There are number of Ubuntu (Linux) users and “would be” sellers that might want to stay within Ubuntu and not have to also have a Windows machine to bulk list on Ebay, their own shopping cart or Google base. Although there may be many ways to do this, we wanted to introduce a way that we found that is working for us. This took us quite a bit of time and research and we hope this article helps others.

In short, you have to have the right software that can do the job all the way to completion. We wanted to stay completely open source where possible and not use proprietary file formats. All of the software and resource below are free with the exception of web site hosting. We also decided to use a professional Joomla template that was not free, although there are free templates available.

Here is the software we found to be the most helpful: (OS = Open Source)

• Ubuntu (OS)
• Open Office Spreadsheet (OS and available on-line or within Ubuntu)
• GIMP (OS and available on-line or within Ubuntu)
• Joomla (OS and available on-line)
• VirtueMart (OS and available on-line)
• CSV Improved (CC BY-ND)
• Gedit (OS and available within Ubuntu)
• Firefox (OS and available on-line or within Ubuntu)

This article does not go into the zillions of details that are involved in setting up web sites, ebay, shopping carts and the like. Instead this article simply points the way and lets “would be” sellers that want to use open source software know there is indeed “a way” and what that way is. Again, this is not to say this is the only way.

Spreadsheets:
The key to this system is to create or move your listings into spreadsheet. This allows one to bulk upload (start, edit, update, end, etc) ones listings on Ebay, their shopping cart, Google Base and other venues. You will end up with one spreadsheet for Ebay, one for the shopping cart and CSV Improved will create a Google Base spreadsheet for you. The spreadsheets are each tailored specifically to the tasks they are to perform but the bulk of the information is the same for all of them.

Open Office Spreadsheet
In this article we are suggesting Open Office Spreadsheet as the tool of choice. There may be other editors that are just as nice but we know this one can do all the jobs that are needed.

Gedit
There can be occasions along the way where you might need to edit in “plain text” and Gedit can help us with that. Gedit is similar to the Notepad you find in Windows yet is more powerful than Notepad. This tool can be useful for converting text or code or something you have copied onto the clipboard into plain text also. For example, you can just paste into Gedit, re-select what you pasted, and click copy – now (like magic) what is stored in the clipboard is in plain text, ready to paste into a spreadsheet or XHTML code.

GIMP:
This is a great tool for editing and resizing images for your listings or creating logos and such.

Joomla:
Joomla is a CMS tool for creating web sites and managing content. CMS stands for Content Management System. On a web site you have lots of content to manage in the form of articles, images, artwork and possibly sound and video.

Joomla Template:
Joomla sites need to be styled with a template and there are many templates available. Be careful not to download “free” (as in pirated) commercial templates as they tend to have viruses and other bugs. It takes a lot of effort to set all this up and the last thing you need is your site hacked. Some templates can style both Joomla and VirtueMart. We chose to use a professional RocketTheme Template

Web Site Hosting:
Some web sites hosts like Dreamhost offer “one click installs” of Joomla and easy database management so installation is super is easy. We also like that our site is Green by going with DreamHost.

VirtueMart:
VirtueMart is a component for Joomla that adds a shopping cart into Joomla. This is nice in that you are not dealing with a cart and separate web site for the sake of simplicity, management and styling.

CSV Improved:
CSV Improved is an import export component for VirtueMart so you can import, manage and export your listings. You can even export your listings as a XML file. How to export a ready made XML file for Google Base using CSVI VirtueMart? Within Joomla: Components > CSVI VirtueMart > Export > CSVI Google Base Export XML > Choose the settings you need or leave them at the defaults > Export.

Click image for a larger version

Google Base:
Google Base is under going a name change to Google Merchant Services. When you upload your products to Google Base your products show up in the “shopping” tab (product search on Google) which is a free service offered by Google. Here is an example showing our product listings on Google: http://www.google.com/products?q=organic%20futon%20vitalbodies

Ebay:
Ebay tends to be very proprietary and can lead one down that path – to help avoid that fate you can use Ebay File Exchange rather than Turbo Lister which tends to only run on certain Operating Systems like Windows. If one learns Ebay File Exchange rather than Turbo Lister, they may only need to use Turbo Lister once to export their listings.  That is if they have a lot of listings already on ebay, otherwise one really does not need Turbo Lister at all. If you do have listing on ebay you need to manage, you must get the ebay item numbers to match up to the title and description within the spread sheet in Open Office. At the time we needed to download our listings we did not know about open source jAOLT that can also do the task that Turbo Lister does. I have not tried jAOLT but it is well worth a look and frees you from needing a Windows machine to run Turbo Lister to get your spread sheet started.
Additionally, if you leave Turbo Lister behind and switch to Ebay File Exchange you are are much more ready to load your own web sites cart with your spreadsheet and add your products to Google Base. This frees you from Windows, IE, Wine and Turbo Lister at the very least. We were able to do just that, using Open Office, Ebay File Exchange, Joomla, VirtueMart, and CSV Improved and the other software listed here. Consider keeping the item titles at 55 characters or less so they are compatible with Ebay.

Firefox:
I mention Firefox because I know it works throughout the whole process. Epiphany is nice for double checking web pages as it uses the Webkit engine to display web pages and Webkit which can pass the acid3 test for CSS.

Additional Learning: Some of the learning curve took a considerable amount of time to figure out so I wrote a few blog posts to help others flatten that curve.

