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Ned
(newbie)
04/17/07 04:42 PM
AW2K to run an e-store?  

AW2K is auction management software.

I'm moving toward a fixed price, stock item retail operation and I'm beginning to wonder if I should be looking at other software for the purpose. This is no dissatisfaction with AW, just the realization that I'm headed in a different direction.

Looks to me as if I could run a bunch of BIN listings on eBay using AW without a problem, but at some point I'd want a shopping cart, I think.

On the buying side, AW lets me create inventory, even allows an item to be marked "stock" and to record its cost. AW doesn't allow me to keep a record of my changing cost of goods. For instance, last time I bought a hundred 213B Widgets, they cost me $0.93 a piece, but the order I just placed I'll be paying $0.91 for them. If I use the single field for Item Cost to look at how my sales of widgets worked out at the end of the year, I'll be pretending that the latest cost for widgets applies to all my previous widget purchases as well. Perhaps the problem I've just described should be handled in the accounting program instead.

If I need other software to run the e-store, then it would be great if that software didn't do everything backwards from AW2K--except of course where it had to. Is anyone running both AW2K and some e-commerce software? Particularly, any experiences with osCommerce, which is what I'll probably use unless there's a strong reason not to?

All responses are appreciated. The very best responses are to the questions I should have asked, but didn't know enough to.

Ned




bluepennylady
(old hand)
04/17/07 07:07 PM
Re: AW2K to run an e-store? new [re: Ned]  

Ned,

Some of my seller friends have incorporated the Paypal shopping cart on their website. But they still use their Auction management software to keep track of Inventory etc. Even create Invoices for the buyers and finalize the invoicing using AW2K.

Do you have an eBay store yet?? If you do not, I would strongly suggest you open one, then use Google Base Store connector to upload your items to Google Base,(after opening a Google account). In conjunction with the Google base upload, then list some of your items at Google base. Google base checkout is free until the end of the year as well as submitting listings. I can tell you there is a significant upswing in successfully ending auctions after uploading Auctions to Google base.

I use AW2K to manage the items I have for sale on Google base even though AW2K will not post the listings to Google base. I created a fake Auction profile for Google base, create auction lots for the items I am listing on Google base, Copy and paste the description, save the AW2K image to a file and upload the image from AW2K to the Google base.

You should make use of all the free stuff you can right now until you become established and know precisely what you want to do. Even opening an ecrater store isn't a bad idea. I have sold quite a bit of stuff from my ecrater store. And I do the same thing. I use AW2K to manage the listings, INvoice the buyer's after they have placed an order. Works really well.

As far as fluctuating prices, I use the consignor field for stocks/vendors instead of actual consignors. When we buy an Inventory, say we buy out a Ace hardware, I'll create an "Ace hardware" consignor. And assign the cost factors etc. Then I can tell exactly how much money the particular stock has made.

If we buy another Ace Hardware later, I create a second Ace hardware consignor differeniated by the date we bought it or something similiar. So I can tell exactly what was paid and how much money it made.

I guess I said all that it say, you might consider creating different consignors for different vendors, If the cost varies on the second set of 1000 green widgets, create a New Inventory item, assign the consignor and use the new Item cost. Does that make sense??

Just a thought or two.

Judy/blue




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