List of small improvements/new features/wish list for GS

GarageSale
1

Hi all,
I’ve been putting together a list of my thoughts on small improvements/new features (let’s say also wish list) that could enhance the workflow on GS for some time now. Today, I carved out a bit of time to review the various ideas I’ve collected. I’m sharing them below, and I hope we can discuss about them.

  1. On the orders page, it’s currently possible to print lists showing all the SKUs of sold (or selected) items in alphabetical order. This feature has completely revolutionized how I manage orders, especially when it comes to collect items from the warehouse for shipment (thanks again @kristian for this!). So, I wondered, why not be able to do the same and print summaries of specific selections of listings from the listings page as well? A concrete example: occasionally, we need to do a stock check to verify any discrepancies between items in the warehouse and active listings on eBay. It would be great to be able to select folders, smart folders, and/or specific groups of active listings and print a list of the selected listings in alphabetical order by SKU.
  2. Similarly, it would be useful to generate certificates from the listings page too, not just from the orders page. Selecting one or more listings and generating certificates using the template Kristian created should be feasible (all the data is there, only the order date is missing, which in this case could be the current date when the certificate is created).
  3. Why not be able to print labels from the listing editor page too, in addition to the orders page? For example, I would find it very useful to be able to print a series of labels with SKUs, titles, and possibly prices of one or more selected listings. These could be printed and applied to the envelopes containing the items I’m filing directly from the listing page after I’ve finished creating it. I could create templates for different scenarios, like labels of different sizes and/or different content (actually, I’d probably try to persuade Kristian to do it…).
  4. Regarding the management of a single order, GS currently lists the contained items (downloaded from eBay) without a specific order. It would be nice to have an option where GS reorders the items within each order according to a specific sorting (alphabetical by SKU, by price, or alphabetical by title… for me, having the items to be displayed in the order in order by SKU would be incredibly helpful).
  5. Copying the shipping address: why not including a “copy” button, as is now available on almost all courier websites and also on eBay? A button next to the shipping address that, once clicked, copies the entire address so you can then paste it wherever you need to. On eBay, it’s even possible to copy the address in parts (copying only the name, only the street address, or only the customer’s phone number or email). Very useful!
  6. Shipping address layout on 4 lines (NOT 5): GS currently downloads the shipping address from eBay, and sometimes it writes the address on 4 lines. For other countries where the province is indicated in the address, there are 5 lines, and you have to manually delete the line break each time to bring the address back to 4 lines for printing with the label maker. As far as I can see, every address is composed of 4 lines: 1. First name + last name, 2. Street + house number, 3. Postal code + city (+ province, which GS currently puts on a new fourth line), 4. Country. Is it possible to automatically format the address on 4 lines with the province on the third line after the city (or postal code) and not alone on the fourth?
  7. Translation of the state/province: currently, GS or eBay, for some strange reason, downloads the state/province in English. This is obviously normal for all of you who write the address in English… but for me, I have to translate the state/province every time in Italian. Isn’t there a solution to teach GS to automatically translate the state/province into the language the system is set to?
  8. Currently, as far as I know, there are two ways to export images from one or more listings: manually clicking and dragging each individual photo to the desktop or exporting the listings and then right-clicking on the exported file and then “show package contents.” Why not including a button or a command somewhere to export the images of one or more selected listings without so many steps? Then there’s the problem that GS renames the images, and if I’m exporting photos from multiple listings, they will be in a random order… so I don’t know if there’s a simple solution for this…
  9. Images smaller than 500 pixels in size problem. Currently, eBay doesn’t accept listings that contain at least one image whose format is below 500 pixels on at least one side. This is a big hassle because occasionally there’s a small item whose image is below this size threshold. Every time, it slips my mind, and then I discover that the scheduled auctions haven’t started because eBay reports an error. So I thought, why can’t GS automatically flag an error in the listing if one or more images are below 500 pixels? This way, I can intervene and modify the image (the ideal would be if GS somehow automatically enlarged the images up to 500 pixels… but I think that’s asking too much of a management software…).
  10. Modifying listings’ titles when folders are selected. This would be really useful! Let me explain better. At the moment, when a group of listings is selected, I cannot modify the title of a listing in any way from the central panel. I have to click on it, then open that single listing, modify the title, and go back to selecting the folder. It wouldn’t be bad at all to be able to modify the title of a single listing while I’m viewing a group of listings. Maybe pressing Enter could allow editing the title when I’ve selected only one line from the list…
  11. Another unparalleled feature of GS is being able to select groups of listings, view them in the main screen, and sort them according to various criteria: by price, alphabetically, by SKU, or by eBay store category. However, some important criteria are missing and they would change the way I create listings: reordering the listing selection by condition, attributes (TOP), shipping profile (TOP TOP), eBay category (TOP TOP TOP).
  12. Bulk editing the “condition description”: this isn’t always possible, and I think it’s a BUG that I haven’t resolved yet. I believe (I’m not sure) that when listings have different eBay categories selected, GS doesn’t allow bulk editing of the “condition description” which doesn’t make much sense since it’s a field that has nothing to do with the eBay category…

