Guys,
I mean seriously now. Can you not just show the shipping cost? Why do I have to open every single ebay item to work out how much to snipe.
You know, you set a price for a service, we the end users, i.e. 'i', pay, and then you expect to get it!
Like do you really expect us to run through every item all of the time and check shipping to work out what our top bid is?
If you cannot implement this - perhaps you might just offer me a partial refund, and I'll go elsewhere. You know what, even if you don't, I might just have to put up with some other service, that doesn't look as nice as yours - but to save me the hassle of having to open up every single auction and manually doing this.
All I want is seller listed shipping cost. If you cannot provide this, just let me know.

Hello Amit,
Thank you for the report about shipping. We finally figured this out. Whenever we do a shipping call for your items, it returns 'invalid name'. We couldn't figure out what this was, until we saw your profile is empty on those fields. We're not sure if this carried over from your eBay profile, or if you updated it yourself, but that should fix it. We can put in a placeholder as a temporary fix until you can update it.
Please update that Preference page and let us know so we can check everything over. It should be automatic (updated within a minute or two of adding the snipe).

It's all working. I really appreciate you taking the time out to fix this, and long may I now be your customer!!
You offer one of the nicest interfaces on the market and a great service, and it was just so frustrating I was being inconvenienced by this - but now it is all fixed -- really I cannot thank you enough.
Please keep up the great work, I love the site now. I just have to figure out how to archive stuff away - and my last suggestion - perhaps a tally of win rate could be interesting.. i.e. 30 Day Win Rate: 28%.... that way, your users can understand where to place themselves in the market when bidding and keep it at a rate they are happy with.
All my best,
Amit

If that happens again just bug us some more. We usually just do a hotfix right away, then reply later. In this case the hotfix didn't fix your issue ... it was a bad assumption. That last release was a major revamp behind the curtain.
What does this mean? --> "I just have to figure out how to archive stuff away."
We can add a moving average chart for you. There is also a bid analysis tool we are launching soon. We'll enable it in your account so you can test it while it is in beta (in testing phase).

Thanks again for the response.
In relation to archiving; I notice that you have an archive 'folder' as it were. But I haven't been able to work out how to move completed auctions to it - or if indeed that is even possible - but that's not a dealbreaker or a big deal.
I don't mind beta testing of the analysis tool when it becomes available or the moving average chart.
Best,
Amit

Right now, items appear in the Archive tab after 3 months. Do you prefer to manually move items, or have it auto-move them after a preferred number of days? Or an option for both?

It would be great to move them out the way manually when required. It's almost like an inbox zero approach. When I've dealt with my win/loss history, I can archive it and be done with it, unless required :)
Thanks. Else, everything is perfect for now.

I should however quickly add that ebay search does not work for me which is a shame. I just see a 'throbber' animation showing that something should be happening , but nothing ever does.

Okay, will do. We caught the search issue as well.
While we are asking: Is there any value in setting a status for other conditions, such as "paid'?
Also - do the sellers always put the tracking numbers into eBay? That is, are you able to go into eBay and see the tracking number and/or track the package? We were considering putting in support for tracking the packages.
After 20 years of web development, why am I just now finding out the spinning dial is called a Throbber? :-p

in relation to your questions:
While we are asking: Is there any value in setting a status for other conditions, such as "paid'? - Personally I don't see any value. When I win, ebay sends me a notification, and the ebay iphone app allows me to see everything i need to pay for either immediately or of course when I have a spare moment. For me, bidslammer is not in the equation post procurement.
Everything up until the point of purchase, i.e. working out how much to pay (bearing in mind postage), is where I work with bidslammer. Of course, when search is working for me, that will mean I won't need to go into ebay to search and then manually watch items.
Data insights based on past activity is where I think the product might shine. As I say, win rate over a peroid, or even competitive information - how many other people am I going up against on a regular basis who come in last minute? Now I know they cannot be identified (or at least I don't think they can), but perhaps a count of how many bids in the last 10 or 15 seconds... then gives one an idea of how many people you are competing with on a non auction level if you get my meaning.
To your questions;
Q1) While we are asking: Is there any value in setting a status for other conditions, such as "paid'? A: could be useful for some, but I don't think I would find any use. as I say, I feel your tool should be pre-procuments and post analysis of historic data. When I have won an item with your excellent service, the ebay app and my email go nuts, and I know, I then need to pay and can easily access that data outside of bidslammer.
Q2) Also - do the sellers always put the tracking numbers into eBay? That is, are you able to go into eBay and see the tracking number and/or track the package? We were considering putting in support for tracking the packages. A: Again, I don't think there is much point for me. As someone who procures a lot of items, I just wait for them to arrive, and am always open to delivery. The only time I need to search for tracking is if I cannot identify where it has come from, in which case I am narrowing that down on ebay as I hide orders that I have received - but that is just my workflow.
--- After 20 years of web development, why am I just now finding out the spinning dial is called a Throbber? :-p --- haha glad to hear, we learn something new every day! I did computer science at university back in 2000 also and did some HCI design - 'throbbers' didn't exist then I don't think! - I had to look it up just to convey myself to you as clearly as possible!.
Thanks again for your time.

