JoyBidder Free Edition is released

The Free Edition has a much simpler user interface and only support sniping one auction at a time. Because its simplicity and free of charge, it is ideal for casual eBay buyers who usually don't snipe multiple items during the same time. Click here for more Free vs Pro feature comparison.

The most obvious reason of releasing the Free Edition is to promote the Pro Edition and www.joybidder.com web site. However, I have another reason of my own.

Most of my registered users are savvy eBay buyers and some of them are eBay sellers who makes a living by buying/selling on eBay. They understand how a good auction search/tracking/sniping software can save their time and money. Since they make money on eBay, the small amount of registration fee is never their concern. In fact, lots of my users have told me that I have priced JoyBidder way too cheap. But for casual eBay buyer who buy from eBay occasionally and only snipe one item at time, they will very unlikely use many advanced features or buy the software. The more advanced features I added to JoyBidder, the more I tailor to savvy eBay users and the further I alienate from the casual users. There has to be a simpler product for those casual users.

Compare to Pro Edition, this is much simpler, isn't it?

Schedule automated search with JoyBidder eBay Auction Sniper

Starting from version 1.5, you can save your search when you add items to a group from eBay search result page. You can then run the saved group search with one click or on a scheduled interval. The items found by the search are automatically added to the group. If the items are added through a scheduled search, the item description is bold typed, just like how new emails are bold typed. This is done so that you can easily spot and review them later on. You can also choose to play sound alert or send email alerts when new items are found.

Save the search

Run and schedule searches

Besides the ease of quickly re-run the search and import, there are other usefulness you might want take advantage of.

Search BuyItNow bargain:

Create a scheduled search for BuyItNow items with the price range you want. JoyBidder can find the items and alert you before the deal is gone.

Search Rare Item:

Create a scheduled search for rare items. Let the search run on the clock. When the items are found, you will be alerted.

Sales/Price analysis:

Want to know the average selling price or is the price go up or down in the last several weeks. You can create a search for completed items. JoyBidder will run the search on scheduled interval and collect information, such as quantity sold, quantity available, price sold and etc. You can then use the build-in Price Trend chart to see the trend of the selling price. You can also export the data to Excel for further analysis.

(Heads up: In the next major version update of JoyBidder, probably 1.6.x, we are planning to introduce a full suite of data analysis tools into JoyBidder)

Version 1.5 is not yet available through auto-updates or from 3rd party download site yet. If you don't want to wait, you can get from JoyBidder eBay Auction Sniper web site.

JoyBidder eBay Auction Sniper windows application is released

JoyBidder eBay Auction Sniper windows application is released. You can download it from here.

The version of windows application starts at 1.4.0, one major version ahead of the latest version of Firefox addon. Although two different installation packages (.xpi for addon, .zip for application), application and addon are the same product with the same features (well, almost the same, read on).

The major changes from 1.4.0 from 1.3.10 is embedding a web browser into JoyBidder and opening web page in user's default web browser. It also allow adding auctions by drag-and-drop eBay urls. These features are essential for users who don't use Firefox.

Firefox users can run addon or application as their choice, although addon is recommended due to better Firefox integration and much smaller installation size. The license you purchased can be applied to both addon and application, however you can not run the addon and application at the same time on one computer, and they don't share the same data files.

Because the application installation file size is almost 7MB, my current hosting service doesn't support download file of such size, so I host the file on Microsoft Live SkyDrive. (Although I don't like IE much, I am not a Microsoft hater. I do enjoy and use lots of their products and services. And SkyDrive is among the top of the list that I will recommend to others.)

With JoyBidder eBay Auction windows application, any windows users can use the software to manage and snipe eBay auctions, regardless what browsers you use.

I am interested to know if there is a need to port the application to Mac, since lots of Mac users don't use Firefox.

JoyBidder Auction Sniper wake up computer from sleep

ron ice gave low ratings on Mozilla addon web site because JoyBidder eBay Auction Sniper " is shareware,$9 dollars to buy,you have to keep your computer running so joybidder can place a bid! ".

