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:

VitalBodies recently made the transition from listing items on ebay one by one, to using File Exchange to do bulk uploading and editing of listings. Not being familiar with Spreadsheet programs like OpenOffice, spread sheets or File Exchange presented a rather steep learning curve. In fact, the learning curve was so steep at some points it seemed more like a brick wall with no way to pass through. With a LOT of help from the kind staff at Ebay (thank you Cheyenne V) we were able to create a file of some of our listings that would at least upload. Where the next set of problems began is that upon opening the file and making the most simple change (like changing the shipping weight of an item) and saving the file, it would no longer upload.

An unknown Error has occurred try again later.

Our CSV (at the time) was the default comma separated spread sheet that used the quote (“) as the text delimiter and Unicode (UTF-8) character set. Within OpenOffice the spread sheet looked perfect. When the staff at ebaY would examine the file in Excel the spread sheet look perfect to them also. Their main comment was always “you just need to make sure the zip code column is set to custom rather than number so that it will preserve zip codes that start with a zero. When we do that the file uploads fine.

So around and around we went, trying to upload, and having the file fail, and then sending the file back to ebaY, and them sending it back again saying it was fine.

Finally angelesbrotherscycles in the forums said:

Here’s 2 annoying things about your situation:

1) OpenOffice apparently will always double quote everything. The double quotes are fine – except that….

2) File Exchange seems to not like double quotes in the first line – probably because they mean something special for setting defaults.

Open the file you’re going to upload in something other than OpenOffice, remove the double quotes (you can find / replace the ” character with nothing), and try uploading.

We tried that and could not get the problem to go away but it was clear they were onto something. If you opened the spreadsheet in a text editor there were lots more ” than the file ebaY would send back out of Excel.

One other clue that was pointed out is that OpenOffice does not open a CSV, instead it seems to import it. Thus you have to select (every time) your delimiters.

Unfortunately though we had hit our limit, we had been trying for so so long. Plus we do not know OpenOffice all that well and the intricate ins and outs of File Exchange.

Then came Keith’s Online Sales to the rescue!

Keith agreed to look over our file and see if he could get it to upload. After some time and effort the file would upload yet would get a 100% failure rate with parsing errors.

This was a break through, because at least the file would upload!

He took the file even further and got it to upload with a 100% success rate!

Wow, what a HUGE break through! We were so excited!

Next we just needed to test the file on our own and make sure we could OPEN, EDIT and SAVE the file without breaking it again.

With careful instruction we were able to.

The trick was to make the file TAB delimited with no text delimiter at all.

The fields that needed to be TEXT (like the title and description) had to have the ” added manually in the field within the spreadsheet like this: “Futon Mattress TWIN 3″” Pure Virgin Wool Organic Cotton “.

Note how the 3″ (three inches) has to have a second ” and the whole text phrase has to be within “”.

Obviously you have to have all the required headers and such as required by ebaY, but we had already been down that road earlier and our file was compliant.

As a thank you VitalBodies made Keith some new fun logos and graphics for his ebay store:

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

Click for a larger image

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!

A large part of the fun was making the graphics in Inkscape.

Dowsing, is all about going deeper. My graphic is all about inviting you to go deeper also. Dowsing is a deep study and a profound art. It is well worth the effort to learn. It is an effort to learn.

Layout: I used Golden Rectangles and Triangles, Sections and Spirals in the dowsing chart layout.

This wand was designed to respond and amplify the BODY’S signal.
Like a dog wagging it’s tail, you want to see the response!

Sometimes there is NO response and that IS a response.

The chart took many years to design and took even longer to test and to validate that it was fully accurate.

Wands are made of Stainless Steel or Bronze and very few of Nickel. Handles of Latex rubber or Polypropylene.

Chart made of Recycled 100% post consumer waste paper.

PHOTO: Photo shows a stainless steel wand with a Polypropylene handle.

Dowsing wand photo shot with a Sigma SD14

I designed this myself, and this design is available no where else. If you see this elsewhere it is a copy. Please report it.

Graphics were made in Inkscape on Ubuntu and the photo shot with a Sigma SD14 and sized in GIMP.

Available on Etsy and Ebay.

VitaBodies designed an Ebay Template for listing items on ebay. The template is W3C Valid Table-less XHTML Strict CSS and does not break the Google RSS XML data feeds.

Having an Ebay template is nice, as you have all of the text that is repeated in almost every listing right there ready for minor tweaking. Plus your listing take on a more professional look and feel.

The images were designed so that one or more can be used in the template or replaced with images of the item that is being sold or auctioned.

One of the big challenges was to get the code to work in the layout that we needed and still support the Google RSS XML Data Feeds.

Being controlled by an external style sheet allows the look of ALL the listings to be changed. Changes can be made if ebay alters their scripts and styles (and they do) or to refresh the look of the listings from time to time.

NOTE: If you plan on doing your own style sheet for ebay, do not use the word ebay as an ID or CLASS or anything else. Vitabodies was using style sheets on ebay before ebay really got into using them. So when ebay started creating and usings a style sheet can you guess what word they used? EBAY…

]]> http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2008/07/14/portfoilo-ebay-template-w3c-valid-table-less-xhtml-strict-css-rss/feed/ 0 http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2008/06/25/vintage-art-bid-vitalbodies/ http://www.vitalbodies.com/blog/2008/06/25/vintage-art-bid-vitalbodies/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:53:46 +0000 vitalbodies http://vitalbodies.wordpress.com/?p=42

Bid

VitalBodies

AUCTIONS – SALES

AND JUST PLAIN FUN

Copyright 2007 VitalBodies.com

This artwork was designed for the VitalBodies Ebay listings template and store.

Done as a vector drawing and exported to JPG.

Intended to create a fun, bold and vintage look of old…