First off, I hope you all had a great holiday and are refreshed and excited to get back into the swing of things for 2010!  2009 was a big year for Snipesoft, with the release of EasyLister as well as numerous updates and improvements to OMINS, and 2010 looks to be even bigger!  We have several new products in the works and many new ideas to make managing your online business even easier.

Looking back over the past year, we’ve reached a couple of milestones which we’d like to share with you.

• July 2009: EasyLister , our 100% listing tool is released!

July saw the release of our second product – EasyLister.  This completely free listing tool allows Trade Me sellers to easily manage, list & relist their auctions without getting in their way.  Since releasing EasyLister, it has grown in leaps and bounds which brings us to our next milestone…

• August, 2009: most users!

Back in August, we ran some statistics and found that more users used Snipesoft listing software than any other.  Since then, it has only increased and shows no sign of slowing down.  In fact, EasyLister alone has more users than all other listing software combined – including our own OMINS.

• January 2010: most auctions!

Since 2008, we’ve been recording data on the state of the auction software marketplace.  From this data we can see that, since January 2010, users of Snipesoft software list more auctions than are listed by any other listing tool.

In fact, as of today, over 70,000 auctions are listed by users of Snipesoft software – that’s approximately 5% (that’s 1 in 20) of all auctions on Trade Me! We believe this is the record and of course we’re extremely happy about reaching it.

We’ve put together a graph to show you the trends of listing software over the past 14 months.

2010 and the future

This year we’ll be working hard on finishing and releasing our EasyWholesale and EasyStores products.  We look forward to helping New Zealanders improve their online businesses and make the most out of Trade Me and the web.

Have a great 2010 and watch this space for new developments!

It’s been a busy year for us here at Snipesoft!  July saw the release of our 100% free listing tool for Trade Me which has been a runaway success, quickly gaining more users than any other listing software.

We’ve also been hard at work on our new EasyWholesale service, due to be released early next year.  This will be an exciting development and we’re looking forward to getting it out there for you to use.  Watch this space in the new year for more information about this and other new developments.

Holiday break

We will be taking a break from regular day-to-day activities from December 22nd through to January 5th.  We will be checking email and forums regularly, but please allow a bit more time for replies.  Of course,  all of our services are fully monitored and we will be making sure things are running smoothly over the break so you can sit back, relax and let our tools do the work for you.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

There are many free services on the internet, offering free services and products is a very valid business model on the internet, and is often a very successful way to advertise and promote a premium paid for service which is exactly what we are doing.

Despite how common this tactic is with so many online services, it still surprises me how many people simply don’t understand at first why we are giving away free listing tool. Some even jump strange conclusions,  I’ve even heard some rather humorous rumors circulating that easylister is part a “sinister evil plan” (I wonder if some people think extra-terrestrials or the CIA are involved?).  I’ve seen the same kind of rumors spread about other completely innocent free services on the internet. When people have not been explained the genuine reasons why something is free, I guess they just try and fill in the gaps themselves and often assume the worst things they imagine.

Anyway we have updated the easylister.co.nz website with a new “Why free?” page, this contains an open letter I wrote to explain to anyone using, or thinking about using easylister  the genuine motivation I had mind when I decided it would be free, and how I see that our company and others will benefit from it.

you can see the new page here:
http://www.easylister.co.nz/whyisitfree.php

Thanks
Owen

Not only have we had more EasyLister signups today than ever before, but we have also discovered that more people use Snipesoft than any other listing tool provider.  Needless to say, we’re very happy.

As a new feature we have also put up a complaint form where you can post a complaint when you think a OMINS client is sending a promotional emails without prior opt-in authorization or if a promotional email does not contain a working opt-out link.

We reserve the right to restrict email features for clients who are abusing the OMINS email system.

As an aside, we also wish to point out that many OMINS users do not use promotional emails at all, and if you have a problem with emails please follow the opt out instructions and report any client that do not seem to be using the OMINS email systems appropriately.

You can view the policy document at the following link:
http://www.snipesoft.net.nz/policies/email/

That’s right! EasyLister, the only 100% FREE listing tool for Trade Me has been released and is available for signup now.

About EasyLister
EasyLister provides support for scheduled listing, automatic relisting, fix priced offers and much more! With a built-in wholesale product source from EasyWholesale and a synchronised e-commerce web-site with EasyStores, the possibilities are endless! Best of all, the EasyTools range is web-based software. There are no complex installations, no need to have your computer on 24/7, and you can list and manage from any internet connected computer!

