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 Once you discover eBay, and have a few transactions under your belt, you start to wonder if there isn't some kind of software out there that will help you with your auctions. You look at other auctions, with their snappy layouts, and wish yours could look the same. Here are a few software packages that are tried and true, and will help simplify your auction experience.

A good software to have is "Cricket Jr." from www.cricketsniper.com. If you have several auctions that you want to bid on, you can plug the eBay auction numbers and let the Cricket do the rest. Cricket Jr. is one of the best "sniping" programs around. Rarely do you loose an auction - unless the high bidder has bid out of your price range. Cricket Jr. allows you to enter your "snipe" amount (the highest amount you wish to bid), and will place your bid for you. It will place your bid to as close to the end of the auction that you wish - I've used it as close as 30 seconds. It makes it very hard for someone to up your bid with only a few seconds remaining.

Highly recommended for beginners - or advanced users for that matter - is "Virtual Auction Ad Pro."  A simple and easy program that helps you build professional looking auction descriptions. You can choose from different formats; with a picture on the top, the side or even two pictures. You don't need to know HTML, because Virtual Auction Ad Pro does all that for you. Just indicate the size and color for your headline, sub title and description, and click the "view ad" button and see how your auction looks. If you don't like the way it looks, you can always go back and play with the font size and colors. When you push the "view ad" or "generate ad" buttons, a copy of your ad is placed on the Windows clipboard. So that when you want to post your auction, just "paste" the contents of your clipboard - your ad - into the eBay Description area. Click the ad on the side to get a free trial.

As you progress on eBay you'll want more information on your auctions. A website, ManageAuctions.com offers free counters that give you interesting information on the bidding process of your auctions. Below is a graph, pulled from their website by clicking on the counter in the bottoms of one of my eBay auctions:



You should know that the information in this graph is for your eyes alone, protected by a ManageAuctions.com password. Marketing companies pay big money for information such as this - and it's yours for free. By looking at this chart you can determine the days and the time of day that your auction for a particular kind of item gets the most hits. It can help you plan your next auction for similar merchandise with an advantageous closing day and time. They also offer free image hosting using their own website to transfer your files - no need to mess around with an FTP program. There are many more features, including retrieval of your auction results, and one click emailing.

When eBay becomes a part of your daily routine, "Auction Wizard" is a worthwhile program to try. It's a feature rich program that can help you with just about anything you need for your auctions: inventory, auction preparation and listing, e-mail management, auction updating, feedback automation, HTML templates, income and expense tracking, label printing and a full set of reports. The ledger, inventory and report modules make this a professional program - definitely for the advanced user. Not enough can be said about the importance of record keeping, and this program allows you to track your inventory and keep a ledger on your sales. A trial and more information can be found at www.standingwavesoftware.com/aw.

If uploading your auctions is all you need help with, eBay supplies "MisterLister", a free bulk uploading tool. Mister Lister will allow you to input your auctions, and upload them to a holding area on eBay that you may access when you're ready to post them. This is very convenient if you only have time to write a few auctions at a time - but want them to all start and end at the same time. To use Mister Lister, eBay requires that you have a credit card on file, have a Feedback rating of 10 or more and have been registered on eBay for 60 or more days. It's free and very convenient at http://pages.ebay.com/services/buyandsell/mr.html.

All these tools are available with at least a free 30 day trial. That will give you enough time to evaluate them and decide for yourself which best suits your needs.

©2002 The Collier Company