Here is my comment on his comment.

First, yes, JoyBidder is not free, but it is among the most affordable among others. The financial incentive justifies my actively developing and supporting this software.

Second, JoyBidder eBay Auction Sniper is a desktop software which runs on your computer so that you don't need to store your eBay password on other people's server. If you are a Windows user, you don't need to have it running all the time to monitor auctions or place scheduled bid. Latest version of JoyBidder can wake up your computer from standby/sleep mode, and place bid and go back to sleep. If you don't know what is standby/sleep mode, here is some articles.

How much electricity does my computer use?

Should You Turn Off Computer -Conserve Energy

To save the trouble of reading, the point is that modern computer's Standby/Sleep mode consumes almost the same electricity as turning off the computer. If you haven't tried run JoyBidder under standby mode, the Standby Mode is the second last button on the toolbar. see picture below.




Thanks for all the registered users who supported the software and all the trial users who had given me helpful suggestions. JoyBidder will be even better.

Happy holiday and have a wonderful new year

JoyBidder.com is moved to a new hosting service

For the most part of last week, due to some yet-to-be-explained technical difficulties from my current hosting service, JoyBidder.com couldn't be accessed.

Now I moved the site to another hosting service. DNS change was made 6 hours ago. United States users should be able to access the new site already. For the rest of the world, it could be a little longer. Please restart Firefox, so JoyBidder can get version update alert from the new site.

However, Twitter alert doesn't work any more because of this change. A new version with the fix is being worked on and shall be released in the next several days.

Usability enhancements in JoyBidder 1.3.0

Besides performance improvement, there are many usability enhancements in JoyBidder 1.3.0. Here are some of them:

1.Use short-cut key on the item grid.

Ctrl-A	select all items
Ctrl-C	copy selected item IDs
Del	delete selected items
Alt-A	Open Add Buy Item# window
Alt-F	Add item(s) from browser window
F5	Reload all items in view

2. "Add Items" buttons in the toolbar

In the previous version, they are under Add Item menu. They are moved to toolbar based on users suggestion.


3. One Click Item Detail report

You can now selected the items and click the Bug Report in the context menu.
This will copy item detail information into your clipboard, then you can paste them in to the support email that you want to send.
This will make the technical support much more efficient.



4. easier to add eBay ID

In earlier version, you need to enter Shipping country/zip when adding an eBay ID. They are needed for JoyBidder to calculate the shipping cost.
In 1.3.0, you don't need to do that anymore. Shipping country defaults to the eBay registration site and can be changed later if you want to. Shipping zip is optional. It is as important as shipping country since most of the eBay items use flat shipping rate. However, if you do provide shipping zip, please make sure they are accurate, otherwise JoyBidder cannot calculate the shipping cost correctly.



5. easier to add items from browser
In the older version, Add Item From eBay View Item page and Add Item from eBay search results are two separate buttons.
In this version, the two buttons are combined as Add Item From Browser. JoyBidder will perform the right action based on which eBay page you are current at.

JoyBidder gets a big performance boost

JoyBidder 1.3.0 has been just released to Mozilla addon web site during the weekend. This is a major release containing lots of good stuff. I will share some of these improvement in a series of posts starting with performance improvement.

Here is the performance comparison between version 1.3.0 and version 1.2.3

Action	1.3.0	1.2.3
Reload 24 items	~14 seconds	~24 seconds
Add 24 items by item#	~14 seconds	~21 seconds
Sort title 305 items	<1 second	3 seconds

The performance gain is resulted from the following changes.
1. combine multiple XMLHttpRequests to one whenever possible
2. throttle RDF Data Source Flush calls to reduce file I/O
3. re-write the items grid using CustomTreeview

The test is performed on Pentium M / 1GB /Windows XP laptop with Firefox 3.5 and DSL internet connection.
What is the performance with JoyBidder or any other Auction Sniper/Monitor software on your computer, post your result in the comment.