eBay's 2018 Fall Seller Update is out, and once again eBay is announcing far-ranging changes of which many sellers should be aware. Among them are:

• Further expansion of the product-centric shopping experience

• The ability to provide phone support to shoppers prior to the sale

• The end of support for non-secure http:// content in item descriptions

• Tracking requirements for item not received appeals

• Fee increases, changes in item conditions, and a new labels experience

Here are the details you need to know about each of the changes mentioned above.

Product-Based Shopping Expansion

In the 2018 Summer Seller Update eBay expanded the number of categories covered by its new product-based shopping experience. Now eBay is announcing that the number of product-based shopping categories will expand once again.

The list of product-based categories is now quite extensive, and there are some general rules to keep in mind:

• In many—though not all—of these categories, you must associate your listing with an eBay product catalog entry in order to appear in search.

• Because of the way that product-based commerce works, one of the best ways to appear prominently in search is to offer the best priced item for a particular condition—the best new price, the best refurbished price, or the best pre-owned price, for example.

Product-based commerce continues to grow. Price your items to target links across the top.

To associate your existing listings with an eBay product catalog entry in inkFrog, follow these steps:

1. Open a listing or profile for editing. For a listing, this can be done by selecting "Listings" → "Library" → "Edit" (pencil icon).

2. In the listing you'd like to edit, scroll down to "General Settings" and find the keyword, UPC, or ISBN search box.

3. Begin typing either a product make and model or the product's numeric code from product packaging.

4. Select the matching product from the pop-up list that appears.

5. Save your listing. Updates for any live listings will automatically propagate to eBay.

Enter your product, then select a matching catalog entry to update your listings.

Pre-Sale Phone Support

This change is a remarkable about-face for eBay. After years and years of strict enforcement of its "no shared contact information" rule, sellers will now be able to share phone support information with shoppers prior to a sale.

There are, however, some caveats.

• eBay is calling this a "pilot" program, so its permanence may depend on whether or not sellers abuse the privilege.

• Sellers can't share a phone number themselves (in item descriptions or eBay messages), but must rather enable the sharing of their phone number in their eBay account settings.

• The phone number won't appear prominently, but will be provided to shoppers that are actively seeking more information about the product in the listing, for example, by using the "Contact seller" link.

• Sellers are still forbidden from using this contact to conduct and off-eBay sale; the feature is intended to enable sellers to answer questions for interested shoppers, thereby hopefully increasing conversion rates.

Sellers can now enable shoppers to phone them before the sale with questions.

End of Support for Non-Secure Content

Starting on September 15th, eBay will no longer support item descriptions containing references to non-secure (http://) content, instead requiring that all references to external content use a secure (https://) connection.

In practice, this will primarily affect sellers that host images somewhere other than eBay. Already existing listings will not be affected, but all new listings (including relistings) must be made using secure content or eBay will abort the listing process with an error message.

Two changes must be made for old external content to continue to be used:

• The server hosting the content must be configured to enable https:// connections. In most cases, this will already be done for you—to check, try visiting an older image URL, replacing the "http://" with "https://" in your URL bar. If the image loads correctly, your server already supports secure connections.

• HTML code in older item descriptions that do not use inkFrog's designer template library must be changed to reference "https://" URLs instead of "http://" URLs. For many eBay sellers, this will be the tougher job.

Fortunately, inkFrog users are able to make this change quickly and easily. Once you have verified that your server is able to handle secure connections, follow these steps to update your content:

1. Inside inkFrog, select "Listings" → "Library" to open the library containing all of your listings.

2. Check the box at the top of the left-most column, to the left of the word "TITLE" in the header row to select all of your listings.

3. Select "Bulk Actions" → "Listing Actions" → "Find & Replace" to open the find and replace tool.

4. In the "Find" box, enter: ="http://

5. In the "Replace with" box, enter: ="https://

6. Click "Find & Replace" to replace all instances of "http://" in your listings with "https://" instead.

Use inkFrog's search and replace tool to update all of your listings to secure content at once.

New Tracking Requirements

Starting September 10th, sellers will be required to enter tracking information for their shipped orders (or to use a label printing method that automatically submits this information) prior to the estimated delivery date provided by eBay to the shopper.

If this information is not provided by the seller before the estimated delivery date, eBay will no longer protect sellers in cases of "item not received" claims or allow appeals in these cases when decisions are made in favor of the shopper.

Going forward, be sure to enmter tracking information for every order you ship.