Using File Exchange And Turbo Lister With Ebay Listings In Ubuntu:
http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2009…ngs-in-ubuntu/

You have to know a few tricks to get Open Office to play nice:
http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2009…file-exchange/

All in all, there are forums for each of the programs or web sites and the details-upon-details involved go far beyond this article but I am happy to share that there is “a way” to make bulk listing happen and stay in Ubuntu and Linux.

Here is another graphic I created to help simplify what needs to be learned:

Click image for a larger version

Joomla is one of the leading open source CMS (content management systems) used on the internet to create powerful modular web sites.

VirtueMart is the leading open source shopping cart solutions that integrates within Joomla as a componet.

CSV Improved is the leading the way to allow VirtueMart shop owners to Import and Export products in mass via a CSV or spread sheet.

VitalBodies create a the graphic above for CSV Improved as a thank you for all the hard work and dedication in making CSV happen right within the Joomla control panel. Adding products within the familar Joomla control panel is much easier than doing everything at the MySQL level.

Visit – CSV Improved – VirtueMart – Joomla!

FILE EXCHANGE:

VitalBodies spent far more time than we would have liked, trying to get our listings out of ebay and into a spreadsheet for editing.

To help save other people some grief this blog post has been, or is being written.

We want to use File Exchange from now on rather than listing items one by one using the ever changing forms on ebay.

Oddly, you can edit and add listings with File Exchange, but you can not download your existing listings.

You can download REPORTS and get TEMPLATES but that is different.

You can even grab data from your Ebay stores RSS feeds or LISTING FEEDS but you still will not get all the data and the descriptions will be limited to 500 characters with no html .

Is that counter intuitive or what? SO how do you get your listings?

TURBO LISTER:

UPDATE: Rather than turbo lister you might give jAOLTa try: http://code.google.com/p/jaolt/

You might have to use Turbo Lister to get your listings and then export the listings to File Exchange (CSV).

From all that we can tell, Turbo Lister for Ebay does not work “out of the box easy” in Ubuntu even with WINE.

We think that it can work. Some have done it in earlier versions of WINE and Ubuntu: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-336264.html

But that is a lot of work for a one time download of ones listings. The work might be worth doing if you plan to use Turbo Lister a lot though.

We were able to download and install Turbo Lister into WINE but the program would not run.

You might use a Windows machine to download and install Turbo Lister and then download your Active listings.
Once you have your listings you can edit them in OpenOffice Calc/Spreadsheet. We suggest you export to FILE EXCHANGE (CSV) format.
Once you have your listings in CSV/File Exchange Format (or OpenOffice), you can email or transfer the file to your Ubuntu or Linux machine.

And, once we had the listings in OpenOffice in Ubuntu we did not need use Turbo Lister any longer, but will be using FILE EXCHANGE from now on.

Download Turbo Lister: http://ebay.com/turbo_lister/index.html
Quick Start Guide: http://pages.ebay.com/turbolister/Turbo_Lister_ListingActivity_QSG1.pdf

Once you have downloaded and installed Turbo Lister you are ready to begin.

IMPORT: File > Import Items > From Ebay Listings > Active Listings > Import

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Once items are imported to Turbo Lister you then:

Select All The Listings: Click on the top item in the ACTIVE LISTING TABS then hold the SHIFT key down and click the last listing (To select all the listings) .

Export The Listing: File >  Export Selected Items > File Exchange Format (CSV file) > Export

Click for a full sized image

At one point in trying to export our listings we ran into the problem of the Export Selected Items being grayed out.We went onto the forums and got this explanation:

“The export from Turbo Lister won’t work if you are trying to export synchronized listings. You have to export the listings from the Inventory section, after importing from eBay or copying and pasting the synchronized listings.”

Just by chance and shifting to a different computer, we got the listings downloaded before we received the explanation.

OPENOFFICE:

To import the data VitalBodies used these settings: (Note: The text delimiter is only a quotation mark.)

UPDATE: We now use TAB and no text delimiter. Be sure to see our other crucial  post called Getting OpenOffice To Play Nice With Ebay File Exchange as this post could save you weeks of frustration.

Click image for a larger view.

OTHER RESOURCES:

JAOLT: Rather than turbo lister you might give Jaolt a try: http://code.google.com/p/jaolt/

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/turbo-lister-troubleshooting.html

OpenOffice Basics:

If you’re TOTALLY new to OpenOffice then here are a few small tips:
You can reduce the size of the VIEW of the spread sheet by double clicking the 100% on the status bar. This can be essential for getting the spreadsheet to be more manageable at first so it is not totally overwhelming.

You can resize the columns width and rows height also under FORMAT to make it easier to see your data.

You can hide huge columns, like the description, to work on everything else and you will not lose that data by doing so. Format > Column > Hide. Then format > column > Show to make it visible again.
I would not do any sorting with this hidden though.

Be REALLY careful with DATA > SORT…. You need to make sure everything is selected except the header row. Select ALL (ctrl a) and then ctrl click on the top header row to de-select it. Otherwise you can mistakenly sort one or more columns ONLY and the others will stay the same. That can mess up all your data big time! For example, if you leave the item numbers unselected and sort only the titles, then titles will no longer match the items!

Back up the original down load and make a copy of it. ONLY work on the copy, never on the original. You may need to original to make sure everything matches up correctly on the copy that you changed or to bring your listing back to the way they were if you mess them up.

VitalBodies would like to thank keiths-online-sales-uk for helping us in the forums!

…And friends and family!