AuctionSage - a real alternative to Shooting Star, 15 October 2008

Reviewer: vk2him

With the demise Shooting Start which was an excellent Auction Management system, over the last two weeks I have been working closely with John the author of AuctionSage (AS) to get it to work in a similar way to Shooting Star (SS).

As background, I was initially put off AS because many of its features only work on Ebay USA and UK. However after discussion with John and by experimentation, AS will work on any Ebay site if you only use the functionality that SS has. As a bonus, AS has many improvements that SS doesn't have.

To clarify that statement, AS will successfully download sales from any Ebay site including buyer address details, checkout details (postage, insurance etc), and more.

With Johns considerable help, I have now customised AS to work almost the same as SS, ie,
- I have setup the "Stages" that SS has. AS calls these "Status Folders"
- AS has form letter templates for emails and invoices similar to SS. They are better than the SS ones though as you can include html code to make them as fancy as you want, including graphics etc.
- I used the SS email and invoice templates to create AS equivalents (see below for a link to these). John created a number of new "auto-fill" Merge Fields to match the ones in SS. Sending these emails will automatically change the Stage (or Status Folder in AS speak).
- It is very easy to combine multiple purchases into one invoice
- It is equally as easy to either add non-ebay sales to an invoice containing ebay sales or to create a non-ebay sale invoice

One new feature that is a real time-saver is the Paypal Payment Processor (PPP). This will download any Paypal payments and process them automatically for you. All new Paypal Payments go into a Status Folder called "Paid by Paypal" ready for you to print the invoice and send a "Payment Received" email.

There are a number of functions that AS does a bit different to SS, but once you get used to them it becomes second nature. For example, when sending emails SS gives the option to send now or "store" the email in the outbox for you to send in bulk later. AS doesn't give you the option to "store" the email, however you can select any number of invoices and instruct AS to email them using one of your email templates. I have asked John to consider adding the "store in Outbox" option and he is considering it.

AS has many other features that only work on Ebay USA or UK. These include the ability to list auctions, similar I guess to the Toaster?? Others include the ability to modify running auctions (end auction early etc). None of these features were part of SS anyway, so if you're looking for a pure SS replacement then look no further than AS.

Some other cool features include the ability to import sales from non ebay sites. You simply setup an import template that maps the relevant fields then apply that template to your non ebay sales data. I used this to import my prior SS sales, so now I can truly abandon SS which I have done

You may think I'm "pimping" AS, and you're probably right . I promised John I'd do a write-up of AS and mention how flexible he was in making some changes to suit anyone who was familiar with SS.

I am currently running a "beta" version of AS that includes some SS specific email template merge fields and it works great. John will release this soon to the General public.

For those interested, I have loaded my templates that match the SS ones onto my server at the following url (Right Click to save to your PC if you want download them)

http://ais.theshackbythebeach.com/auctionsage/

AS has many more features and the above is only an overview that hopefully will clarify that AS will work on any Ebay site provided you don't use it to list or modify open auctions.

Cheers
Ian vk2him

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The BEST there is !, 25 November 2005

Reviewer: prairiedawg

4 years of searching Auction Management Systems finally brought me to Auction Sage.

4 years of abuse at the hands of the supposed fully automated systems that don't work.

4 years of the worst possible customer service on the planet.

Oh how I wish I'd have found Auction Sage at the outset. It just doesn't get any better than this.

ROCK SOLID AND CONSISTANTLY RELIABLE

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I wish I could give it more stars., 18 November 2005

Reviewer: iron_chick

I started looking around for a new auction lister and management service at the end of June. I wanted the inventory control features and reliability my former lister lacked.

I tried . . . pretty much everything. Some things twice.

I FINALLY tried AuctionSage after reading yet another glowing review . . . and was almost instantly hooked. I think it *looked* hard to me, which is why I hadn't tried it earlier, but in reality, it is just as easy to use as my former lister (SpareDollar) and did I mention it actually works? It does. Consistently. :) And . . .users are notified of updates which are made pretty much instantly any time eBay enhances anything.

The listing feature is faster than anything I've tried. The post sale management ROCKS. I am able to manage my inventory and order fulfillment for my OFF EBAY sales. :)

I can bulk revise current listings as well as make major bulk revisions on inventory items. With the click of a button. FPL day. No problem. Just click and bulk switch your store items to FPL items. Don't all sell? No problem. Just click and bulk switch them all back.

And last but definitely not least . . . the customer service is top notch and is provided by the owner, who knows his program and writes his own code. Well. :)

I wish I'd tried AuctionSage first . . . but maybe if I had, I wouldn't realize what a jewel it is!!

Every week I find new things that AuctionSage does. (This week's goodie - you can uploade your inventory to an oscommerce store - how cool is that??) I'm like a kid at Christmas, getting to open new gifts all the time. :)

Worth twice the money or more (but please don't do that to us, John! :))

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Not enough Stars for this Winner, 15 November 2005

Reviewer: bigjohn

I've tried most of them and this one has it all.
Everything always works and it gives me everything I could want.

If you have a question you won't wait long for an answer. eBay changes are updated immediately, too.

The program is super fast running.

They also have a free program called Bidsage that is fantastic for keeping searches and sniping auctions. I doubt there's a better paid program to be found than Bidsage.

You can download to excel from both programs.

I confidently recommend AuctionSage and BidSage to anyone and have no fear of embarrasment for doing so. It works!

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I found the ultimate solution!, 4 July 2005

Reviewer: haberdine

I am a new user of AuctionSage software. My decision to buy this tool was based on the reviews posted on this site. I cannot emphazise enough how happy I am now with this software. I was shopping for management tool for about 3 months - trying different versions -my final choice was between two: AuctionSage and Masterworks. I would like to thank you - the founder of this site and all users. Your reviews and tips were really helpful.
AuctionSage program is great, it's exactly what I was looking for. So far, I don't need any help from the developer - the logic is clear. Everything is working fine and fast! Thank you one more time, happy user - haberdine

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