Most regular sellers already use pre-printed labels that automatically enter this information during pre-shipment, but if you don't already do this—now may be the time to start, both to protect yourself and to save the additional work involved in entering tracking information manually.

Fees, Item Conditions, and New Labels Experience

There are a number of other changes outlined in the 2018 Fall Seller Update, but three in particular are likely to be of interest to a wide variety of sellers:

• Increased fees. Insertion fees for reserve price listings in most categories, for subtitles, for value pack listings, and final value fees in several media categories will increase in mid-September, in some cases dramatically. Check the list of fee updates to see whether any of these fee increases will affect you.

• Changes to item conditions. The vague "New other" item condition is finally being replaced with something more conventional in some categories—the much more shopper friendly "Open box" condition. This change will automatically be applied by eBay to listings in Electronics, Home & Garden, Health & Beauty, and Musical Instruments. In Business & Industrial categories, "New other" will change to "Like new" instead.

• New eBay Labels Experience A new label-printing experience to streamline fulfillment will soon also be available. The new experience will roll out in September and promises to be both more flexible and more intuitive than the old label printing experience.

For Complete Details

Though we've covered the highlights above, as always there are a sizable number of changes included in the latest seller update.

For complete details on each change, the conditions under which they apply, and the date on which they'll take effect, visit eBay's 2018 Fall Seller Update page.

inkFrog as an Alternative to Auctiva

inkFrog and Auctiva are two different eBay listing programs available on the market and we believe you should be fully informed on what each platform offers. We did the homework for you and put together a list of the top features and which each service offers. In this review of Auctiva we line up their features with ours so you can clearly see which service is more suitable for your business needs.

Here is a summary and you can find a detailed comparison of all features below:

• Pricing: As you can see below, Auctiva is significantly lower cost than inkFrog, by approximately 50% on all pricing.
• Account Connections: inkFrog outperforms Auctiva in terms of how many eBay accounts you can link (1 vs Unlimited) and furthermore it can connect to your Amazon account, BigCommerce store, and Shopify store and keep all your inventory synchronized to eBay.   Additionally, inkFrog can import your inventory via CSV file, Auctiva cannot.
• eBay Tools: inkFrog allows you to store an unlimited amount of product photos (Auctiva does not) and offers a bulk listing editor which Auctiva does not.  Furthermore, inkFrog offers both Staff Accounts and Print Templates - neither of which are offered by Auctiva.
• eBay Listing Templates: Both inkFrog and Auctiva offer professional eBay listing templates for their members, however inkFrog also gives you the ability to create your own templates and will even custom design an eBay listing template exclusively for you.
• Support: Both companies offer fantastic support by email/ticket, live chat, and online training. However inkFrog pulls into the lead by offering one-on-one training and we have recently started offering phone support during standard business hours.  Additionally, inkFrog offers one-on-one onboarding calls to help you setup your business and ensure it's working exactly as you need.

As you can see, Auctiva does make a much cheaper alternative to inkFrog but with significantly reduced features. You can see a detailed comparison matrix below.

SIGNUP FOR INKFROG TODAY

SIGNUP FOR INKFROG TODAY

Looking to streamline your eBay shipping processes and reduce fulfillment costs while you're at it?

We've just released a new integration with ShipSaver, enabling inkFrog users on the Unlimited and Designer plans to easily print shipping labels and purchase shipping insurance.

Even better, you can do this directly from within inkFrog—often at better rates than are available directly from carriers.

What You Can Do with ShipSaver in inkFrog

With the new integration, you can:

• Purchase shipping labels and insurance for all your eBay orders, with a single click

• Enjoy better label and insurance rates than are available through eBay in many cases

• Ship any package that originates within the United States to any United States or global address

Best of all, it's easy to use!

Connecting ShipSaver to inkFrog

To use ShipSaver, click "Apps" → "ShipSaver" to open the integration tool.

If you already have and use ShipSaver, click "Already a user? Login" to connect your ShipSaver account to inkFrog.

Visit the "Apps" area of your account to connect to ShipSaver.

If you don't already have and use ShipSaver, create a new ShipSaver account by clicking "Need an account? Sign Up."

Creating a ShipSaver Account if You Don't Have One

If you opted to create a new ShipSaver account, you'll be asked to provide a login and password for your new account, then prompted to configure a few basic preferences.

