Auction Managers

Feb 1, 2000
By Steve Mollman

PROBLEM: You sell so much at online auctions it's hard to stay on top of the details.

SOLUTION: Use an auction management service to create ads, post items and images, track transactions, and correspond with customers.

It's hard to feel sorry for an eBay power seller who rakes in thousands of dollars in extra income each month. It's like drumming up sympathy for Jeff Bezos when Amazon.com's stock dips a few points. But keeping track of hundreds of auctions at once isn't easy and can quickly become a full-time job. Many services help you do this, but Andale is the most comprehensive we've seen.

Andale is a Web-based auction management system. It's free until you close a sale and then it takes a small percentage of the transaction. From your secure area on the Andale site, you prepare items you want automatically posted to various auctions, which can include Amazon.com Auctions, BizBuyer.com, eBay, and a few others-with more on the way. Instead of creating a product description at each site, you write it just once in Andale, which then posts your listings automatically.

As for posting images of your wares, Andale simplifies that too. Several services advertise free image hosting, such as AuctionWatch.com (www .auctionwatch.com) and Auction Images (www.auctionimages.net). But they typically start charging once you exceed 3MB to 5MB of storage space. Andale gives you 100MB of free space for your images, enough room for hundreds or even thousands of photos. And it automates posting the same image links across multiple auctions.

Andale also provides transaction management. When an auction ends, the service sends the high bidder an e-mail message that links to a form where the buyer can quickly fill in address and payment information and shipping preferences. Andale automatically calculates the shipping price. Normally this step takes up to a week and can be a confusing snarl of back-and-forth e-mail messages. Once each transaction is complete, all the pertinent data remains in the system, allowing you to monitor your sales to specific buyers, track the popularity of certain items, and repost items that don't sell.

i-Escrow offers a similar but less comprehensive service called QuikTrack. It lets power sellers prioritize and manage their interaction with customers and provides real-time shipping updates. Eventually it will work with popular accounting software like Intuit QuickBooks and Peachtree Complete Accounting. Of course, i-Escrow's main service is, well, escrow, which protects the buyer and the seller from fraud.

What other outlets for your wares are there? In addition to business-to-business and industrial auctions, consider selling to the government. Dealing with government requests for bids involves more red tape than most can stomach. But a tiny startup, Search4bids .com, is simplifying the process of finding requests for bids from government and nonprofit agencies.

Search4bids.com offers a search engine that scans only the Web sites of these agencies. So you'd enter hammer, for instance, and get back links to online requests from agencies for hammers. This part of the service is free. If you need more in-depth bid sleuthing-which often requires Search4bids.com employees to scour newspapers or pick up the telephone – you pay $33 a month. Site BuzzAndale app.vendio.com Get your weekends back by reducing the time it takes to post auctions. Keep track of your customers and transactions.i-Escrow www.iescrow.com Use this trusted middleman to avoid foul play. The free QuikTrack service helps manage your transactions and communications.Search4bids.com www.search4bids.com Why not be the one to supply Uncle Sam with those $90 screwdrivers? This engine helps you find requests for bids from government agencies.