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Automated Auction Process


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Hello everyone.

 

1. I agree, reentering each description over again from scratch is not a very efficient use of time. This basicly duplicates one of my dissatisfactions with using Turbo Lister. I'm a one man operation and entering descriptions for products at my website and in Tubo Lister kills my productivity. An Oscommerce Auction Manager (any of them) should eliminate this wasted time.

 

Isn't their a way with Turbo Lister to export a cvs file? I thought I herd someone talk about this before. If so maybe we could design an addon that would import the cvs file into the auction listings.

 

2. Using the auction number from ebay as the product model with no connection to existing store stock concerns me. I suspect linking an auction to the stores model number for the same product would be VERY helpful in a number of ways. Decrementing the websites product quantity when an item in stock is offered for auction would help prevent selling out before the auction ended, and incrementing it on completion without sale would keep the records current. It would allow importation of the product description from the existing database. It could allow the store's price to be used as a "Suggested Retail Price" entry in the auction if the merchant so desires (something that has been very helpful in increasing my ebay sales). It might require some care to avoid database problems, but I think this could be a worthwile tweek.

 

I am not to sure what you mean by this. The auction number from ebay only gets inserted into product model at auction checkout and this is mainly to distinguish a auction item from a catalog item.

 

3. Another productivity issue. (and I know, purists will see it as kind of a conflict with Open Source principles, but they're principles, not a suicide pact). I can upload bulk listings very rapidly with turbo lister, and with this packages ability to embed pictures hosted on our own sites in the auction description a module that generated a CVS file that can be imported to Turbo Lister would greatly speed auction postings and make an excellent feature. I rarely if ever use EBay's web tools to post. The ability to check my auction costs before upload is just too crucial.

 

So a cvs can be imported into turbo listener. This would be pretty easy to make an addon. As you may or may not know mySQL is great at creating a cvs file. What do you think. Would it work better to make an addon that imported a cvs or exported a cvs from the admin with a click of a button.

 

There is always ways to make the automated process a little more automated.

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Isn't their a way with Turbo Lister to export a cvs file? I thought I herd someone talk about this before. If so maybe we could design an addon that would import the cvs file into the auction listings.

 

2. Using the auction number from ebay as the product model with no connection to existing store stock concerns me. I suspect linking an auction to the stores model number for the same product would be VERY helpful in a number of ways. Decrementing the websites product quantity when an item in stock is offered for auction would help prevent selling out before the auction ended, and incrementing it on completion without sale would keep the records current. It would allow importation of the product description from the existing database. It could allow the store's price to be used as a "Suggested Retail Price" entry in the auction if the merchant so desires (something that has been very helpful in increasing my ebay sales). It might require some care to avoid database problems, but I think this could be a worthwile tweek.

 

I am not to sure what you mean by this. The auction number from ebay only gets inserted into product model at auction checkout and this is mainly to distinguish a auction item from a catalog item.

 

3. Another productivity issue. (and I know, purists will see it as kind of a conflict with Open Source principles, but they're principles, not a suicide pact). I can upload bulk listings very rapidly with turbo lister, and with this packages ability to embed pictures hosted on our own sites in the auction description a module that generated a CVS file that can be imported to Turbo Lister would greatly speed auction postings and make an excellent feature. I rarely if ever use EBay's web tools to post. The ability to check my auction costs before upload is just too crucial.

 

So a cvs can be imported into turbo listener. This would be pretty easy to make an addon. As you may or may not know mySQL is great at creating a cvs file. What do you think. Would it work better to make an addon that imported a cvs or exported a cvs from the admin with a click of a button.

 

There is always ways to make the automated process a little more automated.

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Turbo Lister can both import and export CVS files. And I think this is a great feature to add, yes! As for the auction number, my examination of the database indicates that the auction number becomes the product number for the 'new' item as soon as the information is extracted from EBay. Not that this is an entirely bad thing, just that I'd like the inventory numbers to match with a regular store product (ie, if I have product #33008 in stock in quantity 50 and want to auction less than that, say 5 for example, I want the quantity of 33008 to go down to 45 and the quantity of auction 31895737 to go to 5 - or 5 auctions of 1 each 33008 if I choose to spread the auctions out over time for more exposure and higher bids.

 

 

I also would like to be able to pull my graphics from my web site images directory rather than browse my client machines hard drive for it, though this should perhaps be configurable.

