GarageSale - Mac review

Full Review

eBay is great isn't it? I mean where else can you flog your entire house to people keen to pretty much buy anything. Heck I know someone who once sold the bolt from their leg after an operation. The trouble is however, that listing something on the auction site isn't the easiest of tasks, so can a piece of software for the Mac be the answer? We get listing to find out.

GarageSale looks and feels like an Apple product, in fact if we saw it in the next collection of iLife suites we wouldn't be surprised.

Downloadable from the Web, the application after install will communicate with your eBay account (once you give it permission) and then becomes your auction command centre allowing you to check your messages, manage your feedback and basically everything that eBay lets you do via a multitude of forms.

Designed to look like Apple's Mail application there are a series of folders down the left hand side and everything is broken down into folders such as items waiting to be shipped, your auctions currently running or templates you regularly use.

Creating an auction is fairly easy, although not completely intuitive however once you've worked out that there is a form mode, an inspector and preview mode everything makes sense. There is also a video tutorial on the company's website to help guide you through it.

From the inspector box you get to select the category, second category, price, extra features and stuff like postage. Items that will cost you more than the basic listing are highlighted so you know it's going to cost you and it is all very easy to fill in.

The main window is reserved for uploading images, and writing copy. In preview mode you can live edit by dragging pictures directly on to it. Alternative you can access the form page which is merely a series of boxes to fill in.

Rather than just offer you a boring white template in which to sell your kit, the program also offers you a number of templates to choose from and the best bit is that you don't need to have any knowledge about coding, just which template you like the most. The templates can also be changed on the fly if you don't like it and its very quick to update to any new design you choose.

There are so many to choose from, including flames to film clipboards you'll be finding things to sell around your house just to use them.

When it comes to adding pictures, the software makes it incredibly easy. You can either drop the image straight into the template design or select from a dropdown menu where you want to import them from.

The software supports imports from a file, a URL, iPhoto, iSight or even your camera without you having to download the image first.

Once you have got everything in place all it takes is a press of the submit button and your auction is live: it's that simple.

Those wishing to delay the launch and schedule an upload time can do so without having to pay for the fee. Auctions can be scheduled within the application and here it is just like a calendar application with you setting the time and date accordingly.

Verdict

If you have a Mac and you're always uploading and managing auctions on eBay this is definitely worth checking out.

Sure, you could do all this via the eBay site, but at least this way, you don't have to bother going through all those annoying forms every time.

• Link - iwascoding.com

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