In the Shipping Preferences area, select all of the shipping services that you regularly use in the "Default Shipping Services" drop-down list. Then, select a default domestic service and a default international service. You can change these preferences later on, on an order-by-order basis.

Configure your shipping preferences as you create your ShipSaver account.

Select a default label style for printing, a default packing slip style, and whether you'd like new shipping labels to open in your browser or be saved to disk.

In the Insurance Preferences area, specify how you'd like to receive payments for insurance claims—either by check or by PayPal, and provide the needed information for this delivery to occur.

In the Insurance coverage area, check the boxes next to any carriers for which ShipSaver should cover the entirety of any insurance claims. Leave boxes unchecked to rely in part on the carrier's standard coverage level, which is slightly less expensive, but also less convenient.

In the Email Preferences area, check the boxes next to any email messages you'd like ShipSaver to automatically send. Hover over each message for a detailed description of the message content and its destination.

Choose to pay for shipping labels with either PayPal or a credit card.

Finally, provide a payment method for your label printing. For many eBay sellers, PayPal is the easiest method, matching the way that eBay shipping labels are billed by default. Either click the PayPal payment option to connect your PayPal account to ShipSaver, or click on the credit card payment option to provide card details.

Your new ShipSaver account is now created, connected to your inkFrog account, and ready for use!

Printing Labels and Purchasing Insurance

Once ShipSaver is connected to your inkFrog account, you'll notice new options when viewing your sold listings that make it easy to purchase shipping labels or insurance for your orders:

• Click on the printer icon next to an order to purchase and print a shipping label for your shipment.

• Click on the shield icon next to an order to purchase ShipSaver insurance for your shipment.

Once ShipSaver is connected, labels and insurance are easy to purchase from within inkFrog.

That's all there is to it!

Whenever you're working in inkFrog, you're now just a click away from purchasing and printing shipping labels to fulfill orders, or from buying competitively-priced shipping insurance from a company that's handled over 3 million deliveries—for more than 20 thousand sellers worldwide.

eBay's 2018 Summer Seller Update is out, and eBay has announced several changes that will affect many sellers:

• Expansion of the product-centric shopping experience

• Requirement to provide accurate item locations

• Enhanced metrics surrounding seller performance problems

• Changes to eBay stores URLs and markdown policies

• Streamlined, accelerated returns process

Here are the details you need to know about each of the changes that eBay has outlined.

Product-Centric Shopping Expansion

eBay's new product-centric shopping experience will be expanded from a few initial product lines to encompass entire product categories.

Sellers will be required to use eBay's product catalog when creating or modifying listings in these categories, and will be able to suggest modifications to eBay's catalog or suggest new products for the catalog, subject to eBay review.

Soon entire product categories will leverage the product-centric shopping experience.

Existing listings that are not associated with a catalog product "may have minimal or no visibility to buyers."

Accurate Item Locations

Starting at the end of July, inventory warehoused in the United States must be listed with a valid location ZIP code, to enable eBay to provide the most accurate possible estimates for delivery times to buyers.

Items warehoused in multiple locations, outside the United States, or shipped via freight are exempt from this requirement. Note that sellers who make use of Amazon's FBA program have inventory at multiple warehouse locations, and are not affected by this requirement.

Enhanced Seller Performance Metrics

Starting in July, sellers using Seller Hub will be given new tools that provide more insight into:

• How many returns were for items that buyers felt were not as described

• How many times buyers reported item(s) not received

• Other reasons for buyer-reported issues following a purchase

• How other sellers (peers) are performing in the same product niche(s)

The metrics sample shown by eBay suggests that this data will be provided in a visual, easy-to-understand style.

New metrics will improve on old reports like these, which are over-general and texty.

The addition of new detail and clarity in Seller Hub for these metrics areas is designed to enable sellers to identify and address problems that are repeated issues for their buyers.

Changes to eBay Stores

Beginning in late June, store products must be active for 14 days before they can be promoted with discounts using a markdown sale event, to encourage competitive standard pricing.

eBay is also in the process of moving stores to a new URL structure that uses the primary eBay domain (www.ebay.com) rather than the longtime stores subdomain (stores.ebay.com). An eBay store's previous URLs will automatically redirect to its new URL once it is moved. eBay is also adding SSL (https) capability to stores at the same time.

Along with this change more stores functionality, including stores management, sales reports, and traffic reports, will be transitioned into Seller Hub and out of the classic eBay Stores experience. A number of new secondary benefits and discounts for non-eBay services are also being offered to eBay Stores subscribers.