 

Frankly - multiple input methods is a good thing - the availability of the currently implemented method, plus CVS import and export, plus some means of browsing store stock, selecting items and creating an auction by entirely point and click would make this a much more powerful auction management tool

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Nimitz_1061,

 

Hello

Turbo Lister can both import and export CVS files. And I think this is a great feature to add, yes! As for the auction number, my examination of the database indicates that the auction number becomes the product number for the 'new' item as soon as the information is extracted from EBay. Not that this is an entirely bad thing, just that I'd like the inventory numbers to match with a regular store product (ie, if I have product #33008 in stock in quantity 50 and want to auction less than that, say 5 for example, I want the quantity of 33008 to go down to 45 and the quantity of auction 31895737 to go to 5 - or 5 auctions of 1 each 33008 if I choose to spread the auctions out over time for more exposure and higher bids.

 

I did a little researching last night and found in the old ebay manager thread DR4296 had developed a contrib to export products for Turbo Lister. I knew I had read about this before. I have already spoken to him and he thinks it is a great idea, so I will be working on this. As far as the model number, where are you seeing this. In the auction_data table it does not corespond to the product. And a field could be added to the Auction Listing for the model number. It is just what I named the field. It only gets moved to the product at checkout time. It would be very easy to change this one line of code so it will not do that. I use the pID number to control my inventory. Maybe another addon could be something that is able to move stock from the catalog over to the auction listing. This would not be very hard eithor. What do you think?

 

:unsure:

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Nimitz_1061,

 

Hello

I did a little researching last night and found in the old ebay manager thread DR4296 had developed a contrib to export products for Turbo Lister. I knew I had read about this before. I have already spoken to him and he thinks it is a great idea, so I will be working on this. As far as the model number, where are you seeing this. In the auction_data table it does not corespond to the product. And a field could be added to the Auction Listing for the model number. It is just what I named the field. It only gets moved to the product at checkout time. It would be very easy to change this one line of code so it will not do that. I use the pID number to control my inventory. Maybe another addon could be something that is able to move stock from the catalog over to the auction listing. This would not be very hard eithor. What do you think?

 

:unsure:

Thats exactly what I would like, as far as the turbo list functionality. Also, In adding one-off auctions - the use of a drop down list (something like in the xsell contribution) that allows you to select from ALL products in inventory by title is a great option.

 

and I very much like the idea of having the model number in the auction listing (at least, the listing the seller sees). This can be a great mistake reducer.. :lol:

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I would just like to say thanks to everyone for their feedback. I am going to start working on some changes, addons, etc for v1.1. I will let you know when it is done.

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Let me start off by saying thank you very much smitty for this contrib, it's an excellent idea!

 

But i'm a bit of a control freak, I like to know what's going on.

 

When using the old contrib I could ceate an auction and then check out (sort of running a test to see what the customer sees and also to check I haven't messed anything up while updating the dite.

 

Is there anyway of creating a dummy auction so I can see the whole process?

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I would just like to say thanks to everyone for their feedback. I am going to start working on some changes, addons, etc for v1.1. I will let you know when it is done.

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Cool! Any clue for a PHP neophyte who got smart and labeled all the code he added, and now has

 

// added for automated auctions DMG // End additions for automated Auctions DMG

 

Printing right above the logo graphic at the head of every page??

 

(too much coding, not enough caffeine!)

 

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

 

David :blink:

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sure steve*** just set up an auction listing and then go to current auctions and manually enter one. For security reasons, when you enter your email at auctionout.php it will only allow you to check out if the auction is in Ended status. This way if you have two auctions with the same winner (email), ones active and one is ended it will not pull up the active one by mistake. Also when they check out the status is updated to Completed. Which means there is no longer activity on this auction.

 

 

Everyone, I need an opinion - about the cvs export would it be better if you could set it up on the server side and downloaded a finished cvs file ready to be uploaded to eBay - or would it be better to just download the info and set it up in Turbo Lister.

 

What do you think?

;) ;)

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Will this contribution work with version osCommerce 2.2CVS?

 

I was going to attempt to install it but ran into trouble when I could not find the file catalog/includes/filenames.php to add to it as the instructions state

 

I would appreciate it if someone could answer this for me.

 

thanks

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harborsales,

This contrib was designed for osCommerce 2.2CVS. There is no /includes/filenames.php in 1.1. Are you sure you have 2.2?

 

If it is 1.1 the lines you are looking for are in aplication_top.php

:unsure:

Edited by smitty1
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Smitty

 

I took this right out of catalog/includes/application_top.php

 

// Define the project version

define('PROJECT_VERSION', 'osCommerce 2.2-CVS');

 

Could I be missing this file or missing something else?

 

I am using this Ebay contribution Automated Auction Process v1.0

 

Mike

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Smitty

 

Even though the application_top.php says it is 2.2 CVS I think my version is 1.1 because the line I was looking for is in application_top.php file. So if this is true then the Ebay contribution won't work. I'm I correct in assuming this? Or can I just the define statments in the application_top instead of the filenames.php file?

