Auctionbytes reports that Auctiva has acquired Sellathon. Sellathon products were previously available as a third party add on to Auctivas tools.
Adaptations are already being made to Sellathon with an auto-insert being promised rather than sellers having to insert the HTML code themselves. This is one change we’d suggest that you do NOT use. Auto-inserts are not the most reliable and sellers should retain control of their auction code to ensure stability.
Past problems have included the Squaretrade auto-insert changing £ signs on UK auctions to $ signs. PayPal auto-inserted logo allows buyers to pay for an auction without winning it – not a problem if you have plenty of stock but for unique items an off eBay sale with an on eBay buyer paying legitimately at a later date causes real problems. Andale had an issue where all their images were replaced with “Thanks for looking” images covering entire auctions (see below). We’d strongly recommend inserting any code you want yourself.
If you’re tempted to test Auctiva’s products bear in mind if you sign up for auto-inserts of features like Auctiva Store it will insert it in all your auctions automatically. There is no roll back, once it’s in, it’s in until the auctions finish, you’re much better off inserting the code manually.
Sellathon has traditionally provided fantastic data regarding how users access a sellers auctions including what keywords buyers searched for, what category they browsed, how they sorted their search results, if they’re watching your auction, if they’re planning a snipe, how much time they spent on your auction, the best time of day to sell and all in real time.
Similar data is available from eBay Market Research, but this is historical and for the site as a whole. A hit counter in conjunction with Traffic Reports (Omniture) give you some indication, but Sellathon is the Rolls Royce of auction tracking software.
Auctiva have traditionally given most of their products away for free. In practice many sellers have preferred to pay for reliable solutions such as Vendio and Sellathon – you get what you pay for – so it will be interesting to see how this acquisition affects products of choice.
2 Responses
Auctiva is very sneaky. When you sign up, the auto-insertion for the “showcase”, that IMHO looks like crap, is already turned on.
The second you generate an eBay token during initial registration, it starts putting it in all your listings, without your knowledge.
If you then go to your profile you can turn off the auto-insertion, but it’s too late, it’s already in all your current listings, without your authorization. If you have hundreds of listings, you would have to edit each listing individually to remove it. If they have bids, you can’t remove it.
Check out their feeling on it when confronted…
https://community.auctiva.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/579609941/m/1151062521?r=5621053031
When Wayne was in charge Sellathon was a class act. I will be cancelling my account though because I refuse to do business with a company that has these shady ethics.
Hi Mountie! Happy New Year. I really don’t dig auctiva all that much. That auto insert drove me nuts. Vendio & marketworks were much better solutions for our needs. I wrote sellathon off as a joke because they haven’t updated their front page in 2 years. Their latest news has always been January 2005!