AM Suggestions

[angelsolutions]

Congratulations on all the GREAT work on your new AM! Making this available to other phpprobid sites just shows what a team player you are in the OAI, James, and as a seller, I hope more sellers and site owners make note of this.

Here's some suggestions from my first trial run:

1. I had marked my imported items Buy Out and made sure to accept the Buy Out price from the csv file I used to import my listings. This, however, did not survive the import and the items are not marked buy out and do not have the buy out price. Might wanna check that. :eek:

2. Phpprobid sites have "Prefilled Fields" such as

Duration
Private Auction
Postage (Shipping Cost)
Insurance
Shipping & Payment Details
Shipping Method

in the Members Area. Is it possible to look at the AM importing the individual seller's preferences that are saved on site (like the 'other' bulklister did), so that these fields are already pre-filled and would only need to be modified by the seller as needed?

3. Is there a way to make the Description field larger? :rolleyes: LOL

4. Could you incorporate a schema for the csv file that would import directly to the AM? That way we could build or edit our spreadsheets into the proper schema and reduce the editing required afterward. Personally, I export the catalog from my web store and other places and copy/paste into the needed formats for bulklisters. (as an example, just makes it faster)

5. I'm on broadband, so I can't tell---does the AM work OFFLINE?

uhm....lemme finish my coffee and tinker some more....I LOVE THIS THING!!!

Thank you again for working so hard for your sellers!

sylvia

[admin]

Sylvia,

Did you break it already? If I remember correctly, you are famous for that over at PSU. just kidding... I appreciate you taking the time to test our new wares. This program in still in its infancy, but you will see many improvements with each coming update.

1. This function is working with the few files that we imported. hmmm... possibly the difference in columns is causing some sort of conflict or error (which it shouldn't matter). Would it be possible that you send that csv file to us? We would not use the information for anything other than testing purposes.

2. The current auction manager does have prefilled fields. If you click tools>preferences you can view and/or edit these (this will not affect prefilled fields entered on the site). Currently it will enter the prefilled info into new auctions created. The AM does not currently use these defaults for csv imports... Do you think this should be changed to use defaults for csv imports also?

3. This program was actually supposed to have an HTML editor, but it was accidentally left out of the initial scope. So it is something that will have to be added in one of our future updates. Did you try the "preview" feature on the "edit auction detail" or "create new auction" pages? This is a really cool feature, as it lets you see how the auction will actually look on the site after uploaded. It still has a couple bugs, which are currently being worked on.

4. Yeah, we have yet to build a template for the csv import, but that is also something we also need to do... Would make it much easier for the user.

5. Yes, the AM will work off-line. Of course you would not be able to upload or download, but you could create listings, then connect and upload.

NOTE: When you speak of being off-line, you are referring to those on dialup... We realize that downloading the AM while on a dialup connection could take quite some time, so we have a CD version for those who need it. They would just need to send an email to admin@webidz.com (admin@webidz.com) with their full name and shipping address. There is no charge for the disk, or for shipping. We may charge a small shipping fee in the future, but it is free for now.

[awevtrading]

Congratulations on all the GREAT work on your new AM! Making this available to other phpprobid sites just shows what a team player you are in the OAI, James, and as a seller, I hope more sellers and site owners make note of this.

Here's some suggestions from my first trial run:

=-=-=-=-= Snip =-=-=-=-=

4. Could you incorporate a schema for the csv file that would import directly to the AM? That way we could build or edit our spreadsheets into the proper schema and reduce the editing required afterward. Personally, I export the catalog from my web store and other places and copy/paste into the needed formats for bulklisters. (as an example, just makes it faster)

=-=-=-=-= Snip =-=-=-=-=

Thank you again for working so hard for your sellers!

sylvia

Well, as you can see from my editing, I am interested in something that can match up fields as well. I created one listing on-line, and used WAM to download it, then exported it as a CSV file. Now I have a template.

Some things I just copied from the WAM export, such as payment codes, while others I copied from another spreadsheet and pasted (i.e., title and description). Saved the file, then back in WAM I imported the new CSV file that was created above, and so far so good. When I get to the fields matching section the user field to match to the WAM field is either blank or just catalog_cat_1 repeated. Since I used the WAM export to create the new import I would of though that it would match itself up.


Even if it doesn't match up, could it at least default to default? I realize that trying to do regexp (regular expression) matching can be intensive, and so I would not put you folks through that, yet simple pattern matching, such as if input_a$ = field_a$ then menu_a$ = input_a$ else menu_a$ = field_default_a$, where input_a$ would be the field name in the imported file, field_a$ would be the internal field name, menu_a$ is the menu choice displayed, and field_default_a$ is the default the user set in preferences.

Since I have fixed price auctions, where you just buy the item, the idea of being able to assign any imported field to the corresponding internal field is nice. Read the manual on-line, and noted I don't have to keep all of the fields - couple tries later, that is. So now I can set the starting price and buy-out price just using the imported file's start_price field - one less row for me to copy/paste or duplicated. And with defaults set in preferences I am down to just five rows that I have to copy/paste - nice :D a big time saver for me. In answer to #3 above - asked by admin, yes, I think if default is selected, and no field has been selected from the imported file, then the tools>preferences should be applied.

Just my two cents on the matter. If you feel it is not worth that much I do accept refunds by PayPal and Google Checkout - after adding a $10 handling and restocking fee ;)

[admin]

The export and import features still has some work to go... Yes the source and csv columns should automatically align (especially when imported/exported from the same application), which at this time they do not. Most fields should be set as default, as many options from the preference page would apply to all. This will most likely be predetermined fields that the user can change if needed.

We are looking into options to make this as easy as possible. It is currently easier and more functional than it used to be... but we still have a ways to go.

[tinnman357]

Hello all, Just wondering if there is a way to catergorize items in your store with AM or any other method? I would like to be able to separate jewely from sunglasses etc. in my store, so that the buyer would not have to scroll thru every page to see all the items that are related to what they looking for.
Thanks
http://www.webidz.com/Tinnmans-Treasures,name,tinnman357,username,18915,user_id,s hop

[katandron1]

Mornin Tinnman,

I clicked on your link, went to your store home page, To the left of all you listings running down the page, there are catagories, I clicked Jewelry, pulled up 3 pages of nothing but jewelry and watches.......Nothing needs to be done, people can search individual catagories.
Also, Just FYI, the pages on a store, go from items ending soon to the last pages being items recently listed. So those pages are constantly cycling in your store. So if someone goes to your store, what they see is, the 1st page is your items that are soon to be ending.....to the right of the listing it tells how much longer that item is going to run for before it ends or relists.

[Lanascountry]

HI Tinman and welcome to the forums! Kat is correct and that is the way we 'sort'
a store that we are looking at. One thing that I try to do, is if I have a category field
that contains 0 (no) items, I will remove that category until such time as I have items
in that cat., and it makes a more pleasant experience for your buyer. It is not necessary,
but nice. It takes only a couple of minutes every few days. :)

[tinnman357]

Good morning ladies and thank you for your quick responses,
I understand what both of you said, I was just thinking that it would be a buyers convenience to be able to click on a category image or button kinda like what ecrater does. Just a thought.
Tom

[katandron1]

I've never been to Ecrater. I'll have to make it a point one of these days in the near future to go check it out.

[Lanascountry]

I have visited ecrater many times, but I always found it somewhat difficult to
access the items that I was searching for, They (ecrater sellers) do seem to really
show up well in search engines, however. :)

[mj-trading]

We have 2 stores at Ecrater and sell very well from both!