UPDATED June 15, I now consider my major issues with the Inkfrog changes RESOLVED. Greg from Inkfrog chimed in below that they were working on a fix to the problems with user friendliness that I detail throughout the second half of the post and sure enough, within hours, a fix was implemented.
The listing screen now looks like this:
The red X’s at the bottom are mine, poorly pointing out the new functionality. What we have are buttons at the right for previewing, saving, etc., and links at the left to return to your listing library and taking other actions—they remain at the bottom of the listing pane as you scroll up or down the page making for easy creation and editing.
In fact possibly easier than it used to be! I listed 40 items today. Prior to Inkfrog restoring the stationary buttons I listed items at about 40-50% of expectations as outlined below. Today I started an hour late and still finished all 40 with time to spare. Thank you Inkfrog for implementing such a quick fix!
Bottom line: I will continue using Inkfrog for listing my eBay Items.
The original unedited post follows:
First things first, I love(d) Inkfrog. I have ever since the day eBay’s Turbo Lister told me I couldn’t play with them on my Windows ‘98 computer anymore (so I bought a Vista and TurboLister wasn’t ready for me then, but that’s another story!). When I first signed up for Inkfrog I found it had an easy learning curve, an intuitive interface, and what’s more not only was it cheap, it paid for itself through it’s scheduled listings. I was in love.
When Inkfrog 1.0 gave way to Inkfrog 2.0 I was even more blown away. I wrote about it at the time. Sure, we lost bulk editing capabilities—the button is there, but clicking on it any time since 2.0’s release in 2008 only calls up the same message: “Bulk edit feature coming soon. Please checkmark only ONE item for now.”—and it still does today. We also lost the ability to preview individual listings from right inside our library, another favored feature by yours truly which has yet to return. But again, I loved Inkfrog 2.0! So much more and for the same price, couldn’t beat it.
And so when I logged into Inkfrog, as I’ve done daily for the past several years now, about 12, 14 days ago, my body seized with a slight pang of terror when I was greeted by the banner ticking down major changes in just ten days. When something is pretty much perfect, change usually isn’t good.
And now we know what that change was, SmartLister. Look, I don’t have any problem whatsoever with Inkfrog incorporating this feature. It’s not a mandatory upgrade even if I get the feeling they wanted it to be. I choose not to use it as I’m sure many to most vintage dealers also choose. I’m well aware of Terapeak, the engine behind the SmartLister feature, I’ve tried it before and it’s not for me. If I was selling commodity items and not vintage collectibles, well, I’d probably live by it. As it is I haven’t used it enough to offer a recommendation for or against the service.
But I don’t have to use Inkfrog’s SmartLister and I don’t have to pay the extra $5 per month that an Inkfrog subscription upgraded to include SmartLister would cost a seller like me (yet). I do have a little problem with logging in to see that “Inkfrog is now free” only to discover in the smallest print on the page that the service is only a freebie to those listing 25 items or fewer per month. I’m betting they probably scored that wording from the free auctions* headlining eBay’s latest round of changes.
*For items with a 99 cent or lower minimum bid, no reserve. Whoopee?
But hey, I’m currently subscribed to Inkfrog at $9.95/month. I’m good with that. Smart Lister is no bother, even if Inkfrog does plaster it’s upgrade option in just about every place you could go along the way while using the once user-friendly site.
My problem is this: Rather than simply add SmartLister to the Inkfrog suite of tools they went and made a subtle change to the lister which in one fell swoop took it from being the most intuitive eBay listing tool I’ve ever used and instead leaves me scrolling all the way up, and all the way down each and every listing I create, looking for confirmation, looking for escape, practically looking for a Dramamine.
Time for details, and I apologize if you don’t use the tool because this is going to be a little dry, but if you are a current Inkfrog user I think you’ll be nodding your head in the affirmative in just a few moments.
Here’s the skinny: Just a mere few days ago you’d log into your listings, be greeted by your library, a nice long list of your items nestled in folders, very organized. That hasn’t changed.
