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Posted: Mon, May 16, 2005
SuperSeller Pro for eBayby Sali Earls eBay is one the successes of the 1990s dot com boom. It is currently one of the best known brand names internationally, and millions of people use it everyday for buying and selling. Indeed many eBay users operate online businesses through the service, as their sole source of income, and due to this trend, several suppliers have brought solutions to market to offer additionality to the eBay experience. The German software company Data Becker has brought SuperSeller for eBay and SuperSeller Pro for eBay to market to assist users in the management of their eBay auctions. The products are distributed in the UK by Phoenix Software, and are available off the shelf exclusively at PC World. SuperSeller for eBay is designed to help sellers create professional looking auctions via a range of templates; while the SuperSeller Pro for eBay offers the additional functionality of inventory and supplier management, with invoicing and reporting tools. The additional features of SuperSeller Pro for eBay are designed to handle the day to day running of an ecommerce business outside of just eBay sales. Admittedly, this sounds like a great proposition for budding internet entrepreneurs, however in practice, we found that SuperSeller Pro for eBay was not as super as we had hoped. After installation, the programme set up begins, in which the user enters requested information, including eBay username and password. While eBay have given this software its seal of approval, there is still a sense of unease about entering this information into a web enabled 3rd party product. The product promises simple and attractive listings without needing to be technically minded, but it really does not delivery on this promise. If you set up an ordinary auction on eBay, you are charged for posting pictures, so the alternative is to have your own webspace, and a method of getting them to that webspace. This requires an understanding of FTP (file transfer protocols), and the software doesn't offer a way around that.  While the free templates look very nice, the preview page you use before uploading them often did not appear as expected, with items missing. Uploading the listing to eBay resulted in frequent errors and system crashes. The errors we experienced included use of images, auction length and starting prices - pretty fundamental requirements of an eBay auction. It's worth pointing out that many of the numerous error messages encountered are in German.  The problems experienced meant that we had to repeatedly save our work as the unexpected crashes were somewhat frustrating. The product seemed to crash at the most inopportune times, notably at the point of uploading to eBay, or simply trying to use the promised additional functionality of inventory management. Support for the product leaves a lot to be desired. While Phoenix Global Software distribute the product in the UK, they have a very limited working knowledge of it, so any reported problems are passed back to Data Becker in Germany, where they seem to disappear. Yes, the software is reasonably priced, and for that perhaps you should not expect a round the clock support service and problem resolution. However, buyers should expect to get what they paid for and that's fully functioning, working software without bugs that kill the process with a single click. And that is not what you are getting with the current version of this product.  We've been using it for several weeks, and it's obvious that the product needs extensive testing. It feels like it's been rushed to market to cash in on the eBay boom, so has been poorly converted with little quality control. It does have the eBay seal of approval, but currently the only advantage this software has over careful use of your "My eBay" section is the good selection of templates, and perhaps that is not enough. If SuperSeller Pro for eBay did everything it set out to do, it would be a great product - it would be good value for money, and could significantly assist your ecommerce business. I really do hope that the next version of the software has these significant bugs ironed out, and if you are unfortunate enough to encounter an error, you get the message in a language that you understand. SuperSeller for eBay retails at £19.99, and SuperSeller Pro for eBay retails at £59.99. Both are available from PC World. For further information please visit www.phoenixglobalsoftware.co.uk For UK technical support contact support@phoenixglobalsoftware.co.uk, or telephone 0870 4589 373. |
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