Good morning!

I'm counting on you all to let me know which sites allow importing auctions from Yahoo. Preferably free listing sites, of course!

IOFFER DOES.
you can import your feedback as well.

Thank you Original!! That one I already knew about and I'm already there!! ) Do you know of any others?

bidville does, but that site is for all purposes dead.
no sense wasting time there.

The only importer I can find at bidville is a CSV importer. Is that the only one? Most of the sites I'm finding that do allow it, only allow it from ebay. I have the ones that I would like to transfer at Yahoo, not ebay. Any other ideas??

not really.
the other sites just don't have enough action to bother with.
rather than spreading my self all over the place, i just do ioffer, although i did leave about 130 auctions up at bidville, there has been no action whatsoever.
same items on ioffer have sold.
i currently have have 647 auctions at ioffer, and most of them have had several hits / views.
also, i am making good sales at ioffer.
over $1,000. last week alone.
for me, i see no reason to waste time on the smaller sites. they don't seem to be doing anything, but ioffer continues to grow daily.
in my opinion, ioffer is the strongest contender in the ebay alternative options.
spreading yourself all over the place limits your potential customer viewing.
generally, if a potential buyer clicks on one of your auctions, they will check your other listings. having them all in one place, you are more liable to sell multiple items to a single buyer. they don't have time, or the inclination to jump from site to site.
it is time consuming, and, to be truthful... for the most part lpeople today azy. that is why the internet is so successful...you can poke your finger at a keyboard button and buy, and get it delivered.
virtually no effort involved. you don't have to go outside...get in the car...stop and get gas...stop 2 minutes after you leave the gas station again because junior has to pee.. fight with traffic...find a parking place...walk inside the store... deal with little susie's crying fit because she can't have the new crack-head barbie... stand in line at the checkout....argue with the cashier because it rang up wrong... go back to the car...find it has been stolen... call the police... make a report... wait for a cab in the rain since the weather changed since you went into the mall... ride home in a dirty smelly cab that has some mysterious white sticky stuff on the seat... deal with an irate cabbie as you find out you have no cash, so you whip out your mastercard and find out the only card he takes is visa, so you dig for your visa...only to find out the clerk at the store failed to return your visa card...go confront your spouse with the situation...get yelled at about your idiocy... and finally...after all cools down, you go to put your new purchase away only to discover the clerk gave you the wrong bag!
often times the word lazy is misrepresented as "convenience". that is why we shop online.
that way, instead having to go through all of the above scenario, we can shop online at ebay, get screwed by an unscrupulous seller, get suspended from ebay for complaining, have your account frozen by paypal for disputing the charge, and sit and worry and whine about how disastrous our lives are.
remember when we were all indoctrinated about the future...computers will simplify everyones lives... BULL SNOT!
when there used to be REAL cash registers, and people could actually count out change, a store error could immediately be corrected. none of this crap of "we have to give a store credit on a gift card". this way, they have your money, make interst and count on you losing the card, or forgetting you have it.
anyway... i am starting to climb on a soap box...so... i will close by saying, pick a site... any site... just make sure it is a site with traffic now...which is when you need money... not if and when the site takes off.. and concentrate on doing your part to build repeat business.
it is easier to keep track of, you look more serios, honest, professional, and on top of things if you have a large amount of items in one place, than being scattered all over. it is called organization.

Wow!! Original, it sounds like I hit a nerve!! Didn't mean to.......

Anybody else have any ideas about importing from Yahoo on any of the smaller sites??

oh, noooooo...
it wasn't meant that way.
the story part is just meant as some comic relief.
but... what i'm saying is, i don't think spreading out all over the place is as sound of a business practice as picking one location, and sticking to that.
one alternative idea is, since ioffer is a SALE site, not an auction site. and you have the ability to decline or accept an offer,a good plan would be to have that a a site, and list on an alternative auction site.
if an item sells at auction, just delete the item from ioffer.

I do understand what you're saying, original, I just still have some things I want to try, okay? I do have a retail website already. Click on the link that just says 'The Knick Knack Shelf' to see it. Thanks for your insights, though. They have helped.

And just fyi....Bidville does NOT allow import from Yahoo.



teresa, do you have your Yahoo auctions saved in either Excel or the Yahoo Seller Manager?

If so, you can pretty much pick your spot.

Let me know if you're interested.

I'm taking one spreadsheet of my products & loading it to eBay, Bidville, Yahoo, OA, etc & on down the line. I'll put stuff up on ioffer for the sake of getting frustrated. I see alot of traffic there, but those people want to make $3.00 offers on $45 worth of merchandise & want you to include shipping too. DOH

I list at quite a few sites at once, when I'm not disillusioned with them. LMAO!

ttyl,
sylvia
angelsolutions

Hi Angel!

I know exactly what you mean about the disillusionment!! When I list at Ioffer I don't click the 'don't know how much I want, make me an offer' button, nor do I click the 'price firm' button. So far I've only received one offer for about 15 dollars less than asking and I counter-offered with ten less and they accepted, so I was happy with that. Most of my stuff is a little higher-priced so it works out in the end. I've been listing at different sites all summer and these last three sales in the last month, (all at Ioffer), were my first sales since last spring. So far, I'm really liking it! It's sure strange, though, how some sites work so much better for some people. I just need to find a couple more that work for me!

Almost forgot! I did try to use Yahoo manager a while back and it took it two days to list my items, so I haven't messed with it since. So all of my listings are done right on the site. I've been really avoiding the spreadsheet thing, but I may have to bite the bullet and do it.

in defense of the above statement pertaining to ioffer, i have been getting sales at the price listed.
in the last week i have sold five vintage car titles for the price i have listed. these range in price from $100.00 to $300.00 each.
also, several videos and dvd's.
i am sure some people have been lowballed, but, not all.
there are buyers out there willing to step up and pay the price if you have an item they want, or need.

The only reason I use a spreadsheet is that I can sort it, make columns for the description, title, price, image url AND where I have the item listed. heh

I make a mail merge thingie with Word when I list at a one at a time site. My html template is the "form letter" and I merge it with a table I copy/paste into another word document & trash it when I'm done with it.

But most of the time, I just copy it into a format that I can import to AuctionTamer or the Bidville Express Loader, etc. Hence, one spreadsheet = my inventory...PLUS the source of listings for many sites.


Sure wish I could figure out a way to increase the # of text characters MS Access allows in one field, as 255 chars is not enough for some of my descriptions. Access is much easier to use the way I want to keep my inventory...in a database style.

sylvia
angelsolutions

You are miles beyond me, I'm afraid!

As a slightly OT comment on this thread, for anyone that doesn't have M$ Office (or needs a newer version) and needs a program to make a Word type and Excel type doc, look at OpenOffice.org.

That is both the name of the program and the web site. OpenOffice.org is a M$ Office alt program that will open M$ files and for me is a bit easier to use. It is from the open source people and is FREE. It is also based on the Sun Systems' Star Office and is partly supported by Sun.

There are good forums to help you with any problems too.

Carol