Streamlined and Accelerated Returns

Beginning in July, eBay will make changes to the returns process that buyers experience.

• eBay "may" immediately offer prepaid return labels to buyers that initiate a return. In buyer remorse cases, the buyer will pay for this label.

• Buyers will be expected to print this label and ship their return within five business days.

• Sellers will have two business days following receipt of the return to issue a refund or take further action.

• If sellers do not act within two business days of receipt, a refund will be automatically provided to the buyer.

eBay says that this change will significantly shorten the timeline for returns, enhancing buyer satisfaction and reducing the duration of holds on seller funds that can result from service requests from buyers.

Also announced was an automated transition of existing listings to one of several new returns policies. In eBay's 2018 Spring Seller Update, a simplified list of returns options was given. eBay says that in August, listings will automatically be updated to use these new options if sellers do not make updates before then.

All listings will be made to offer one of: no returns accepted, 30-day returns, free 30-day returns, 60-day returns, or free 60-day returns, depending on which of these is most similar to the listing's original terms.

Finally, eBay has announced that sellers can now offer separate returns policies for domestic sales and international sales.

You're a Step Ahead Thanks to inkFrog

This seller update mandates two listing changes that sellers themselves must make—updates to inventory location and the use of eBay product catalog for listings in certain categories. With inkFrog it's easy to make both changes, even to many listings at once. Here's how.

To update the inventory location data for many listings at once, follow these steps:

1. Click "Listings" to view your eBay listings.

2. Select "Live," "Sold," "Unsold," or "Scheduled" to access a particular group of listings, or select "Library" to access all of your listings—of any status—at once.

3. Check individual listings to be updated, or check the box at the top of the left-hand column to select all listings in the category for updating.

4. Select "Bulk Actions" → "Edit Listings" → "Location" to edit the location for the item(s) in all checked listings at the same time. Any listings that are currently live will be updated on eBay as well.

Use the "Bulk Actions" menu to update location or catalog data for many listings at once.

To update the catalog data for multiple listings, follow the steps above but select "Bulk Actions" → "Edit Listings" → "Product Identifier" in the final step instead.

Remember that catalog data is product-specific, so take care to only bulk-update product identifier data for listings selling the same product(s).

You can also update location or catalog data in your inkFrog profiles, rather than just in your eBay listings. These can then be applied to existing listings, or used as data templates when creating new listings. To edit your profile(s) with new location or catalog data, follow these steps:

1. Click "Profiles" to view your inkFrog profiles.

2. Find the profile you'd like to update and click on it to open it.

3. Scroll through the form and enter new catalog and/or location data for the profile.

4. Click "Save" to save your profile.

To apply new data from a profile you've just updated to your existing listings, follow these steps:

1. Click "Listings" to view your eBay listings.

2. Select "Live," "Sold," "Unsold," or "Scheduled" to access a particular group of listings, or select "Library" to access all of your listings—of any status—at once.

3. Check individual listings to be updated, or check the box at the top of the left-hand column to select all listings in the category for updating.

4. Select "Bulk Actions" → "Listing Actions" → "Assign Profile" to apply the settings in the profile to all checked listings at the same time. Any listings that are currently live will be updated on eBay as well.

If you've updated profile(s) with new data, you can apply them easily to update existing listings.

Other sellers may have to dedicate significant time to the changes mandated by the 2018 Summer Seller Update, but inkFrog users will be able to make the changes quickly, and in bulk—just one of the many benefits of being an inkFrog user.

For complete details on eBay's new update, please visit eBay's 2018 Summer Seller Update page.

If you're new to selling on eBay, you've probably heard of Turbo Lister, once recommended to new sellers in thousands of books and articles as the way to manage multiple product listings on eBay.

Unfortunately, eBay ended support for Turbo Lister in 2017, and the Turbo Lister home page says that Turbo Lister is no longer offered. You can still find places to download it, but should you?

Here are some key things to think about:

"inkFrog has solved so many issues for us! They have really helped us in managing our eBay store, through providing a great template, as well as making sure our listings stay up to date with regularly changing eBay regulations."

— Onlinepartysupplies

• eBay's long-term plan is to retire all support for Turbo Lister

• Support for Turbo Lister is now spotty at best

• Turbo Lister feels and works like old software that's getting older

The takeaway? If you're not already tied to Turbo Lister, it's not best way of getting off on the right foot any longer. Even if you're just beginning, you need a replacement for Turbo Lister.

inkFrog Is the Best Replacement for Turbo Lister

With the end of Turbo Lister in sight, there's only one real replacement: inkFrog. inkFrog does everything that Turbo Lister did, managing a library of eBay templates, active listings, and past listings for you.

