When looking at all in one eBay management systems, the two big players are Auctiva and Inkfrog. These two juggernauts have been going at it for as long as I have been on eBay, and I am sure much longer before that. This has been a good thing for eBay sellers because they have been competing to outdo each other with a superior product. This has also resulted in products that are very similar in both features and pricing. For this reason I have a hard time deciding which service is better, this post will delve into the features of both Auctiva and Inkfrog and tell you which service I choose.
When looking at both of these services it is very hard to find features where they differ so I will start by listing off what they both do best. Both Auctiva and Inkfrog are great when it comes to creating an auction. Do you remember creating auctions with eBay’s list your item form? This was a long, tedious multi-page process that put most of your time into creating auctions. Arguably the best feature of these services is that they simplify this process into one single page. Allowing you to add your title, price, category, description, images etc on one compact page. Both Auctiva and Inkfrog allow you to use your own custom eBay template within the listing creator, or you can use one of the many that are supplied for free. Image hosting is also included with each service, and uploading images is a breeze. Each service will allow you to edit live listings, which by itself is worth the price of admission. Both Auctiva and Inkfrog offer the ability to add a cross promotion gallery to your auctions, this is a must have for sellers who want to show all of their auctions from within each listing. Both of these services will allow you to track your inventory, halting automatic listings from launching when inventory gets low. Lastly both Auctiva and Inkfrog will allow you to send automatic emails such as winning bidder, payment reminder and custom emails. This is a huge step towards automating your online business.
Now for some of the ways Auctiva does business that Inkfrog doesn’t. Currently Auctiva is the service to go for if you are looking for reports on your sales. This is something Inkfrog has had in the works for a while and should be released in the near future. Auctiva uses a nifty time saving feature called profiles. This allows you to create multiple combination’s of payment, shipping, about us, contact information, marketing tools(gallery), checkout options and add those to your auctions via the listing creator. You can even add your profiles to a master profile along with other information such as a template, price and category to make your auction creation that much faster. The power of Auctiva’s system definitely lies in this ability to create profiles, and master profiles which can make creating auctions a process of adding images, a description and a price and clicking save.
Inkfrog is no slouch in its auction creation process. It does not have as elegant of a profile system, but it does use profiles along with templates. While using the Inkfrog listing creator you can choose to simply save the auction to your library or save as a profile. If you choose the latter option, you will now have a profile with all of the same details ready to go for your next auction. This can be a huge time saver by letting you add your template, payment information, shipping details, post auctions rules and other reusable information to your profile for later use.
Inkfrog is known for its Globals feature. This allows you to create a global such as price, template, ebay id and a bunch more and quickly add that global to a saved or active listing. This can be a huge time saver when editing live or saved listings and provides a great way to experiment with different strategies.
Inkfrog also allows the use of multiple eBay accounts with one account. This means you can have one Inkfrog account and manage multiple eBay ids in one place. For a larger seller who sells on more than one account this was the deal maker for me, and the reason I go for Inkfrog over Auctiva.
As you can see Inkfrog and Auctiva are very similar. In my opinion they are so similar in features that it is like comparing Pepsi and Coke. They do however have a different look and feel and that may be the reason you choose one over the other. Or maybe your like me and you want to manage many accounts from one locale, in which case Inkfrog takes the bacon. In any case I recommend signing up for a free trial with both service and give them each a try. I was once strictly an Auctiva guy, then they decided to charge a percentage of my profit for their service. I quickly made the switch to Inkfrog and have been with them ever since. Auctiva has since changed their pricing to $9.95/month or $19.95/month if you want to use their web store. This is the same $9.95/month price that Inkfrog charges.