I'm losing my mind, I appear to have answered the first question twice ;)

Reading back to fully answer your question, no not all sellers will put tracking in, even if they have it! Just an administrative load for some, or even something the occasional/casual seller does not bother with.

LOLz ... computer science, I knew it. The opener was a dead giveaway. "How hard can this be, anyway?"
Shipping is the bane of any programmer's existence. I'm still confused as to whether or not "free" shipping is also considered "flat" shipping. Feel free to help on that. https://developer.ebay.com/Devzone/shopping/docs/CallRef/GetShippingCosts.html
Your answers are helpful. I stopped using eBay in 2008, after I saw how much I was spending. I also quit using Quicken. :-p
For the analysis tools, I'm to the point where I have to start writing the help pages, and so I figure I'll just type it out here.
We realized that this needs to be targeted at unlimited subscribers, due to the volume of data required for the charts to be helpful.
We have 3 items ready for testing:
1. A table of data showing win rate over time. This was your idea. I nixed my chart idea because ... it sux. The table is modeled after the way mutual funds report their returns. In this case, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, etc. up to 1 year.
2. A graph of "bid vs. cost" for all items. I really got carried away with this one. It became evident that there is a "win line," e.g., a diagonal, linear line that represents win or lose.
3. A graph of "bids vs. time" for an individual auction. You can also overlay up to 20 auctions on one graph. This turned out to be awesome, too. It turns out that the resulting curve betrays the intent of competing bidders.
More questions for you:
Q1 (a). On a scale of 1 to 10, how valuable is it to enter tracking number and have us list the last status on the tracking page, e.g. "Held in USPS Chicago staging station" ? I think this would be crazy helpful right now, because the shipping services are all using each other's facilities for coronavirus and shipments are getting confused.
(b) From 1 to 10, how tacky would it be to send email to subscribers announcing this feature free through 2020 on the aforementioned premise?
Q2. From 1 to 10, value of a horizontal bar chart with Y-axis of "lead time," and X-axis showing percentage bars of win rate. (This would be great to post publicly for all customers aggregated, but I'm not sure if it has value for an individual account.)
Q3. From 1 to 10, value of implementing the "perfect penny" chart. We already know what this chart is going to say (penny values of 0, 50, and 99 are best for US), but it still might be of interest. https://bidslammer.com/img/blog_penny_graph.png .
Thank you in advance.

Hey.. sorry for the delay in responding! Hope you're well and keeping safe.
Items for testing sound great, glad I was able to add some valuye to item 1 with my experiences.
My answers to questions, which are of course purely subjective;
1a) I haven't tried to use bidslammer in a post purchase capacity, thus I cannot comment, and am on the fence on that one. This is something eBay should do! thus I guess it may have some value. Will it add value to bidslammer and make it more valuable to customers, possibly. thus I'm sorry 5
1b) If 1 is tacky and 10 not, I would rate that at 8 - there's no harm.
2) I guess if we have the table, i.e. item 1 that is ready for testing, it would negate the requirement for this - but this could always be introduced later if subscribers wanted an alternate view of data, so on the provisio of the introduction of testing item 1, then 4 - no harm done. if no 'testing item 1' then 8
3) That could be very useful market specific to the UK. Any insight into bidding/wins to gain competitive advantage is a bonus, so 9
I don't know if any of that helps! Please keep me in mind for beta.
I would say that if the search function issue is something that is more widespread, resolving that would be amazing as it keeps me within the confines of BidSlammer as my one-stop-shop, from search, to selection, to analysis and decison making on my position in relation to bid placement. On win, I guess some of the other features you speak of, may add some value.
Many thanks.

Great, thank you. We just posted the last (?) set of fixes for the March 18 production release. The search should be much smoother now.
I got really carried away with the charts. I'll leave you in suspense until we set up a testing link next week.
eBay charges a lot of money for research data, i.e. "Completed Items." However, they do give 5,000 free searches per day (per application) for "Completed Items." I'll add that next.
The one-stop-shop idea is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I don't see anything online in that regard; it just turns up sniping services. The idea I'm thinking of is a separate service (on a different URL) that is like a shopping cart for eBay. The idea originated from people that buy dozens of collector stamps under $5 every week. Apparently eBay gets really buggy over about 50 items. The complaint is that there is no simple way to combine invoices or request invoices, etc. It can be done, but I heard it is a real pain.
I'll try to get that test link to you next week. In the meantime please let me know of any oddities you see in today's software release.

Wonderful thanks for the update :)
Currently however, there are some issues for me.. and not sure if for other users;
please see here;
https://paste.pics/ba989d3b1dee54821d0ce0dbe134de31

Funnily enough I decided to randomly go here;
https://test.bidslammer.com/user/view/#/watched
and this seems to be working... (!)

final update.. again oddly. https://uk.bidslammer.com/user/view/#/watched seems to work I think.

ok cache clear fixed it! thanks. I should say, the search function defaults, to U.S. not sure if I can change that -
Best,
Amit

Yes, it looks like you saw the "please clear your cache" message, which we posted after you wrote in the first time. We were monitoring posts after the release, so we caught it right away.
Apparently most browsers cache the javascript files now.
Going to the subdomains loaded the right javascript file.
I see you found the test site. That was intuitive, wow. It was running the older copy, as you noticed. :-)
I will post again when the charts are ready to test.