But beyond this, no other Turbo Lister replacement can:

• Be used for free—just like Turbo Lister—for up to 10 ongoing listings

• Import inventory directly from CSV data files

• Offer a compelling combination of ready-made, customizable, and bespoke template options

• Support your fulfillment workflow with printable address label and invoice templates

• Enable you to provide accounts to your employees and staff as you grow

• Provide one-on-one training and support all along the way

This combination of features is found only at inkFrog.

With inkFrog you'll create listings, manage orders, and rely on customizable templates.

inkFrog Grows With You, Year After Year

inkFrog enables you to avoid impractical fees early on, expanding with you even once you have thousands of products and listings live. With inkFrog, you'll:

"inkFrog has helped us list our products on eBay in one place with very intuitive options. The support staff has helped us immensely from setup through day to day management whenever an issue comes up."

— Runkeeper

• Start small, paying nothing until you get your business off the ground

• Add multiple marketplaces and selling platforms

• Add employees and get them working for you in inkFrog, too

• Expand your inventory at will, with inkFrog managing an unlimited number of listings

• Get personal assistance from day one

Only inkFrog is just like Turbo Lister once was—free at first, yet able to scale without limits—while adding deep support and enabling sellers to synchronize their activity across multiple selling platforms.

Ready to get started on eBay with the best Turbo Lister replacement?

You've found it. Let's get started!

Giving a third party access to your eBay selling account is no small thing.

After all, you're on the hook for any listings that you create, sales that you make, and messages that you send—so it's only fair that you want to know exactly what InkFrog does when you try it out.

Here's what you can expect.

Your Listings Will Be Imported

After you sign up, which involves connecting your eBay account to inkFrog, all of your eBay listings will be imported and made available to you inside your inkFrog account.

• You'll find current listings under "Listings" → "Live"

• You'll find sold listings under "Listings" → "Sold"

• You'll find unsold listings under "Listings" → "Unsold"

• You'll find scheduled listings under "Listings" → "Scheduled"

• You'll see a bucket of all imported listings of any status under "Listings" → "Library"

• You'll see all of your listing images in the "Images" area

Importing your listings doesn't change them or alter their status in any way on eBay; inkFrog is simply also making them available to you inside inkFrog.

Your eBay listings will be imported into inkFrog and categorized shortly after you sign up.

A Banner Will Be Added When You Create or Edit Listings with InkFrog

From the start you'll have be able to create new eBay listings or edit your existing eBay listings using inkFrog.

A small banner will be added to the bottom of any new listings that you create or existing listings that you edit, to show shoppers that you're able to provide the enhanced levels of customer service commonly associated with inkFrog sellers.

Users who upgrade to a paid inkFrog subscription can disable this message in the "Settings" → "Marketing" area of their inkFrog account.

You'll Be Able to See and Manage Your eBay Activity from inkFrog

After singing up, you'll find that you don't need to do anything else to be able to track and manage your eBay sales activity from inside inkFrog.

Your inkFrog dashboard will import your activity and immediately begin to display metrics.

Your inkFrog dashboard will automatically track your sales and sales totals. The statuses of your listings—live, sold, unsold, paid, shipped, and so on—will automatically be updated in the "Listings" area of your inkFrog account.

You'll also see and be able to respond to new messages from the eBay message center using inkFrog.

You can also start using inkFrog for your messaging right away.

inkFrog Will Enhance Your Seller Communication

By default, after you sign up inkFrog will begin to send nicely formatted messages to your buyers:

• When you make a sale (confirmation email)

• When you ship a product (tracking email)

These messages add professionalism to your selling activity and shoppers generally appreciate them. If you'd like to see samples or disable them, you can do so from within the "Settings" → "Marketing" area of your inkFrog account.

"I use inkFrog daily to feed multiple eBay accounts. Saves so much time and it's very flexible. Easily pays for itself every month. Been using this app for 2 years."

— Sunseeker

Kick the Tires and Then Get Rolling

So that's it—everything that will happen when you try inkFrog—but of course that's a lot. As you can see, inkFrog has been designed so that when you try it, you hit the ground running

Your library of listings and images is automatically imported and begins to track your eBay activity. You can immediately respond to eBay messages from within inkFrog. And your seller communication is improved for you unless you choose to disable it.

