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Bulk Listing Items with no pictures

 
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wd2c



Posts: 2

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 2:44 pm    Post subject: Bulk Listing Items with no pictures Reply with quote

I have 20,000 General Motors obsolete, but new, auto parts that I would like to bulk list by individual GM part number. Customers look for these parts by part number.

Obviously, I am not going to take pictures of each one. I have tried bulk listing 380 parts without any pictures but got the FAILED message. Next, I added a generic picture which I took myself, and got FAILED again.

I thinking that ecrater is not a site I am going to be able to use. Is there some way to do this?
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Obviously, I am not going to take pictures of each one.


I fail to see why this is obvious. It may take awhile, but you can eventually upload 20,000 pictures. But you do have to ask yourself if it would be worth your while. Many of the people that use the bulk uploader also seem to have problems and need to go through each listing and tweak it to work with ecrater. Yes, ecrater is not the place for everybody and only you can decide that, but you might want to give it a chance by starting with a smaller quantities of inventory to start with. and as you get familiar with the site, etc. keep on listing your items.

Since I have a huge backlog of inventory that is not loaded yet, I let all my customers know that I have more stuff and to email if they are looking for something in particular, which I think would work well for you too.
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looking at what is currently in your store, I have a few suggestions...

All the items are currently stashed in the eBay import folder. You might want to wade thru those and move them to the correct folder.

You seem to have a number in the title, which I assume is your inventory. My own preference is to keep that number at the bottom of the description text (because it means nothing to your customers, and only to you). You should place in the title the GM or Ford factory part number. This is likely the same number that you are putting in the 'mpn' attribute. You are filling in the attributes, aren't you ?

The attributes are there to feed GPS. Putting the factory part number in the listing title will help you get traffic from the search engines that crawl the site.

Good luck !
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A-Better-Way



Posts: 3363

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is what I would do.

Use the categories to your advantage.
Pick the cream of the crop parts that are mostly bought and used.
Make a nice presentation of those parts, with pictures.

Then to the extent you know what sells or not, put in your descriptions that you have a great inventory and please ask and look it up for them.

As time goes on, keep making new categories, and add some items, and build on your store.

To list 20,000 pictures is a bit whacked out, but the ones that you want to list can lead to other sales beyond the scope of a "listing".

Cover all aspects of the parts you have, for a sales pitch.
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zickit



Posts: 21857

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 10:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pictures are required for your products nin the bulk lister

My suggestion to you would be to use the contact us form - go to www.ecrater.com bottom right corner click on contact us - ask if there is anything they can do to help you out.

We are all sellers and really have no idea if they can help you out or not
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 8:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
To list 20,000 pictures is a bit whacked out


I don't think so. Currently we have 7600+ listings up. All with one picture, most (and eventually ALL) with three photos so 7600 x 3 = 22800 photos and that doesn't include the many items we have listed and sold (over 4000) since we started here. Some items are repeats, but most have not been and required new sets of pictures. I'm not trying to brag about listings or sales, just saying that taking and using that many pictures is a doable thing and a necessary part of doing business, especailly if you want to be a big seller. We keep all our pictures and listing data so we never have to repeat it and we did all those listings without benefit of a bulk uploader too.

Just saying, it is possible, doable and not a farfetched idea. You sell 100 things on your store you have 100 pictures. If you sell 2000 things you have 2000 pictures, if you have 40,000 things up for sale you have 40,000 pictures. You either grow your store slow or fast depending on how fast you work to make your listings and do your photos.
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wd2c



Posts: 2

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am not looking to build another store over time. I already have multiple stores, my own web site and feeds to other automotive-related sites, I know how it works.

I am looking for a quick way to publish 20,000+ items that just arrived. I have the opportunity to buy 10,000+ items a month. Over time I will cherry-pick the items and list them individually.

What I want is immediate exposure. I have a spreadsheet of every part number, description, price and quantity. To leave them sitting on the side while I picture each one before posting is crazy.

I took BigClothings advice and contacted eCrater. They showed no interest. Time to move on and find a site with an effective Bulk Load feature.
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thecheapskirt



Posts: 2123

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It funny that pictures are "required" for the bulk lister, because I FTPed all my pics so they all had a valid URL, put them in the CSV file, and got zero errors when I uploaded. But not a single picture showed up. And I had to add them all manually anyway.

And from what I've read, I'm not the only person this happened to.
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A-Better-Way



Posts: 3363

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seems you are in another bracket, like selling skids of parts and not for retail.I guess you would have to market to car garages-repair, Jay Leno ? lol.

good luck Smile , that is alot of parts.
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thecheapskirt



Posts: 2123

PostPosted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wd2c wrote:
I am not looking to build another store over time. I already have multiple stores, my own web site and feeds to other automotive-related sites, I know how it works.

I am looking for a quick way to publish 20,000+ items that just arrived. I have the opportunity to buy 10,000+ items a month. Over time I will cherry-pick the items and list them individually.

What I want is immediate exposure. I have a spreadsheet of every part number, description, price and quantity. To leave them sitting on the side while I picture each one before posting is crazy.

I took BigClothings advice and contacted eCrater. They showed no interest. Time to move on and find a site with an effective Bulk Load feature.


It is super-easy to do a CSV upload to your own Wordpress blog (not wordpress.com, but one you host). Quite a few plugins out there.
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