Jade Auction Software has been designed with very specific goals in mind. The idea was to create an application that stayed out of your way and let you focus on selling, selling, and selling. Jade was designed to "Just Work"; there's no steep learning curve, no hordes of menus to navigate or options to fine-tune. It helps you create auctions and track their progress, and it does these very well. Jade is easily adatable to all sorts of selling styles and can be your silent selling partner rather than a hindering piece of software.
The first time Jade is run, it will automatically guide you through setting up your current eBay account information. If you ever need to go back and change something, everything can be accessed from the Edit->Preferences menu. If you change your username, you'll need to refresh your store categories and user feedback before Jade will work properly.
To create a new item, click the New Item button in the toolbar or select Item->New... from the menubar. This creates a new window with space to enter all of your item's details. Optional eBay services which cost extra have a tooltip that will explain the cost when you hover your mouse over them. Labels have been intentionally left nearly identical with eBay's to avoid confusion; creating an item with Jade is very similar to Sell Your Item 2.0, plus it all takes place in one window! The window's titlebar will change dynamically to reflect the current insertion fee of your item. The Preview button allows you to see how your listing looks without submitting it and the Save Template button lets you save your item in a way that makes it easy to create similar items in the future. When you are finished with your listing, click Done if you have no more listing to write, or Sell Similar to create another item; the previous item's details will be used as a starting point.
To create a new item from a pre-defined template, click the Use Template toolbar button or select Item->New from Template from the menubar. You can also right-click on any item in the Active Auctions list which has originally been written with Jade and choose Sell Similar to use that item as a starting point for a new listing.
Jade is fully compatible with "WYSIWYG" HTML editors such as Microsoft's FrontPage or other HTML-generating tools. Simply design your auction's description in such an editor and copy the HTML, then paste it into the Description text area in Jade's New Item window.
Jade is capable of saving all of your current Local items to a file, allowing you to list and relist items in batch with ease. To do this, first create (but do not submit) listing for each item you would like in the batch. Next, click Auctions->Save Collection in the menubar to save your batch. Finally, you can click Submit All on the toolbar or Auctions->Submit All from the menubar to submit your entire batch of listings at once. In the future, you can click Auctions->Load Collection from the menubar to reload your entire batch and use the Submit All feature to submit them as new auctions.
To allow easy tracking of your listings, Jade is divided into two lists. One, Active Auctions, is for your currently running listings and listings you've created but have not yet submitted. This list displays each item's title, starting bid, current price, highest bidder, number of bids, and end date; any of these can be used to sort the entire list. Each item's status is also available, which may be Local for items you have not yet submitted to eBay, No bids for auctions with no bidders, or Selling for auctions with at least one bidder. To update this list, you need to click the Refresh button in the toolbar or choose Auctions->Refresh Auctions from the menubar. Each update will automatically move any finished auctions out from the Active Auctions list into the Closed Auctions list. There is also a statusbar at the bottom of the Jade window which displays them number of items currently selling on eBay and the ammount they are selling for.
The second list, Closed Auctions, contains all of your finished auctions, organized on a monthly basis. The same details are listed as on the Active Auctions list, along with a Stage column. This allows you to track your items through the following stages: Contact Winner, Waiting on Payment, Ready to Ship, Shipped, Payment Reminder Sent, Non-Paying Bidder Report Filed, Final Value Fees Collected, Relist, and Relisted. Double clicking on an item allows you to edit post-auction details including important dates, the payment amount and type, and any associated fees. When this information is filled in, Jade will calculate your estimated profit on a per-item basis. The Item menu also allows you to send invoices, shipment notices, and leave feedback for each listing. Items which did not sell have a Relist as is option which will resubmit the item without modifications. All closed auctions have a Sell Similar option to create new listings which you can then modify.
Jade has two contact features: the ability to send invoices, and the ability to send shipment notices. The text of each can be customized under the Edit menu. To send either an invoice or a shipment notification, right-click on a finished auction and select Send Invoice or Send Shipment Notice from the menu; you can also select an auction and then use the Item menu to accomplish the same thing. To make life easier for bulk listers, the Auctions->Send All Invoices menu item will send an invoice to every finished auction at the Contact Winner stage. Finally, by double-clicking on any closed auction, you can view the e-mail address of the winning bidder if you wish to use a program such as Mozilla or Outlook to write your e-mails.