You can still manage your sales from eBay, for example by using Seller Hub, but you can also start testing the same workflows in inkFrog right away, so that you can see just how much inkFrog will improve your effectiveness.

From there, you can begin to try new inkFrog templates, creating listings with inkFrog, connecting your other stores and selling channels, and customizing your inkFrog configuration and workflows.

Now you know what happens from the moment you sign up for inkFrog and connect your eBay account. Sound good? Then what are you waiting for? Try it today!

If you're just starting out, e-commerce can be confusing. Really confusing. There are dozens of "platforms" and "marketplaces," and even if you stick to the biggest, you'll hear that you ought to at least sell on:

• eBay

• Amazon

• Your own website

eBay and Amazon have different audiences, so you need both. And since you need a website to brand-build, rank in search, and reach non-marketplace customers, you probably also need something like Shopify or BigCommerce.

This all sounds like an awful lot of work because it is. Say you create an eBay store. And an Amazon store. And a Shopify store. This means you need to:

• List each product that you sell in three different places. Sell 50 products? Create 150 listings. Sell 500 products? Now it's 1,500 listings.

• Process orders in several places. You'll log into three different websites and use three different systems each day just to keep orders shipping.

• Survive inventory madness. If you have nine of something to sell, do you list three on each platform and hope for the best? Or do you list nine in each place and hope you don't receive 27 orders?

• Update everything in three different places. Product updates. Restocking. New listings. Pricing. Policies. Will you really make every single change in three places? Are there three of you?

On top of it all, there are these other services, like inkFrog, that seem to do something... important. But what? And how does this something relate to the many-platforms problem?

How inkFrog Works (The Big Picture)

Let's get back to that problem. You've opened an eBay store, an Amazon store, and a Shopify store, and you feel so overwhelmed that a booth at the craft fair is starting to make more sense.

Here's how inkFrog relates to this problem: inkFrog solves it. inkFrog enables you to sell through one or several storefronts without multiplying your work.

"So very happy when I found this app. It makes our business easier and saves our time. Highly recommended for all drop-shippers who are selling on both eBay and Shopify."

— Asgoldstore

It's true that thousands of eBay-only sellers use inkFrog to manage their listings. inkFrog's software is more convenient and powerful than eBay's own tools for creating professional listings and templates, managing inventory levels, and fulfilling orders.

But the larger purpose of inkFrog is to solve the many-platforms problem. After creating an inkFrog account, you can:

• Link your eBay, Amazon, Shopify, and other stores to inkFrog

• Manage inventory levels on all of them from inkFrog

• Manage all of your eBay listings from inkFrog

• See and process all of your orders in inkFrog

• Tell inkFrog how your listings, inventory, and orders should interact across all your stores

Use inkFrog to manage and fulfill orders for all of your sales channels.

By using inkFrog, you make eBay, Amazon, and Shopify your storefronts, not your life. Your actual business and all of your master lists live in inkFrog.

"Great app! Started with the free version to try it out and found it very easy to use. As soon as the orders started coming in I upgraded to the paid version. Have had a couple of small issues but all was sorted straight away by the very helpful support team, thanks!"

— Super E Cig Ltd

• The products you carry

• Information and pricing for each of them

• Your actual inventory levels

• Templates for your listings

• Your orders—both placed and already fulfilled

• Overall metrics about your business

Since this is what inkFrog is for, inkFrog makes it easy to manage all of this in one place, interacting with eBay, Amazon, Shopify, and other platforms for you, to keep everything simple, tidy, and humming along.

How inkFrog Works (The Nitty-Gritty)

Let's get more detailed. Here's what the process looks like:

"Does the work. It is easy to manage our eBay stock. I like that when I change a product in Shopify, it updates eBay. With over 500 toys and games, we sure need a good app to manage it."

— Toyshnip Store

1. You create an inkFrog account. You link your eBay store to inkFrog as a part of the signup process.

2. Inside inkFrog, under "Store Connector," you click "Add a Store." You do this once for each online store you have—Shopify, BigCommerce, Amazon, Highwire, and soon Volusion or Magento as well.

3. You configure these inside inkFrog, making rules about how each figures into your business—rules for restocking, for products, listings, and prices, and for creating listings for new products.

Each time you add a store, your products there are imported—added to your master inkFrog lists—so that in the future you can manage that product, its listings, and its orders from within inkFrog.

