Auctiva global setting somewhere in your Account settings. Don't remember. Don't put it on the top, it's very annoying there.

Imagine going to shop and when you tell the salesperson what you need, he would pitch other products BEFORE showing you what you asked for. That would annoy me enough to send him to hell.
Message 11 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Bernie, check out my listings, I am doing the experiment with "less is better" and lean-ed them down to reduce the noise. My fancy header, floating chip, terms of sale, redundant title - all hidden now. Also got showing only one level of categories only, so most of my listings fit on 1/2 screen height entirely. Example: 220370482023.

I have been experimenting with number of auctions in the core, pricing, even flooding few categories wasting some $60 on that within 2 days. Seems that with the stuff I currently have the magic revenue number is around $4k/month and whatever I do it will hardly go up. Auctiva problem did not help either

Let's see what this will do with traffic
Message 12 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Wow, you have really gone bare-bones lol!

However, reality is that all the product info is there and quite easy to read.

Your shipping is either "free" or clearly stated - easy to understand.

Hopefully, you managed to program the listings so that automatic checkout is possible even if items are purchased that fall into different shipping categories.

I was able to do this when we charged incremental shipping but have not yet figured out how to combine "free" shipping with chargeable items.

You should probably change your insurance policy as you are liable for losses anyhow. Might as well put a good spin on it.

Bernie
Message 13 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

you have really gone bare-bones

It was not bare-bones long. Had to enable TOS section, although little shortened, because people started asking about combined shipping - this was not happening before 🙂
Message 14 of 15
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Auctiva, Auctiva, what a headache!

Yeah, I was wondering about that. Keep it positive, however.

Too many sellers use their TOS to RESTRICT buyers instead of ENHANCING their listings (i.e. "look how great we are and what we will do for you")

With 800+ sales/month on this account we are down to perhaps one or two inquiries/week after we really simplified shipping/combined shipping.

We actually get more inquiries about our "unusual" return policy 🙂

Bernie
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