posted on March 25, 2002 10:15:51 AM
AuctionWatch, you are driving my customers crazy. Because your WBN messages are so slow being sent, I turned them off on Friday because I am tired of explaining to people that No, you don't have to pay again, and No, you didn't do anything wrong, and No, I didn't send this message 24-48 hours after the close of the auction, AuctionWatch did.
Nevertheless, your WBN messages are still being sent! I have received several notices from customers this morning that they received messages from you within the last few hours. Your messages are dated today, March 25. I checked my Post Sale preferences and the WBN settings are clearly turned off, and have been for 3 days.
I do not want to hear WHY you are doing this, because it is utterly irrelevant. Just please -- PLEASE -- stop sending these messages!!!
posted on March 25, 2002 10:49:44 AM
If you don't post this in the Auction Manager forum, no one from AW is going to respond or do anything about this...
posted on March 25, 2002 12:42:18 PM
are these by any chance auctions that you uploaded with the WBN checkmarked yes? if so they will still send those out.
posted on March 25, 2002 01:05:25 PM
Not sure what you mean by "...uploaded with the WBN checkmarked yes?" There is no checkbox for this in individual auctions (I use SMBE). AuctionWatch provides WBN control to me strictly via online Account Setup, under Post Sale Preferences. Like the other options, I naturally presumed this is a real-time control (there is nothing to indicate that this control is treated any differently, nor should it be). Their messages are arriving 24-48 hours OR MORE after the close of the auctions. Perhaps this is an unrelated issue?
However, upon reflection, it's possible you may be right. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that having that WBN control set to "ON" at the time the 184 auctions were uploaded is an IRREVERSIBLE selection for that batch, and that changing the setting now will only affect future listings.
If so, I once again find myself in the unfortunate position of wondering how it is that AuctionWatch has written code without ever having stood in the shoes of someone who has to use it, fully confident that the philosophy of "You're Just Supposed To Know" is right and proper.
Nuts. Thanks for your input, I do appreciate it. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go write another dozen apologies...
posted on March 25, 2002 01:16:09 PM
Yep, there are "flags" in AW's software that can be switched on and off, but they take effect on a "go forward" basis. None of their code seems to recognize reality.
A perfect example is their Global setting for Insurance. Better yet, it is binary: Either I don't offer it or I offer it with "canned" values. Why that isn't a switch on an individual WBN basis still confuses me.
Because now, I have to update my Global settings before sending out a batch of WBNs that need to have insurance offered as an option. And then, I have to update Global settings to turn it off for WBNs that are below my threshold for offering insurance.
After the end of the month, I'm only using them for Image Hosting...
posted on March 25, 2002 01:49:10 PM
>>A perfect example is their Global setting for Insurance. Better yet, it is binary: Either I don't offer it or I offer it with "canned" values. Why that isn't a switch on an individual WBN basis still confuses me.
I hear you! I now include the actual insurance cost as part of the postage entry. Aside from the fact that AuctionWatch provides no means to specify this on an individual basis, their calculations are all wrong -- their canned insurance costs start at 2.00 for "$100 and under" and this is not how the Post Office calculates insurance: It's 1.10 for items up to 50.00, then 2.00 for items 50.01-100.00. Since we state we charge actual shipping costs, we must abide by that, and AuctionWatch has instead decided to apply their own policy, which of course will not work for myself or any others who charge actual shipping. What's even more amazing is that the actual insurance cost is, of course, dependent upon the final value, not the starting bid. A moment's inspection is all that's needed to realize that this is something that should be configurable, not canned.
To further compound matters, you cannot edit any of the shipping charges in the WBN message - you must have a crystal ball and predict ahead of time what person in what country is going to buy your goods, enter the correct amount for shipping before posting the auction, and then hope that the actual shipping will turn out to be what you have predicted, because AW won't let you change it. They give you 3 chances in the auction before uploading to get it right, sort of like a lottery.
In fact, eBay's messages are vastly more friendly, and they go out immediately. I've had far fewer problems dealing with their messages, and I'm going to do that exclusively from now on.
I sold a book to a guy in Canada last month who complained bitterly that he wanted to put the actual shipping cost in himself, since he knew what it was going to be, but the AW message wouldn't let him do that. He ended up having to send 2 payments. Presumably AuctionWatch doesn't regard this as a problem - why should they? It doesn't affect them, right?
Many companies overlook details because they're more concerned about the "big picture." My own company is like that too. But, the devil is in the details, and if you're not very careful, it'll jump up and bite you...
posted on March 25, 2002 01:51:33 PM
Follow-Up: This just received from AW - apparently someone noticed after all! This is useful information - looks like rarriffle was right.
posted by: ChristopherAW
Hello,
While you can go into your preferences to indicate what you would like to use or not on new auctions, changing your preferences does not carry over into existing auctions.
If you would like to edit the WBN on existing auctions, you need to first go to the Active auction section. From there, select a group of items and use the 'edit wbn' button.
On the following page, you will have the option to edit your WBN, including the option to turn the automatic function on or off for your specific items.
Keep in mind any preferences you change, only changes the defaults for when you create the item, and will not carry over to edit your already listed items.
posted on March 25, 2002 02:28:44 PM
Ah yes! And I do that with every WBN that goes out, because I too, have no idea when I create the listing, what the final shipping amount will be...
posted on March 27, 2002 12:10:53 AM
This is kind of wierd. My AW WBN goes out within seconds of the end of the auctions. Many times I get the AW notice before I get the Ebay Notice... I wonder why?
posted on March 27, 2002 09:20:52 AM
dejapooh: My guess is that you don't use BuyItNow and/or most of your auctions close on schedule. In my case, 90% of my auctions end when someone hits the BuyItNow button. AW doesn't send WBN's out for BuyItNow auctions for as long as 48 hours after close. I had to discover this the hard way. eBay is now actively promoting their BuyItNow feature via radio, television and print ads, so that just compounds the problem with late WBN's.
I also discovered through trial-and-error that WBN's for BuyItNow auctions do get sent out when I subsequently synchronize SMBE. But there is no reason to use SMBE for any post-sale activities whatsoever, since all AW post-sale management is conducted (laborously) on-line. Besides, SMBE doesn't provide any post-sale capabilities other than showing you what has ended and exporting the data to another program, which of course is useless.
Despite gotcha after gotcha, I'm managing to work through the minefield. I turned off the AuctionWatch WBN's for good, and I wrote my own software to handle notifications and invoicing on my own computer instead of pointing and clicking my way through a maze of slow web pages -- have virtually no problems now. I use AW online post-sale management only to create packing slips and provide a backup of my accounting data, and that works for me.
I thank everyone here for their great input as usual.