This makes your life a lot easier:

• The "Profiles" area of your inkFrog account becomes the core of your business—your product line and policies.

• All your active listings for customers, on each store, are managed in the "Listings" area. This feeds the public-facing part of your business—what customers see and purchase on your storefronts.

• All your listing templates and product images live in the "Templates" and "Images" areas.

• All of your eBay customer messaging is handled in the "Messages" area of your inkFrog account.

Manage assets like images—for all of your stores—in one place.

Isn't Plain Language Great?

That's what inkFrog is for.

Yes, inkFrog is a great eBay listing tool that offers hundreds of professionally designed eBay listing templates. But it's also the solution to a bigger problem.

You get to manage your business and multiple storefronts from one place. You see and process orders, respond to customers, create listings, and manage inventory simply and automatically—for each of your stores—without logging in elsewhere.

inkFrog makes e-commerce make sense. Make sense? So give it a whirl already—click here and try it!

inkFrog as an Alternative to CrazyLister

inkFrog and CrazyLister are two different eBay listing programs available on the market and we believe you should be fully informed on what each platform offers. We did the homework for you and put together a list of the top features and which each service offers. In this review of CrazyLister we line up their features with ours so you can clearly see which service is more suitable for your business needs.

Here is a summary and you can find a detailed comparison of all features below:

• Pricing: As you can see below, inkFrog makes a cheaper alternative to CrazyLister for all subscription plans (both monthly and yearly).
• Account Connections: inkFrog outperforms CrazyLister in terms of how many eBay accounts and listings you can manage, furthermore inkFrog has integrations for Shopify, Amazon, and BigCommerce (which CrazyLister does not).
• eBay Tools: In terms of raw features for an eBay listing tool, both platforms offers fairly compatible services however inkFrog has Staff Accounts, Print Templates, and soon we are adding an automatic feedback feature (CrazyLister does not offer any of these).
• eBay Listing Templates: Both inkFrog and CrazyLister offer comparable features in their eBay listing templates.
• Support: Both companies offer fantastic support by email/ticket, live chat, and online training. However inkFrog pulls into the lead by offering one-on-one training and we have recently started offering phone support during standard business hours.

As you can see, inkFrog does make a much cheaper alternative to CrazyLister with more features. However you can see a detailed comparison matrix below.

SIGNUP FOR INKFROG TODAY

SIGNUP FOR INKFROG TODAY

eBay's 2018 Spring Seller Update is out, and once again product-based shopping is front and center, with more brands and product lines now managed by the new experience.

How the Product-Based Shopping Experience is Different

Product-based shopping requires sellers to list certain products using identifiers like UPC, ISBN, or EAN codes that are linked to the eBay catalog. eBay uses these codes to present search results for these products in new, more streamlined search results pages. These pages show prices and sale terms more clearly, requiring fewer clicks from shoppers to buy—all of which is good for sellers.

At the same time, however, eBay shapes the search and shopping experience for these products far more carefully, with less prominent paths to individual listings and item descriptions. Paradoxically, this makes the templates that you use for your listings more important than ever.

Why eBay Listing Templates Matter in Product-Based Shopping

The eBay search result pages for product-based shopping present a smaller number of purchase options, each appearing in a similar, concise format. This means that:

• Your listing title and subtitle are less definitive than they used to be; they'll either be less visible or will surface only after multiple clicks

• Regardless of the keywords you've used in your title, your related products and accessories aren't visible in search results for the product

• Thumbnails of the images in your listing may be less prominent in search result pages than they used to be

• It's less clear to shoppers which offers come from you and which come from other sellers

eBay's new product-based shopping experience.

For these reasons, in product-based shopping you need to make very most of every click you get, which means that your eBay listing templates need to:

• Be quickly recognizable and memorable, doing more heavy lifting to positively and uniquely brand you and your inventory

• Be seamless, professional, and look great on mobile, to prevent an obvious interruption in the more polished product-based shopping experience

• Do even more to cross-promote and sell your related inventory

This is where inkFrog's listing templates come in. If you're not using them already in product-based shopping categories, you probably should be.

"inkFrog templates have made my listings look AMAZING and totally professional. Sales have increased by more than double. Their support team is the best I have ever experienced in my business! I highly recommend inkFrog!"

