As you can see by my lack of content on the subject, I have not gotten very far on my Site since the last update, as you can imagine, without advertising no one knows I have this stuff , and the reason that its junk in my closet is well..because its junk. I’m planning to use the domain for some other stuff soon, so I’m going to retire the site.

I do ant to say that I’m pretty impressed with the Auctiva commerce product. I think that it has a lot of potential, and is worth considering for an online store.  (You can now actually sign up at the site!!)

As you know from my previous post. I’ve  started to use Auctiva Commerce for my web store. I was able to sign up because I’m an existing Auctiva customer for their eBay tools and they sent me an invitation. But if you go to thier site: Auctivacommerce.com, they have lots of marketing information, a limted-time offer, and no way to sign up–not even a note saying when you will be able to sign up. That’s got to be quite frustrating for anyone interested in doing business. Not a good way to launch a site in my opinion.

As you probably figured out from my last post: The Economics of Ebay, I’m going to try and sell stuff that most people would normally sell on eBay without using eBay. The Goal is to do it for less then what I would pay on eBay.

One of the most critical things I am going to need is some type of store to sell stuff. In comes an email from Auctiva with an offer to use the “pre-release” version of their new web store application–Auctiva Commerce . I looked at the store and and the promotional offer, which means that in my case it will be essentially cost free until April, and decided to try it out. (Markters let this be a lesson to you that sometimes timing is everything.)  Auctiva is a company that specializes in tools for ebay sellers. I’m guessing that with the change in the way the eBay does business with its eBay Stores sellers, they tried to create a product that better meets those sellers’ needs. The product has a number of nice features (like sophisticated sales tax setup, and shipping integration) and is still missing some stuff  (an About Me page or a Terms and Conditions Page) All of these issues are being worked on in some way or another, and are to be expected in a new product, none of them are show-stoppers and the product is very usable in its current state.

See my Store as its built here: solutions4tech.auctivacommerce.com