 

I appreciate your help

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If you have an older version of osCommerce (certainly MS1 and older, plus certain CVS versions between MS1 and MS2), then your includes/filenames.php (and database_tables.php) defines will be in includes/application_top.php. Not sure what other incompatibilities might exist.

 

Note other than MS1, the earliest version I can find at the moment says

  define('PROJECT_VERSION', 'osCommerce 2.2-MS2-CVS');

This is a pre-MS2 version. I think that line you showed would be from a pre-MS1 version, i.e. from before MS1 was developed as an idea.

 

There is no osCommerce 1.1. Until the 2.2 series, the name was The Exchange Project. I'm guessing he means MS1, which came out early this year (soon to be last year). Version 2.1 of The Exchange Project would be well over a year old now (two years?).

 

Cheers,

Matt

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It should work you will have to put the define filenames and tables in application_top.php.

 

by the way I ment MS1 not 1.1

:rolleyes:

Edited by smitty1
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I have a problem I hope someone can help me with. I have this contribution installed and when I am in admin I created an auction under auction listings but when I hit the preview button I get the following error

 

Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: upload in /home/harbors/public_html/auction/admin/auction_listings_admin.php on line 139

 

 

Can anyone tell me what this is and how I can fix it.

 

 

Mike

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Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: upload in /home/harbors/public_html/auction/admin/auction_listings_admin.php on line 139
MS1 didn't have the upload class yet. Two possible fixes (neither of which I've tried, use at your own risk):

 

1. Copy the upload class from MS2 and include it manually in admin/auction_listings_admin.php

 

2. Replace the calls to the upload class with the equivalent code that MS1 used for image upload.

 

I know of at least one person who is using the upload class with MS1 for the File Upload contribution, so I think that 1 would work. 2 would probably be a pain to implement.

 

Hth,

Matt

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Matt

 

Disreguard my previous post as it is fixed now. But I now have another problem, I click on "generate code" I get the code but something is wrong because the code doesn't work. I'm sure the part I have highlighted is the problem but I don't know how to fix it. It is missing the URL If someone get tell me I would appreciate it

 

<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

<tr>

<td>

<script language="JavaScript"

type="text/JavaScript">

if(navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer")

{

document.write("<object type='text/x-scriptlet' data='/auction/auction_product_info.php?cPath=9999&products_id=32' width='100%' height='1300'></object>")

}

else

{

document.write("<object type='text/html' data='/auction/auction_product_info.php?cPath=9999&products_id=32' width='100%' height='1300'></object>")

}

</script>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

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Happy New Years!

 

Not for another 20 minutes, dont tell me what happens!

 

 

Anyone know why my auctionout doesn't seem to be accepting any email address I enter in there, it just keeps telling me invalid address. I created an auction, used one of my accounts to buy it but it won't accept that accounts email address.

 

Thoughts?

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Mooligan,

For security reasons, when you enter your email at auctionout.php it will only allow you to check out if the auction is in Ended status. This way if you have two auctions with the same winner (email), ones active and one is ended it will not pull up the active one by mistake. Also when they check out the status is updated to Completed. Which means there is no longer activity on this auction.

 

Hope this helps.

:D

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I have a problem I hope someone can help me with. I am creating an auction listing, preview it and it won't let me insert it. I have used html in the description box so I tried again without html and it inserts. Does anyone know why?

 

Also the same auction title shows up on every auction I try to create. I put in a new title and that title plus the one from my test auction comes with it. Why is this and how can I stop it?

 

 

Thank you

 

Mike

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harborsales,

What is the html you are trying to insert?

 

And I have no idea about the title issue, thats wierd.

 

Your problem with the generate code has to do with your settings in configure.php

You must have a relative path entered instead of your full website path.

 

Hope that helps.

:rolleyes:

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Smitty

 

Thanks for the help that worked. But now I have another problem.

I placed an auction on ebay it was updated in the admin, I then purchased the item with buy it now under a different email addy updated it again in admin and it shows the auction over but now this is the problem I have now

 

 

 

1. When I goto auctionout.php to checkout, put in the email registered with ebay and I get the following message We are unable to process your auction item using the E-Mail Address that you have entered. Please use the E-Mail Address that you have registered with eBay

 

Can you tell me why this is happening and how I can fix it?

 

Thanks

 

Mike

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This is happening because although the auction says it's ended, the time of auction end still says a future date.

 

i.e. you're trying to check out @ 9:20, but the auction close time is for next tuesday at 10:00.

 

You'll need to manually change the ended time, unless smitty has a hack to fix this.

 

Steve...

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