It’s free?  What’s the catch?
No catch!  EasyLister is completely free to use! There are no hidden fees, no artificial “listing limits” and no additional cost to you.  The cost of other listing tools has kept many TradeMe sellers from reaping the benefits of automated auction listings. EasyLister provides these important tools without any money out of pocket from the sellers.

How do I use it?
It’s very easy to start using EasyLister today.  Simply visit the website, click the signup button and create an account.  That’s it – you’re now using EasyLister!

What’s next?
To complement EasyLister, we’ll be releasing two new products in the coming months – EasyWholesale and EasyStores.  Stay tuned to find out more about these great products!

They have been using OMINS for a couple of months, and switched their listings entirely onto OMINS last month.  By doing so, their sales were suddenly 75% higher than the month before!

Our clients typically get a sales boost of between 20%-50% within the first 6 months, but 75% in the first month is definitely something special.  We’re very happy to have helped them achieve this growth!

Now available in OMINS!

Earlier this week, a client asked us if it was possible to send SMS messages to their customers like they currently can with email.  We figured this was a great idea!  We organised for them to sign up with our SMS gateway service and configured the inbuilt email system to be able to send SMS messages as well as emails.

All this took less than 2 hours from request to implementation, and costs approximately 1c per message.  This feature can be turned on for any OMINS by request – just let us know if you’re interested.

We’ve moved!

That’s right, we now have our own private office in central Wellington City – right in the heart of things.  In fact, we didn’t even have to go very far.  We’re now on the 8th floor of the the CMC building – right next door to our previous offices!

This move is a natural progression for us, as we needed more space to fit our expanding team (more about that below) and felt it to be a great reward for our growing company.

Additions to our team

We’re happy to introduce two new members to our team to help cope with the growing demand: Eugene, our newest full time developer; and Nicky, our part time administration and support person.

Originally from South Africa, Eugene is a highly skilled developer who has a number of years experience with the open source technologies we use here at Snipesoft. We’re very happy to have him join our team!

When not at university, Nicky provides support for our clients and helps manage the day to day running of Snipesoft, all the while giving the office a female touch.

Why Snipesoft?

Unlike others, Snipesoft has a full time, professional development team focused on building better software for the New Zealand online auction marketplace and you – the professional seller.

In addition to our three full time developers, and two support staff, we have partnered with an independant web designer and server management & monitoring company to ensure we always have the most skilled people available to handle whatever comes our way.

This sets Snipesoft apart as the professional option for your e-commerce needs. Why settle for anything less?

The Team

(click to enlarge)

Our new office! From left to right – Nicky, Eugene, Owen & Chris.

However, we’ve made some updates recently and now allow you to extend further than before.  Previously, you could extend up to 7 days, but it would not extend 10 (or 14 in some categories) days due to the 25c fee involved.  Now there is an option to allow you to do this, and as you’ll see below this can be beneficial in many cases.

When utilized correctly, this feature will help you reduce your overall promotion fees, and increase your overall sell-through percentage.

Example 1:

Say you had an auction set to go for 7 days with feature combo ($3.45).  This works out at a cost of roughly 49c per day ($3.45/7).  However, if at 7 days you extend that auction to 10 days, then you are paying only 25c for those extra 3 days (or 8.3c per day).

This means you get an extra 3 days worth of feature combo listing for only 8.3c per day, whereas if you let the auction finish and relisted, you would be paying 49c per day again.  Furthermore, you will only be charged 25c if the auction reaches 7 days and needs to extend;  if you sell it before this happens, then this will not be required.

You can use this cents per day equation to help decide whether it’s worth extending the auction.  In short, if you would be paying more than 8c per day for the listing, then it is worthwhile allowing it to extend to the full 10 days.

Example 2:

If you have a 7 day listing with gallery ($0.55), then it’s costing you 7.8c per day ($0.55/7).  This means it’s not worth extending to 10 days, as this will cost you 8.3c per day to do so.  (In this case, the difference is negligable so it might still be a good idea to extend to 10 days simply to avoid creating another listing and help retain your sell-through percentage).

Example 3:

If you had a 7 day listing with gallery ($0.55) and 2x additional photos (10c each), then you would be paying 10.7c per day ($0.75/7).  This means it would be quite beneficial to extend to 10 days as the additional days would only cost you 8.3c.

Summary:
In short, by our calculations, any listing that will cost you more than 58c in promotion fees should be set to extend to 10 days.  If you want to increase your sell-through rate, you should also include gallery (55c) as it will only cost you a couple of cents per-listing to achieve this.

We highly recommend investigating whether the new 10-day extending support will benefit you and your auctions.