The pleasure to be had from selling your unwanted goods on eBay is, unfortunately, matched by the pain of actually listing them. That's where iSale comes in.Now at version four, this tool allows you to create rich auction listings. It integrates tightly into Mac OS X, iCal, Address Book and iPhoto, and offers a range of tools designed to streamline the process of adding a listing and managing it after it has gone live.However, while version 4 is undoubtedly superb, much of what makes it so has been available in the application for some time. As you'll see, if you've never bought a copy of iSale before, this latest edition is well worth the small investment, but despite the low upgrade price, users of earlier versions might be underwhelmed by its upgraded features. That may be academic, though, as iSale is a certified eBay tool, so it integrates directly with eBay's API to provide tightly integrated services. However, as eBay upgrades its API, so compatibility with earlier versions of iSale can break. Version 2 no longer works, although the developer did offer special upgrade pricing at the time.Overlook that, though, and you have what is a useful and beautifully designed application.You start by adding an auction, either blank, based on one of the 130-plus supplied templates, or by pre-populating your auction by searching existing eBay auctions, Amazon listings or, new in this version, your local Delicious Library (delicious-monster.com) database.iSale 4 includes a template browser, enabling you to narrow down the list of templates, GarageBand style. The process of creating your own templates is documented in the PDF manual and supported by a downloadable demo template. If you just want to change a few graphics, the process is simple, but if you want to go deeper, you'll need a thorough knowledge of HTML.The best bit when you come to enter your auction's information is that iSale remembers basic information, with support for multiple accounts. As well as allowing you to specify a range of postage costs, say, you can also enter boilerplate information for postage and returns policies, for example, as well as welcome and sign-off text.Because it's an eBay-certified product, you get access to deep-level data such as Item Specifics. These allow you to tag items listed in particular categories with data specific to those categories. List a memory card, for example, and you can choose to select the type, brand, capacity and condition, making it easy for buyers to browse or search.You can add images from the Finder, iPhoto or an attached webcam such as an iSight, and easily swap them around. They can be hosted on .Mac, an FTP server or now Flickr to save on listing costs. Version 4 can scale pictures in their drop zones, but we'd like to have seen some Core Image-powered simple image editing, too.Once you're happy with your listing, submit it to eBay; you'll be told how much the listing costs before committing.iSale tracks auctions from within iSale or from its Dashboard Widget - with sensible use of colour coding for status - but we'd have preferred it to automaticically refresh the status of auctions, rather than having to click manually. Version 4 can also change the style of the corkboard that has running auction 'Polaroids' pinned to it.You can't edit auctions once they're submitted, but this is, in part, a limitation of the eBay system itself.Another new feature is printing. You can print lists of completed or running auctions, or packing slips. With some tinkering - documented in the manual - you can also create customised print templates, but we would rather this was simpler.Smart groups help you track status - whether an item has been paid for, for example - but still requires some manual intervention. You can create your own smart groups, though, to track what your best customers have bought from you, for example.iSale uses Spotlight to keep track of emails relating to specific auctions. It's generally good, and clicking on the arrow next to each listed email takes you to that message within Mail, but you need to remember not to reply to questions using eBay's own messaging service, and it seems not to pick up, for example, emails relating to payment.iSale is a fantastic application for listing and tracking eBay auctions, and while version 4 should perhaps more accurately have been called 3.5, it's still well worth the very reasonable asking price. It looks beautiful, is easy to use and takes the drudgery out of being a Mac-using eBay seller.
It looks beautiful, is easy to use and takes the drudgery out of being a Mac-using eBay seller.Author: Christopher Phin
iSale 4