I’ve obviously left out many other things that I consider much more invasive and complicated.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist, if it wasn’t clear… GS is already extraordinary, but there’s always room to make it a little more perfect. Why not discussing it?

Thank you for your patience
Federico

1 Like
2

Regarding #6 - I see 5 lines quite often. I am in the US, and 5 lines is completely valid and encouraged. Example:

John Doe
123 Main St
Suite 555
Anytown, CA 92647
United States

Eg: The street field for US addresses can contain multiple lines. As can the person line at the top:

John Doe
c/o Big Corp Reception Desk
456 Infinite Loop
Bldg #44
Big City, CA 92811
United States

3

Hi,
I see, in first case, the Suite number goes after the street, in second case, C/O after the name, but this is something ebay already does on its own, at least I never saw before a 6 lines addresses and I copy from GS every single address. The problem is the province. For example I have:

John Doe
123 Main St Suite 555
Anytown 92647
CA
United States

And every time I have to move CA in previous line. This is how GS provides the address in this situation.

When you print labels for address, the height of paper support is fixed and so you need to reduce the number of lines to four. Otherwise you need to lower font size to fit all lines in the same label, but then it is too small. Theoretically breaking addresses in more lines makes sense, but when you need to print it with standard size labels, you need to reduce it.

4

For me, my postal software, Endicia, grabs the eBay address info directly from eBay. It formats the address on as many lines as needed. I print to 4x6 thermal labels which the software auto-formats the font to fit the full address in. I just shipped this today:

JOE LASTNAME
PO BOX XXX
12345 STATE HIGHWAY 150 S
EVANSTON WY 82930-1234

In some situations, the APT number will get affixed to line 2 of the label:

Joe Blow
3400 S. CLARK ST APT222

But in other cases it doesn’t. My software auto-reformats the address to fit with USPS standards, so the above in CAPS is what the USPS formatted the address to be, not what ebay gave the software [most people don’t know or include their +4 ZIP but that tends to be required for commercial shipping and is auto-added by Endicia].

What size postal labels are you using? I’ve not seen anything in the US other than 4 inch x 6 inch, but those labels include the postage - maybe yours are just the address and you buy postage separately at the post office? [using software at home can give you huge discounts rather than paying counter retail or kiosk prices]

5

I don’t use Endicia, actually it does not exist in my country.

Yes, I use my own label roll and it contains only the address. Postage is paid and glued separately. Height of labels is 29 mm and continuous roll. I print from brother application, I copy the address from GS, paste it into a model and then the app automatically print and cut the label at the correct length (unfortunately, it doesn’t work with the print function inside GS).
Here is the problem, this application does not automatically reformat label size and number of lines I copied from GS, I have to do it manually every single time. Nothing impossible, I did it thousands times until today, but it’s not practice and most of all, you might delate something more than you need to and you risk to print an incomplete address (like deleting one number from zip code by deleing the line break before province).