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tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/07/09 01:16 AM
Please Don't Leave it Alone  

I've been using AW since its BETA days, and I must be pretty happy with it, cuz I'm still using it! And every chance I get, I sneak in a suggestion to those poor souls still using eBay's listing software that they give AW a try. But every now and then, I try to break out of my complacency and think like I'm new to the program and can see its faults more clearly. No program is perfect. I think AW is the best out there, but it could still be better. We have been asking for a number of enhancements for a long time now, and I don't recall seeing many of them incorporated in recent years. Lots of users would like to see Bonanzle added, and others crave a delayed-listing capability. Instead of focusing on the bigger wishes, I've compiled a list of smaller wishes I've had for a long time.

Even though I know my way around AW fairly well, there are still ways of doing things I'm not familiar with, so if any of these suggestions are already do-able, I hope someone will let me in on the secrets.


== Need to be able to run a Find Record by Category (with the weekly category updates from eBay, maybe this is impractical). When I have a buyer who is delaying payment to see if I list more of something, I need to be able to search my Off Line Lots for whatever that Category is. Let's say it's dolls or car prints. Searching on the word doll or car in Titles isn't very helpful, because (1) I may not have put those words in the titles (the categories cover those words), and (2) the Find engine is way too broad. It'll turn up everything with doll or car anywhere in a word (dollar; cart; scary).

And speaking of the Find engine......

Need to be able to tell AW to search Records "tight" vs "loose". I was looking for a Lot with Ace in the title. AW returned dozens of Lots, including those with face and lace and base in the titles. Searching on the word cat returns not only catalog, but even certificate and delicate! Waste of time.

Also, AW's Find engine "sees" punctuation -- tie-dye vs tie dye. If I could remember whether I'd added a hyphen, I probably wouldn't be needing to search around for the Lot.

== When we filter for Off Line, enable us to run a Find on what might be called List Count. We would type in a number and tell AW to show all Lots either above or below that List Count. That way, we could find things that have been relisted too many times or have been listed only once or twice.

== Enable us to show TWO Profiles at once. Would make it much easier to move things from auction to Store when selecting things to relist. And selecting All Profiles puts way too many offline items in the mix (mostly because several of my Profiles are not listing Profiles).

== Why do we still have Do Not Specify Shipping Costs, when eBay has for a long time been blocking listings with no shipping details indicated? Yeah, I know...this one's a quibble.

== Very few (any -- ??) fields in AW support drag and drop. I am constantly dragging text to and from digital post-it notes, and I would really like to be able to use drag and drop for AW fields rather than having to do the more cumbersome copy-paste.

== Allow the Record-Find window to remain on top when it reports "No Matching Records Were Found", so we don't have to keep hitting OK and reopening it when searching for several records.

== When there's a price in the Shipping Cost field, and then you change to Calculated Shipping, seems like that original shipping cost should disappear. The fact that it remains can cause confusion, especially when getting ready to contact a buyer.

== I have 10 Profiles, but only 4 of them are actually LISTING Profiles. In the Select-Auction-Lots-to-List window, it would be much better to be able to put checkmarks next to the Profiles we wish to list in than to have to UNCHECK those we don't want to list in (is there a setting for this I'm unaware of?). Another way to accomplish this would be to have a setting that tells AW we will never actually list anything in certain Profiles, so they don't even show up in the Auction-Lots-to-List window.

== When submitting queued Lots in multiple Profiles, it would be great if the lister could move on to the next Profile automatically (Or am I missing something here? Does everyone sit there and wait for AW to pop up and ask if you want to list in the next Profile? I put 90 seconds between my auction-style listings, so I might have to sit here for 15 or 20 min until it moves onto the next Profile).

== And something many of us have had on our wish lists for years and years: please add a column to Grid View for the Lot Titles.

== Dragging the scroll bars/buttons in places like the Store Category list and Grid View does not move the view -- does not move the list up and down in "real time", as it does with other programs. It just waits till you let go and then pops you to that location, so it's always just a guess how far to drag the button. And using the up/down arrows is VERY slow. Also, using the mouse scroll wheel doesn't move the list up and down -- the arrow/hourglass flickers, and eventually -- it's very slow -- AW "catches up", but you still just get popped somewhere -- you can't really control where that will be.

