Do you want to know why I hate you?
Well I’ll try to explain…
The Cure, How Beautiful You Are
I’ve had issues with Turbo Lister before. But just recently, my issues have been building up into a pile so huge, so constant and so insurmountable, I can no longer work around it.
Here are just a few of the problems I’m having with TL right now:
- attempting to download updates crashes the program, constantly
- when updating doesn’t crash it, network problems prevent it talking to eBay
- if I manage to download the update, installing it causes a runtime error
- P&P combined discounts have been lost and won’t come back
- turning off fee calculation won’t work
- SIF is missing
- all the form labels are blank so I have to remember what’s where (fortunately this has only happened on one ID)
- the box for a seperate gallery picture has disappeared on one ID
- on another ID, though the gallery pic is specified, when I relist it is sometimes replaced with the main picture
- it randomly takes a dislike to individual listings and crashes repeatedly when trying to upload them
- on one ID, it refuses to recognise that I have a premier PayPal account, so I can’t do immediate payment only
- on my French listings, it randomly refuses to let me list as “neuf et immediat” (kinda like professional buy it now), saying that I have no P&P or new condition specified, when I do have both of those on the listing
- the columns I’ve picked to display never stay picked. Every time I change ID, I have to reselect the ones I want to show
- the whole thing runs at the speed of porridge
To keep things interesting, not all these happen on all IDs, and not all of them happen all the time. So for example, it may take a couple of minutes to upload 50 listings, as it did this morning, or it may take me something in excess of an hour, as it did on Friday.
I’ve had enough. Dear Reader, give me some advice: what do you use to list with? I don’t mind if it’s pay-for, but it *must* support non-.com sites and it must support multiple IDs (so Spoonfeeder is out). Help me.
27 Responses
Hi Sue 🙂
I used to have the some of the same problems.
But then I downloaded Turbo from .com.
Then after it was safely downloaded and updated, I added UK as a destination.
It seemed to work.
If you downloaded turbo from UK, it may be worth a try.
Mark
Hmm, might give that a go, thanks Mark.
Hell I knew TL could be flakey but I didn’t realise it was that bad 😯
I hope Ajay is at eBay Live! again this year, time for him to get his magic fixes out again 🙁
I think all listing programs have problems, I have tried the lot and non of the buggers get it exactly right,
I wonder if those that code these programs have ever actually listed anything other than a couple of tests
ebay are losing fortunes with the lack of a quick easy and reliable listing program
they all have you clicking like demented grasshoppers, and seem to assume that you have all the time in the world to fill tick and enter,
I wonder if any of these programmers .understand the tedium of listing, and what is needed to make it easier
Got another one to add to the list:
If your item description was imported to Turbo Lister from your eBay listings, you will find that if you replace the picture before uploading it again, the old picture will appear on eBay – even though the new one shows up in TL. Only way round it is to change the picture back again via eBay’s online listing tool.
Technical Support have been working on the solution for over a month, apparently…
I use Auction Tamer with multiple ID’s and scheduling.
I don’t think it is the cheapest, nor the easiest to use but I had to give up with Turbo Lister before it sent me insane.
I like Inkfrog. It’s web based (don’t know if that’s a dealbreaker for you), only $10 USD a month, supports multiple user IDs and multiple sites.
It also has a pretty cool profit tracker which tells you how much you’ve made after the cost of your product is taken out of your sale price (note: this part may depress you)
Of course I am going to have to plug MarketplaceAdvisor here. It’s $29.95 month (plus a small percentage of sales) and has many bells + whistles beyond TurboLister that allow you to automate and scale your eBay business.
max not a chance of me ever paying a percentage fee,
dont care if it takes the photos packs the item and delivers them by hand
I would add I have tried the MarketplaceAdvisor program and think its very good
its the pricing model that stops me using it
it would cost me a hundreds if not thousands a month with the percentage charge
even @ the $3 max per item
I use Inkfrog , it takes time to figure it out but if you persevere its worth it, excellent value for money they also do a free trial, http://www.inkfrog.com
Ebay Blackthorne is the best I have used so far, though its far from perfect
I ticked along quite nicely with SMP automated listings and manual SYI entries. 😉
The only one of those probs I’ve had is the unsorting of the columns; I use the com version. Have used TL since before it was TL (misterlister). But my volume is far smaller.
(Assume you’ve applied the magic Alt+Ctrl+Shift+R fix at appropriate times?)
Count me as another inkfrog user — though I barely use any other features, really only use it as a lister. I keep my images stored on my own site because I’ve learned the hard way that when you switch listers image storing becomes a total pain to transfer over. I don’t use their templates for the same reason. Just my very basic html, that way if I ever have to switch all I need to get rid of is the little inkfrog logo in my listings. I’ve been using them about 2 years now though, listing 5-6 days per week over that time and can count on one hand the number of times they’ve been down or given me other problems.
The $10 per month pays for itself because you can schedule your listings at specific times and space them apart in 2 minute increments, which if I remember correctly from my TL days you couldn’t do without paying the eBay Scheduling fee.
(I’m in the U.S., so if parts of this don’t apply I apologize).
sorry, had trouble with the edit
Well my TL won’t update – it times out or tells me their is no connection. So I haven’t updated it for ages and don’t have most of those problems.
Although it does sometimes take a dislike to some listings, it tells me there is something wrong with the picture. I have to re-create the item. And I can’t change the picture, I have to start a new listing.
The problem with not updating, Kate, is that if there are new things like item specifics, you don’t get them.
I’m aware of that Sue, but what can I do if I can’t update it? You just reminded me that sometimes not being able to update TL isn’t all bad.
I have exactly the same problems as Kate so have given up trying to update TL. I use Selling Manager Pro but find it is a bit unreliable on inventory sometimes and will continue to list things when I am out of stock.
Would love to know how they are going to enable us to alter 7 day returns policies in bulk if we can’t update TL.
Bulk updating doesn’t seem to work in TL anyway. All I get when I try that is error messages. Whenever I change something in TL I change the templates then check the details of each listing as I go to list an item. Not such a big deal for me anyway – I don’t sell that much overall, and dealing with mainly used CDs means that I have to alter certain details each time anyway such as item condition, and checking the number of tracks on the CD (2 CDs with the same EAN can have 2 different versions, maybe one with bonus tracks and one without, so there is a lot of checking to do on each listing anyway).
That’s how I have to deal with all changes, eg postage changes etc.
Kate – a thought crossed my mind – you have downloaded TL2 haven’t you, or are you still using TL1 – because that stopped being updated last winter?
No it’s TL2 – You can’t actually list items using TL1 any more. They had a “countdown” thing on it for a couple of months, after that it stopped working altogether and everyone still trying to use it was forced onto TL2.
hmm well that clever idea hits the dust then…
my TL is clogging up my virtual memory more and more each day, I have to keep restarting the computer to clear the memory – it doesn’t only slow down TL it slows down everything… 👿
Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
MarketPlaceAdvisor looks superb, but I don’t think CA would be interested in my puny turnover 😀
I’m liking the idea of Blackthorne because it’s eBay, and therefore should be reasonably up to date: one of the things that used to frustrate me with Spoonfeeder was how long it took to update it for new site features. But then, TL is an eBay product too.
I’ll be taking a look at Inkfrog and AuctionTamer.
Report back soon oh testing testing wunderkind…