— wirerappedcrystals

inkFrog Templates are Ready for Product-Based Shopping

We recommend using inkFrog templates for product-based shopping items and categories because our hundreds of eBay listing templates:

• Are carefully and professionally designed, meaning that they integrate seamlessly as shoppers progress through the new experience

• Are mobile-friendly and behave gracefully as eBay adapts them for different views in the experience

• Offer prominent, well-thought-out space for cross-promotion, to reveal your related offers in categories where search results won't do this any longer

• Are the best way for you to make the most of your position in product-based search results and the clicks that you receive from them

• Enable you to bulk revise and update all of your listings with a click, for easy holiday or business policy changes

inkFrog offers hundreds of professionally-designed, customizable templates.

Yes, you can try your hand at building templates yourself—but let's be honest: building templates yourself is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and tricky to get right. This is particularly true if you want templates that behave well across all of the product-based shopping views, that adapt elegantly to mobile shopping, and that offer lots of space for cross-promotion.

With hundreds of designer templates already available for you to customize, and with our powerful, easy-to-use listing designer available for those who really want to build their own look, we think our tools are the best way forward for sellers looking to make the most of the new product-based shopping experience.

See the rest of the details from eBay's 2018 Spring Seller Update here.

Searchable Item Specifics Are Back!
(and Other inkFrog Updates)

inkFrog Open Updates - May 17, 2018

We’re quickly approaching the summer and there is a lot of things going on at inkFrog!  Here are some of the latest updates to inkFrog Open:

Searchable Item Specifics Are Back!

In April we released a feature called Searchable Item Specifics.   It was a search box which was attached to the various Item Specifics fields so you could quickly and easily find the appropriate value for fields like Brand Name and such.   Well there were a few bugs in the code which caused it to not work as intended so we had to pull it out temporarily.

As of Monday this week we have added this feature back!  It’s now fixed and working properly, and instead of having a separate search field on the item specifics it’s now a singular field:

Collapse and Reorganize Fields in the Listing Editor

Another awesome new feature we’ve just added - you can now rearrange and hide sections in the listing editor!   Simply click the gear icon here:

This will open a window which gives you the option to hide a section (uncheck the box) and you can also drag-and-drop them to re-arrange their order on the listing editor:

There is also a reset button in case you want to revert everything back to the standard layout.

eBay Spring Seller Update 2018 Compliance

eBay has established new return policies which are taking effect right now as part of their 2018 Spring Seller Update.   We are happy to report that inkFrog is compliant with these new policies and you can read about how to configure them in your inkFrog account here:  Click Here

Cross Selling Internationally - Now Possible in inkFrog Designer!

inkFrog Designer has this fantastic feature called the Cross Sell widget, it dynamically inserts listing previews of your other products onto each of your listings.   It’s an amazing cross-sell tool which is highly configurable (customize the colors, product selection, layout, etc).

As of yesterday we have added ALL eBay websites to the Cross Sell widget, previously it only worked on the top five.   Now you can Cross Sell on eBay.es, eBay.it, eBay.fr, and all of the other eBay websites using inkFrog Designer templates!

Going Back to Basics - Introducing the New Basic Plan

Picture this - you are fairly new to selling on eBay.  You have been using the free version of inkFrog which lets you manage 10 listings.  However 10 listings is not enough, you want to list many more products but cannot justify the jump from inkFrog Free to inkFrog Professional.

So we have added a new subscription plan called Basic.  It allows you to manage 300 eBay listings (which is a huge jump from the 10 you can get on inkFrog Free) which is available for less than $10/month!

Bulk Edit Item Specifics

This isn’t a new feature, but it’s something we have been meaning to showcase because it’s not something most customers know about.  Most customers know about our Bulk Edit tool (Listings > Library, select multiple products, click Bulk Edit in the top-right corner), however very few customers know that you can bulk edit Item Specifics:

If you sell many products and make use of the Item Specifics fields frequently this is likely a very powerful feature for you as you can edit all of your listing specifics in one go instead of editing each product individually!

Additionally - with the new Searchable Item Specifics feature (see above) you will be able to bulk edit Item Specifics with the new search feature to bulk edit even faster!

New Item Cost Field

We’ve added a new field to all listings as follows - Item Cost.  This is a field where you can enter your item cost. While we are still a long way from offering a full Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) system for your inventory, this is the first step in that direction and it’s a good number to reference when trying to decide on pricing your products without having to lookup supplier catalogs or other files.

Additionally, this field is available in the CSV import so you can push that data into inkFrog using that method!

Wishing you all the best!

Chris @ inkFrog