But when you clicked on an item to create a new listing what you used to get was a pop-up framed over the library background that allowed you to work on your item in the foreground with the options of saving, previewing, or even launching your listing to eBay from outside the main frame. At any time you could escape your listing and return to your library simply by clicking off at the top right corner. With the pop-up there was no scrolling involved other than inside the listing frame itself. Everything else was always within reach.
Above is a screenshot of the old Inkfrog which is a little blurry because I grabbed it off a YouTube video. (Click on any of the included screenshots to enlarge). But you can see my shaky red arrow pointing to the bank of buttons at the bottom of the pop-up, and I circled the “X” at the top right of the screen where you used to be able to close out your listing to return to your library. At the right edge inside the listing pop-up you see a scroll bar which allowed you to scroll through your entire listing, but you’ll note that the buttons aren’t inside the bar—they were always where they are in this shot, easily accessible. At the edges you may be able to see the library directly under the pop-up, but the pop-up listing filled most of the screen.
Perhaps I can explain the past pleasure with a better picture of the current hell. Typically I’ll duplicate an existing item to create a new item because much of my listing information item to item is the same. I do this and a new screen now opens (as opposed to the pop-up). I go in and make my changes, my edits, etc. I want to preview the item so I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and it’s by no means a short page, to click the preview button. If I made an error or forgot to price the item, etc., I now have to scroll all the way back up to the body of the listing to make my change. Then all the way back down to preview again. Seasick yet? Satisfied I click the save button, which is mercifully located in the same bank of buttons as the preview button. Now to exit I have to scroll all the way up, past the middle, right to the top, to click the “Listings” category, close my listing screen, and return to the library. Meanwhile if I’ve previously sorted my library listings, as I obviously do since I’m mentioning it, the sort is lost. The sort has been rendered meaningless in fact.
Here’s the top of the new page:
Instead of the little “X” at the top right you click on the “Listings” tab to return to the library. Many, many inches below you’ll find the buttons from the bottom right of the old pop-up at the bottom right of the new:
Compare all that to making my changes and just clicking a button that’s constant at the bottom right of my screen or at the top up above the listing to exit. Shorter paragraph, much quicker action.
Here’s the bottom line, I’ve listed two days with the new Inkfrog as of now. I’ve been selling online for ten years now and when I pull out items to be listed that day I tend to finish them. In other words, if I pull 12 items I create 12 listings. I don’t run out of time, if anything I have extra time. The number of items varies daily depending upon the type of item I list. Well, Friday I pulled 12 items and managed to list exactly 6. Monday I pulled 50 and managed to list 30. In an email sent to Inkfrog users this past Saturday morning, Inkfrog President and CEO Greg Sisung wrote:
We are combining our own technology with up to date research to empower our sellers and help increase sales. Yes, using inkFrog and our new Smart Lister may help increase your sales!
Well, I’m seeing production slip mightily, 40-50% in my, granted very small, sample.
Unless I’m totally missing something, and please, tell me below if I am, I have to think this version of the product was launched without any actual users testing it whatsoever. It’s a snazzy design, sure, but while oohing and aahing over how pretty it is did anybody bother creating a few listings to see how the thing worked? I’m sure the new features were tested, but did anybody bother to take the listing flow all the way through to the bottom of the page … and then the middle … and then the bottom … and maybe up to the top of the page by then?
So I’ll say it again, as long as I don’t have to use it I have no problem with SmartLister. I have a huge problem with the changes made to Inkfrog’s lister, the core feature of the site. If the rest of the site could be returned to normal I’d even happily pay for the SmartLister and blissfully ignore it’s obnxious tabs. But if I can’t return production to 100% I won’t be able to continue paying for or using the service at all.
My plan. Give it a week. I want to continue using this product. See if my problems are as big as I think they are or if they’re just a matter of learning the tool over again. Re-install TurboLister in the mean time and have it all set to go in case I’m caught in a pinch, ie: have work that must be done. I think it’s obvious that the Inkfrog lister is not nearly as user friendly as it was last week, but by the same token I’ve found the service so much better than others in the past that I’m willing to give a huge benefit of the doubt.
How ‘bout you?
If you’re an Inkfrog user please do be sure to visit their forums, specifically this area set up for SmartLister topics.
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