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Anyone sell stuff on ebay? I have an app idea.

9 points by kapauldo ↗ HN
I've got a really simple app I'm building for my wife, as she's starting to sell stuff. I was wondering if anyone here sells stuff regularly, and has active listings. My idea is really simple, it's a quick dashboard of your items with a place to comment and share on twitter and facebook. You can use the dashboard to check in on your items, as well as link to from your postings ("see my other auctions"). I have a prototype working, which I'm happy to share. Could this be an affiliate business? Anyone interested in kicking this idea around?

16 comments

[ 93.8 ms ] story [ 562 ms ] thread
tjoozeylabs
Do you plan to take this onward to the iTunes App Store?
jeffmould
Sounds like a cool idea. I do know there are several platforms currently out there that may be similar or give you ideas:

http://www.channeladvisor.com http://www.vendio.com http://www.auctiva.com http://www.auctionsound.com

Good luck and hope this helps.

kapauldo
Thanks Jeff, I actually looked into all these and they're all freemium or paid and complicated. I just wanted something really really simple. Like, a morning cup of coffee type thing - check my email, check my auctions, check facebook, etc. In fact, in my prototype, every single ebay user is already in there, I just mashed up the API. It's like a super super lightweight dashboard.
grosenbush
Netvibes has a widget for monitoring your auctions, but I'm not sure if there's a social sharing feature like you describe.
gte910h
I do apps for a living for people. If you'd like to talk, an email address that reaches me is in my profile. (I really wish HN had private messages...)

On that note: You should think about sticking up a email address in your profile kapauldo

AdamGibbins
You have nothing in your profile.
gte910h
Thanks! Did not realize it needed to be in about. It is there now
kapauldo
I agree, I wish HN had private messages, and I confess, I didn't know I had a profile on HN. I'll update and get in touch with you.
DTrejo
Make sure you guys put your email in the about part of your profile (you will see it written twice, once in the email slot, once in the about box).
gte910h
Thanks, this comment helped me fix it! (My profile now has an email to reach me)
naz
It was a YC company (Auctomatic) and it was acquired.
Adrenalist
It seems that auctomatic is just the app you are looking for.

I'd LOVE something like this for Craigslist!!

kapauldo
is it auctomatic.com? all the links are dead.
danudey
After the company was purchased by Live Current Media, the team was split up to work on various other projects (Cricket.com, Perfume.com) while Auctomatic was left to languish.

Eventually the servers and services got shuffled around, and at some point stopped working, but since it wasn't profitable and there was no engineering time to work on it, it was left broken and unusable. Now, all the employees that knew anything about it have left (save one), so there's no one to make it work again.

Too bad, it was a pretty cool idea.

zandorg
If it was a PC app, you could crack it and make it work again. This is just a waste of effort all round.
kapauldo
Craigslist is bizarrely closed and out of touch. I don't know why they won't release an API, they'd multiply their revenues by 10.