== When in the main Email window, there should be an option for having the Database Record Panel always showing.

== It would be very useful to be able to right-click on open email messages in the Window-List-Buttons column and select to close them.

== Would like to be able to run a Record:Find for all Lots having the word, say, "sheet music" in the titles, and then have a way to consolidate them all into a single Lot, with the sum of the listing fees and the items' costs automatically entered into those fields. All the Descriptions would be pasted, one above the other, into the Description window and could then be edited. There could be an option to bring in the old images, though most users would replace them with a new group photo. I don't know of any way to get a workable list of all of some type of item without having created a Profile specifically for them. And since we cannot do a Record:Find on a Lot's Category, that doesn't help either.

== When we are clicking through Lots (Page Up/Page Down), it would be very helpful to be able to see a thumbnail of the first auction image while we have any tabs open other than Description and Images.

Well, that's it for now. I hope the next update can incorporate some of these features.

Sue



tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/10/09 01:02 AM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Something else I'd like to see included (or maybe someone out there knows a way to do this):

Sum of costs for multi-Lot Invoices. It's tedious to have to go from the Invoice to each Lot (click the gavel icon) and add up all the costs when I'm entering data in my Sales records (Excel workbook). Would be great if AW could do this automatically.

Sue



bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/10/09 05:07 AM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

Reports can add all those costs up for you.

Let me look and get back with you. There are a couple that can be customized and total up the costs.



Judy/blue

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http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

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http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/10/09 09:43 AM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

For the one suggestion --grouping auction lots together.

that is totally doable now.

If an Auction lot does not have a related "Stock" Inventory item, then you can group them all together.

If you click on the "Inventory Item" tab on the center divider of the Auction lot, you will see the blue inventory item tag. If there is a red hammer gavel, then the Auction lot is eligible to be grouped with other auction lots.

When grouping the images are all added as well as the descriptions.



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/10/09 10:04 AM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

Unless I am completely misunderstanding you, in the Auction lot Grid View the Title line is visible. There is a header for Title line.

Did I not get what you mean?



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/10/09 12:00 PM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone (re grouping Lots) new [re: bluepennylady]  

This would work great for me, but my items aren't Inventory items. Is there a way to duplicate existing Lots as Inventory items or to transfer them to Inventory?

Thanks, Sue



tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/10/09 12:18 PM
(sorting by Category) Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: bluepennylady]  

Sorry. I screwed that up. What I meant was Category. There is a Category heading in Grid View for Lots, but you can't sort by it. That's what I crave -- to be able to sort by Category. I'll edit my earlier post.

Reports has Auction Lot List by Category, but for me, it's 238 pages (mostly because there's no option that I'm aware of to change the size of the font, and because sometimes I've started my description down a few lines, so the Report shows a half-page of blank space), and the Categories are listed by their numerical designations -- not very useful. Even if you sort the Report by Store Category, you still just get the numbers (Category #14 - huh?). Maybe I could make a Custom Report -- haven't had time to fiddle with that yet.

Sue



bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/10/09 12:47 PM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

Concerning the Shipping cost and Insurance fields holding values when switching from Flat/Fixed price to Calculated.

Those fields are used for other calculations so removing it might not work well in the long haul. I am not sure how that would work out.

I mean I understand because we deal with the same thing here. The fields contain values and my staff and I have to pay attention to what we are doing on some Invoices in certain circumstances. But I am not sure making it where those fields go blank when switching Shipping options is feasible.



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/10/09 12:50 PM
(sorting by Category) Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

Yes you can customize the reports and remove tons of data you really dont need such as the description field. My Auction lot List count report is single lined. I even removed the line between each item so they are closer together on a page and moved the footer area up by drag/drop when customizing.

The report went from 5 pages to 2 pages just removing some of the stuff I don't really need.

