But my main concern is HOW the whistle-blower got all of my clients (who happen to use said  software) email addresses?

Is this information widely available? Or is this a breach of data protection by an employee of said company? I know this company has made several redundancies recently and probably upset a few employees but still the contents of the email has rattled my clients. One is now thinking of moving away as the words ‘financially viable’ were suggested with respects to the companies future.

It is worrying times for small businesses that use eBay/e-commerce service companies. Personally I lost £50 due to a supplier (GotLingerie.com) going into administration before they could complete my order. In fact they KNEW they would not be able too and still took my money. Unless you pay by credit card you are kinda stuffed. Luckily you can recover from a small amount, but other companies have not been so lucky and it will cost THEIR business.

So with the recession getting worse who can you trust? *insert Morcheeba song here*.

A point about trust, a new review site keeps popping up:

Review:

Frooition : http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.frooition.com
eBay: http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.ebay.co.uk

or add other companies, couldn’t find anyone else.

Really should have bothered to find my affiliate links for that one.

Well my clients can trust that I won’t go bust in the recession, I am even having to turn my hand to eBay design due to failing companies.

Recession proof yourself:

- Host your own images/design and keep a local back up

- Back up inventory/sales/analytic’s and any data you have locally on a CD/Tape drive

- Check your suppliers and services providers and don’t let anything go on too long

- Don’t invest massively up front, pay through out the ‘project’ or when it is complete

- Have a plan B and C, possibly D if you have the time and inclination

Auctiva is going from free to paid (and quite a lot of paying to be done) and within one month, you either pay up or get out. So quite a few who it doesn’t make sense to pay up to £150 per month (baring in mind you can use Channeladvisor for £300 a month) will move to the next cheapest system, inkfrog.

*edited to add the cost is based upon their professional seller rate of never pay more than $199 ~ $40K+ eBay seller and around $60 for the e-commerce functionality on $3k sales, total of $260 = £162.70 (Live rates at 2009.06.07 19:00:38 UTC)

You can tell by the flurry of questions in the webinar that people are in a panic. Sellers who cover their own wage with their eBay business (and there are a few) can not afford the kinds of outlays Auctiva now want. There are however a few problems if you have used Auctiva templates.

If you are Auctiva template free then moving to inkfrog should be a nice 2-3 week transition and things shouldn’t get very scary, but as template code is contained in your descriptions surrounding your item text using the inkfrog importer can be difficult. They are working on something to strip out the code, but it is inherently difficult as code is just text to a computer.

It is a shame that Auctiva users have only had a month to pay up or get out. This tactic has been used by other companies in the industry and they are preying on eBay dependant wage earners. I don’t like to be under that kind of control.

To avoid this type of calamity in the future, invest in an inventory system (or excel spreadsheet) with all of your product details with no template or code so you can feasibility hop from one system to the next.

The columns you will need are:

Item Title

SKU or Unique Number

Plain Description

Image names/URLs

Seller Cost

BIN Price

Starting Price

and any other details about your items important to you!

I have added a new page to the site : http://kidsontalks.com/ebay-marketplaces-and-e-commerce/ which are services and companies I have worked with and my clients use with no problems.

Related blogs on Auctiva’s Change:

http://3rdpoblogs.com/colderice/2009/06/01/auctiva-falls-to-epn-changes-and-inkfrog-leaps-to-the-rescue/

http://aswas.typepad.com/hall_of_fame/2009/06/left-auctiva-using-their-templates-beware.html