At some time or another, we’ve all used eBay to sell something. From a small ornament to a MacBook Pro, it’s far and away the most popular service to sell items online. But when you’re using eBay on a regular basis, you’ll often feel that the website can be quite limiting when it comes to regularly listing items and any flare you’d like to include in your listing requires an in-depth knowledge of HTML and CSS.
GarageSale is a complete eBay selling tool that includes some powerful features and a wide range of design templates. Should you buy it now or is it not worth the reserve price?
Feature Rich
As soon as you launch the app, you’re instantly aware that this isn’t just a simple front-end for eBay. There are a whole host of powerful features aimed towards those who use eBay frequently, such as traders. There are features such as multiple account support for regular eBay users who have more than one account to list with and template presets so your preferred shipping, billing and pricing information will always be set for new auctions.
GarageSale is a fully functional eBay selling tool
In GarageSale, you start writing your auctions by creating Templates. Every template is saved, even when listed, allowing them to be re-used. This isn’t something that infrequent sellers would necessarily find useful, in fact, you’ll often find yourself deleting templates as soon as you’ve created a new listing. For trader regularly listing new stock, however, it allows a one-click option to re-list products as needed.
Auctions are created as templates that can be re-used as needed.
Templates can be duplicated and even scheduled to start using the Events function. GarageSale needs to be running when you do this but it means you can list an auction on a specific date and time.
If you’re an eBay power user, GarageSale’s scheduler will let you specifically choose when to start an auction.
Bring Auctions to Life
Designing your listings is a joyous process, especially when compared to eBay’s website. There are two modes of template editing: Preview Mode and Edit Mode. The former allows you to edit the action using a WYSIWYG editor, seeing your changes live. The latter is more useful when you already know how the auction is laid out and just want to get on with editing.
You can edit in the standard editor or edit the auction in Preview Mode.
One particular feature that surprised me was the app’s support for Markdown. As somewhat of a Markdown junkie, I think this is a great feature to provide.
Included within the app are a wide range of differing template designs for your auctions. As eBay allows the use of HTML within auction listings, auctions are more like websites than just plain text. GarageSale has some truly remarkable layouts and designs you can pick from. What’s more, there’s the option to purchase more designs from the app’s built-in Design Store. In my time using GarageSale, I’ve never found need to purchase any additional designs but it’s good to know that fresh new layouts are available at a reasonable price.
A Design Store where you can purchase new auction templates will ensure your auctions remain fresh.
Perks
By using GarageSale, you take advantage of some great additional services such as their image hosting. You’re able to use GarageSale’s free image hosting for up to 20 images at no charge, making it cost effective when compared to eBay which will charge for any additional images beyond the first. Alternatively, you can use your own web hosting via FTP and have GarageSale upload images for you.
You can take advantage of GarageSale’s online image hosting and save money on every auction.
To save you needing to visit eBay’s site further, GarageSale supports eBay messages so you can read, compose and reply to messages within the app. Furthermore, power users with scripting knowledge will be pleased to know that GarageSale supports AppleScript and includes a variety of scripts within the app.
Once you’ve listed your auctions, they’re available to view in the app and it’ll update whenever there’s been a bid or an item purchased. Any auctions you list in another app or through the website will also be imported for you to keep track of. Whilst you might not want to keep the app open all the time. GarageSale includes a Dashboard Widget you can install so all your auction activity is just a click away.
Wrapping Up
Although GarageSale can be used by anyone, some of the features may prove rather overwhelming for those unfamiliar with eBay or who don’t use it frequently. This is something that is also reflected in the price; at $39.99 it isn’t cheap if you’re planning to sell a few old CDs and games now and again, but for eBay sellers creating many listings a week, it can be seen as a worthwhile investment.
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