Keeping running statistics of your auctions is now easier than ever. Jade has the ability to add expense costs to the Closed Auctions list via the Bookkeeping->Add Expense menu. This allows you to input postage costs, items costs, etc., all at one time, which will then be factored into your final profit estimates. The Bookkeeping menu also allows you to view statistics for the currently selected month, the currently selected year, or the entire collection of statistics Jade has collected. Please note that this only includes auctions written with Jade; it does not keep acurate records of items written using other software, and it does not keep track of item listed before you began using Jade at all. Finally, Jade has the ability to export each month in CSV format for easy spread-sheet access. Simply use the Bookkeeping->Export Month to Spread-Sheet menu option to save a .csv file, then open your favorite spread sheet application and import the .csv file as a "Comma Separated Value" file.
eBay makes changes to their auction system from time to time which require updates to Jade in order to maintain compatibility. These are not performed automatically and with no use input like some other auction packages. To check if an update is available, you can click Help->Check for Updates from the menubar or visit the Jade website at http://www.dropline.net/jade. Close Jade, download and install the latest update, and then restart Jade.
Other apsects of eBay which may need updating are eBay categories, your eBay store categories, and your current feedback rating. To update any of these, use the appropriate Refresh command under the Auctions menu.
Auctions Menu |
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| Refresh Auctions | Update Jade to display your current eBay auction information. |
| Save Collection | Save all local items to a batch file. |
| Load Collection | Load a set of previously saved items for batch uploading. |
| Send all Invoices | Send an invoice for every listing at the Contact Winner stage. |
| Submit all Auctions | Submits all local listings to eBay. |
| Refresh eBay Categories | Updates Jade's category structure to reflect any recent eBay category changes. |
| Refresh Feedback | Updates your current feedback rating, which Jade uses to gray-out options in the New Item window such as Buy It Now until you have enough feedback to use them. |
| Refresh Store Categories | Updates Jade's Store Categories to reflect any recent changes you've made to your eBay Store Categories. |
| Exit | Closes Jade, automatically saving your active and closed listings. |
Edit Menu |
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| Default Invoice | Customize the text of your invoice to winning bidders. |
| Default Shipment Notice | Customize the text of your notification telling bidder that their item has shipped. |
| Preferences | Edit your eBay user information. |
Item Menu |
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| New | Create a blank, new listing. |
| New from Template | Create a new listing using a previously saved template to fill in certain pieces of information. |
| Edit | Edit the selected item before submitting it to eBay. |
| Preview | Preview the selected item before subbmitting it to eBay. |
| Remove | Remove the selected item. If it has already been submitted to eBay, it will not be canceled. |
| Edit Post-Auction Details | Edit information for the selected item that is only of relevance after the auction has ended. |
| Leave Feedback | Leave feedback for the winner of the selected item. |
| Send Invoice | Send an invoice to the winner of the selected item. |
| Send Shipment Notice | Send a notification that the selected item has shipped to the item's winner. |
| Relist as is | Relist the selected item without modifying it. |
| Sell Similar | Create a new listing using the selected item as a template. This only works with auctions that were originally written in Jade. |
| Submit | Submit the selected item to eBay. |
Bookkeeping Menu |
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| Add Expense | Add an expense, such as gross shipping or supply costs, to the selected month's running totals. |
| View Monthly Records | View statistics about the selected month. |
| View Yearly Records | View statistics about the selected year. |
| View Lifetime Records | View all statistics compiled since you began using Jade. |
| Export Month to Spreadsheet | Save the current month's data into a file that can be read by any of the popular spreadsheet applications. |
Help Menu |
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| User Manual | View Jade's User Manual. |
| Check for Updates | Check to see if an update for Jade is available. |
| Register Jade | Register your version of Jade to continue using it past the 14-day trial period. |
| About | View general copyright information for Jade Auction Software. |
| Copyright 2002 Todd Kulesza |