Wipbox: eBay and Craigslist for dummies

Wipbox is a relatively new service that helps people sell things on Craigslist and eBay. Wipbox charges a small fee to help you put together a really slick-looking listing and figure out some of the subtle aspects of getting an item to sell quickly based on what category and service it's listed in. If you've ever wanted to sell something on either of the two classifieds services but have been unsure about a good starting price or the best way to convey the product information, Wipbox does the heavy lifting for you.

To get started quickly, you can do a search for your item. It's not free at $0.25 a pop, but it gives you the starting and closing costs for your item in various categories (for eBay) or locales (for Craigslist). For example, if you're here in San Francisco, your item might fetch more money in surrounding neighborhoods. Likewise, on eBay, putting it in a different category can dramatically improve the closing price. You're paying Wipbox to do the legwork.

Search results for a Motorola Razr on eBay came up with pricing results in five different categories. The ones with the highest sell prices (the blue bars) means selling it in that category will net more payback.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In testing, we came across some skewed numbers for certain search items. For eBay, it was likely due to auctioneers incorrectly labeling their items or adding extra words to their titles to boost search engine presence. For Craigslist, we ran into problems with the search grouping together multiple SKUs. For example, a search for an Xbox 360 pulled in results with a difference of about a hundred dollars due to the system having two versions, each at a different price. For popular items such as iPods though, drilling down to the specific model number helped with these issues.

Wipbox bases its statistics on 30 days of eBay listings, and a full week of Craigslist sales, so whatever information you're getting is fairly current for market value. To find general price ranges for online auctions, there's also Mpire, a service that tracks auction prices on eBay to show you whether or not it's in demand--a little bit like Farecast does for airplane tickets.

The real catch to using Wipbox is its listing creator. Wipbox will pull in a description, user reviews, and specifics from Amazon.com. You can either pay $0.15 to have this information posted straight to your listing, or copy and paste the code field by field into eBay or Craigslist's listing creation box for free.

The one thing I don't like about Wipbox is its handling of fees. There is a large disclosure that clicking the search button or posting to one of the auction services will charge you, but no pop-up warning for verification. Luckily, users can rack up only $10 in charges at a time before the system curtails use of the premium services. I was surprised by how easily I had accrued fees without coming across any warning pop-ups, so be careful if you intend to use the search for fun.

Wipbox is a very easy-to-use system to make and manage multiple listings for both auction services. For advanced sellers and Web researchers, Wipbox probably seems a little silly; but someone like my Mom, who doesn't use eBay very often, would likely be happy to pay less than a dollar to use a service that does nearly everything for her.

See also: vFlyer, a competing auction ad creation tool we took a look at last year. They launched a mobile distribution channel this morning for making and checking listings on cellular phones.

When you're all done, there are three options. You can either pay $0.15 to post to eBay and Craigslist, or cheap out and copy and paste your listing to either service using the provided HTML coding.

Instead of a hand-written description, you can pull a description from Amazon, complete with formatting to match the look and feel of the online listing (for free).

(Credit: CNET Networks)

[frodoscribe24]

Wipbox fee structure is not adequately described

An interesting service in concept and potentially quite valuable. I signed up to test it out. The signup box states "Signup for free". This implied to me that Wipbox is free service while in its current beta phase. Apparently it is not. REGISTRATION is free (who pays for registration?) but the SERVICES are not. A Clintonian definition of free? Anyway, I could not find the page where the fee structure is listed. I initiated a random trial search, but then saw that there was a fee associated with the process. I immediated cancelled the process before search results were returned. However, the fee still appeared in my account. I did notify their support of this matter and awasit their reply. I do not object to fee based services in general (I use many), but they should make it CRYSTAL CLEAR that at THIS TIME fees are being assessed, even though it is described as a "free" account. I also suggest they add a confirmation dialog box as a "buffer" before proceeding with the searching or posting transaction.

[wipbox]

Thanks for the comments and pricing is now posted!

Thanks for the comment. Over the weekend, with all of the traffic, it became crystal that we needed to post the pricing structure for our services. We've now done so. As you'll see all of our services have an alternative 'free' version as well if you choose not to pay. Researching Craigslist or eBay can be skipped and the traditional tree-browsing structure can be used to select categories. Posting to eBay or Craigslist can be done manually using the free downloadable template from the Export section. You can add your first photo free and then add additional photos at a charge. All manufacturer specs and owner reviews are always free as well. We'll be making the opt-in's more apparent as we go forward to make sure user's understand what they're opting-into as they go. Thanks for the comments, we're psyched that people are using the site so much and giving us such positive feedback.

[onmountain]

Using demographic data on Craigslist better way?

Hi. Interesting service, but I ended up doing the same sort of thing just doing it myself manually. The problem is, there are 289 Craigslist websites in the US alone, and I wanted to market to the top ones. My most precious resource is my time, and I wanted to focus my posting efforts to the best sites - but what were they? What I ended up doing is an extensive GIS (that's Geographic Information Systems) analysis of all the Craigslist websites, matching them up with urbanized areas all over the US that each site covers individually. I then was able to create a series of maps and reports that help you prioritize and understand the demographic characteristics of each site area. This has been very useful for me, and you can see my website for more information: http://www.aMillionPlaces.com