Hello everyone, I am an ebay powerseller and am thinking of switchign to this program. Can somone tell me the good and bad of it. I was using blackthorne for the past few days but am getting a lil irrirated at it...is this a good program to manage and list around 1000 inventory items..thank you

Hi,

Yes you can easily manage 1000 auctions or more. Or less if you so choose :o) I manage around 4000 auctions.

With AW2000 you have the ability to manage not only Auctions, but Inventory Items, email and Invoices. The program also contains a ledger. There are hundreds of reports all of which are customizable to suit your particular needs.

AW2000 contains Listing templates all of which can be duplicated and edited down to the colors and fonts to suit your tastes.

The Image editor is quite good. Images are stored inside AW2000 so you don't need to create a photo album on your hard drive in order to add images to AW2000. You will need image hosting as AW2000 does not upload images to eBay or Overstock. However, that is no problem. If you do not have an image hosting service, I would highly recommend www.pair.com. The basic account costs $5.95 a month for 250 MB of space and 100 mailboxes. If you pay for an entire year, there is a good discount. Not once in over 2 years has my images or Corporate website ever been down. pair.com's tech support is very good and helpful. If you are presently using eBay's picture services, you will realize a major reduction in your Auction fees as using pair.com is much cheaper than using eBay's picture services/ And pair.com is just more reliable.

I do Beta testing for software programs. So I have used/tested Channel Advisor, Meridan, Market Works, Kyozou, Zoovy, Infopia, just finished testing Channel Max (which is horrible) just to name a few. I discoverd Auction Wizard 2000 doing Beta testing for Auction management software several years ago. And I am still using the program today.

I used BlackThorne and I hear you. The interface was terrible and the program is poorly designed.

Aw2000 resides on your computer as opposed to the internet on someone elses' server. Much more secure and you have control over your data. People don't think it is an issue but it is. During a recent Beta test of Channel Max, I discovered the developer had complete access to any of the users accounts and data. And he did and would access those accounts, manipulating data. All without permission. Even during a Beta test, that is unacceptable security. Plus if any of the web-based programs would let their Security certificates expire even for a 24 hour period, your information and data is exposed. And it happens.

If a web-based program crashes, your information would and could be lost in the matter of a few seconds, which happened to all Meridan users in April. Meridan crashed, losing hundreds of users information. The user could not list or manage auctions for almost 3 weeks. Meridan gave the users 1 month free, which will not even touch how much revenue the users lost being offline for 3 weeks.

Saying that, AW2000 contains the ability for you to backup your database every day to any folder you designate. There are also other maintenance utilities such as "Rebuild" and Archive/Purge" as well.

You asked for drawbacks. Honestly, I can't think of any. AW2000 is like any other software program, you have to sit down and learn it. But I know this much from Beta testing and working with groups of testers. AW2000 is not difficult to learn. If you set it up correctly and use the software as it is intended to be used, not hard at all. I have worked with testers on Beta testings in which it took 30 days to figure out a programs interface and workflow because the design was so poor. Not so with AW2000. The design and user interface is excellent and the workflow is logical.

So you have made a very good choice to manage your auctions. You will not be disappointed in the least.

Please feel free to post or email me if you need help setting up or going through the Help. I will be happy to assist you.

Judy/blue

Compared to blackthorne, AW2000 is a great platform to use for your business. I have been a user now for 3 maybe 4 years. AW2000 is extremely stable and well organized there is a lot of horse power under the hood but it takes time to learn. You will find that the help sections are helpful very detailed. But it takes time.

Support is first rate and this is no exageration. When ebay changes the rules. Upgrades are almost always available that same day. You won't get a bunch of empty promises either.

On the down side future developement is slow, the programmers are working incorporating ebays API, hopefully this will eventually lead to further funtionality. Such as tighter integration with paypal and integration with shipping carriers.

I have to point out though these advanced features are only available by the large online auction management services that cost hundreds of dollars every month and are notoriously unstable I have tried many of them.

The bottom line is you get a lot more then what you pay for with auction wizard. Plus you get a free 60 day trial no strings attached.

Best in business success

Kirk
JustAuctions





Kirk

Here's a perfect example of just one of the reasons we can wholeheartedly recommend AW2000:

barbcity1 (see the Ebay Stores topic for June 21st) posted a question about a problem updating Store Categories and also apparently emailed Tech Support.

Less than 3 hours later, barbcity1 had the answer from Thom and succeeded in fixing the problem.

tictictic