So I would think the category report could be the same way. I have not tried it yet but I bet it is doable.



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/10/09 01:14 PM
Re flat/fixed cost stays when switch to calculated new [re: bluepennylady]  

Well, I'll take your word for this. If it's impractical, programming-wise, to make that flat/fixed cost disappear when we switch to calculated shipping, I'll have to just be vigilant.

Sue



bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/10/09 01:17 PM
Re: Re flat/fixed cost stays when switch to calculated new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

I didn't say it was not totally feasible, just that it might be not practical in different scenarios.

I will pass it along to tech support. I was just talking out loud. I do that alot

Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/10/09 01:26 PM
(sorting by Category) Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: bluepennylady]  

Ok, I'll try to create a custom Report for this, but you can't go from a Report to Grid View and move blocks of Lots to other Profiles or Statuses, can you?

If I could display all my offline Lots in Grid View and sort them by Category (or by Store Category), I could group several glass items or several sewing items for the purpose of creating a new Lot of related things.

If we could sort by Category in Grid View, we could use Change Auction Profile to move them all to a multi-Lot Profile created for just this purpose.

Sue



tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/10/09 02:59 PM
Re: Re flat/fixed cost stays when switch to calculated new [re: bluepennylady]  

All your out-loud thoughts are valuable, I think. You should be broadcasting them in some sort of closed-circuit system. I'd subscribe.

Sue



bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/11/09 08:35 AM
(sorting by Category) Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

In the Grid View you can select records, right click and then Change Auction profile to move a group of Auction lots to a different profile.

Is that what you mean?

And I am sorry I am slow responding. I was in the mountains, 4 wheeling when you first posted. I had really poor internet connectivity so I gave up on trying to keep tabs on the discussion board.

And this week is put the offices back and network back together.--finally!



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/11/09 12:26 PM
(sorting by Category) Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: bluepennylady]  

Hi Judy,

You don't need to apologize for being out of touch during recreation times. We all rely on you too much. Used to be dozens of member would reply with their expertise and best guesses for almost every post. Now, you're the oracle of choice, and nearly everyone else is snoozing, as far as I can tell.

Back to the question at hand............Yes, that's basically what I want to do, but I first need to sort the Off-Line auctions by Category. The sortable columns in Grid View are Lot #, Auction Profile, Title, Status, Consignor, Start Date, Close Date, and Reference ID, but for some reason, not Category.

Sue



bluepennylady
(Carpal Tunnel)
09/11/09 02:12 PM
(sorting by Category) Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Sue

Maybe, but I felt horrible after seeing you had posted and it sat there for a few days before I got back.

Anyway, the category sort in the grid view would not work very well because the names are not what is used but the category numbers. And they change all the time too.





Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/15/09 11:51 AM
Category Updates (Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone) new [re: tictictic_OnEbay]  

Thought of another thing that's a little irritating and seems like it would be easy to include in a program update:

Enable selecting a default folder for the frequent category updates. I copy the whole AW folder to a backup drive every few days, so when running the updates, I have to sit at my computer and wait for AW to check for previously installed components after the download is complete, so I can tell it which installation folder to update. Would be nice to just set AW to always update only the installation on C:\.

Sue



tictictic_OnEbay
(addict)
09/29/09 11:48 AM
Re: Please Don't Leave it Alone new [re: bluepennylady]  

Sorry for the delay in responding to this.......

When I'm home from the PO, and I'm manually transferring sales data to my Excel workbook, one of the bits of info I record is the cost of the merchandise. When a buyer has purchased multiple items, and I'm looking at the main Invoice window, the only way I have of knowing the cost of each individual item is to hit the gavel icon, make a note of the cost, go back to the Invoices window, click the next Lot and then the gavel again, and so on. When there are only two items, it's no problem, but when there are five or more items, it's slow and tedious. Sometimes I can add the costs in my head, but other times, I have to enter them into a calculator. It would be great if AW could automatically perform this calculation and display the result on the Invoices window. Having to open a Report to get the sum wouldn't really be much of an improvement over how I'm doing it now.

Sue




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