BINSniper 3.4 and VieBuy 3.4 Releases

VieBuy 3.4 is now active at viebuy.com

BINSniper 3.4 is now available via the Firefox add-on installation process.

New Features

  • A new “All Channels” option is now available for search site-wide on any eBay site.  This feature allows you to use one filter across the entire site where items may be in more than one channel.  Using this feature can improve search delays.
  • Upgrade alerts and other system status messages will now be visible at the top of the VieBuy and BINSniper screens.  Notices of new features and releases will appear on the screen in both apps.
  • VieBuy has rotating tips at the top of the screen.  These can now be disabled in the Settings page.  The tips provide answers to common questions and are updated with information on new features.

All Channels

If you are running the same search in multiple channels, you can now select “All Channels” to search all of eBay without any category restrictions.

Channels are a friendly shortcut to searching categories. So if you are searching items that will only appear in one channel, you should continue to use the specific channels.

For example, if you are searching for iPhone 6 smartphones, you should use the “Cell Phones & Accessories” channel.  But if you are searching for a wide range of items related to frogs for your eclectic frog collection, you should use the “All Channels” option rather than create multiple filters.

In general you want to create as few filters as possible, while targeting the filters as much as possible.  This will give the fastest and most accurate results.

The “All channels” feature should not be used as a general replacement for all searches.  Single category searches are generally faster.

Note that if you enter category number in a filter while using “All channels”, only the selected categories will be searched.

 

BINSniper 3.x and VieBuy Update

New faster (and slower) processing

A new filter processing system was installed on March 28 that changed how often filters are updated and how fast new items are delivered.  We apologize for the delay in posting this information.

This change addresses a performance problem caused by a small number of users who configure a large number of filters (in some cases over 100 filters).  At times, other users were negatively impacted and experiencing delays.

The majority of users, who have a small number of filters configured,  are already seeing faster updates as a result of this change.   Users in active categories are updated as fast as once per second.  In slower categories, updates typically usually run under five seconds.  Remember that eBay delays may impact actual delivery time of new items.

For those few users running a large number of filters, your performance will now be degraded.  In some cases updates may be running as infrequently as every 5 minutes in slow moving categories.  This is in addition to eBay delays.

An even smaller number of users were heavy consumers of system resources, but not buying at all,  have been blocked completely as they were just leeching from everyone else.

How to get faster updates

While in the past, we have recommended creating separate filters for different channels and products, this recommendation has now changed to suit the new system design.

You should consolidate filters wherever possible.  The fewer filters you have, the faster they will update.   Each user now has their own filter queue and filters are processed in round-robin fashion.   The more filters you have configured, the longer time there will be between updates of an individual filter.

Update:  New All Channels option now available.

Version 3.4 and above provide a new option to allow filters to span all eBay categories on a site.  While channels are still preferred for performance and convenience reasons, the new “All channels” option will allow those users that are configuring the same filters in multiple channels to further consolidate these filters and get better performance.

 

eBay Returns and Refunds

eBay has a liberal return policy that protects buyers from items that don’t match the description. If you purchase an item and find that it is not as described, you can return the item for a full refund including shipping costs.

If the item is below your expectations, and you find when reviewing the listing that it was not described properly, you can return it.  If the item is as described, you should return it using another option, such as “doesn’t fit”, “changed my mind” or other reason available.

But you also have the option to request a partial refund from the seller. Sellers may consider a partial refund to avoid having to issue a full refund or ship a new item.

For example, if you bought a new camera, and it arrived with some scratches, you might be willing to keep the item if it was fairly priced. The seller may be willing to offer a discount after the fact rather than have to take the item back and relist it at the lower price.

You and the seller can work together to agree on an acceptable amount for a partial refund, or you can return the item.

eBay’s policy on refund can be found here:  http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/item-not-as-described.html

 

Sunday Listings

Historically, eBay sellers like to list auctions items on Sunday afternoons so they end on Sunday afternoon the following week.  It’s a good time to have items ending, since the number of buyers online tends to be higher then.

While BIN items can be listed at any time, Sunday listings are also popular for fixed price items.

Be sure not to miss these popular listing times for scooping up deals with BINSniper and VieBuy.

Other times that get more listing action for Sundays are Thursday afternoons for 3-day and 10-day listings.  Tuesday afternoons for the less common 5 day listings.

 

Using filter exclude options in BINSniper and VieBuy

We’ve noticed that a number of users are checking ALL of the exclude filter options. Checking all of the boxes will prevent you from seeing most if not all items.

The viebuy.com filter screen has been changed to warn about this and clarify it a bit:

If you check all the boxes, you will be excluding free shipping items, returnable items, best offer items, etc.

The same is true for BINSniper.  We will update the the BINSniper screen in 3.01.

BINSniper® 3.0 Released

We’re happy to announce the new BINSniper 3.0 system.

Requirements

This version requires Firefox 29 or higher.   Prior versions required Firefox 13.

 

Performance Changes

Throttles and speed controls have been removed.

All searches now run simultaneously at top speed. All items are streamed to your browser as soon as they are received from the feeds.

 

 

The new system fetches items using our server farm and streams only the relevant item content to your browser. This is on average a 95% reduction in bandwidth and processing time. Your browser will no longer continuously fetch and parse items for each search, but will wait for new items to be sent from the server.  This is more mobile-friendly and should provide the fastest access to items while also reducing the processing time on your device.

 

Changes at eBay

As previously posted, eBay has migrated their systems to a new platform that is delivering new items in batches. The eBay sites are now using the same data feeds that we use.

It is important to be aware that while new items may have starting times 10-20 minutes in the past, they are just being posted on the eBay sites too.

BINSniper displays a star next to new listings so that they can be identified even when they are being batched. A new sorting option has been added to allow you to select sort arrival time or start time. Start times reflect the time of record (when the listing was submitted to eBay), arrival time reflects the time the items was sent to the feeds, posted on eBay sites, and arrived at your browser. Arrival time is the default and works best with the new batched system used by eBay.

 

Feeds and Channels

BINSniper 3.0 introduces channels which correspond to top level eBay categories on an eBay site. For instance “US – Antiques” will only contain items from the eBay.com site in the Antiques category its sub-categories . By focusing your searches on the types of items you want, you receive more targeted results.

 

From Searches to Filters

The new design necessitates some changes in the search concept. Your search filters need to choose a channel to monitor. If you need to monitor multiple channels, you can setup multiple filters. The filters subscribe you to a channel and listen for matching items.

Due to some limitations in the eBay data feeds and the design changes in the system, some search features in BINSniper 2.x cannot currently be supported in BINSniper 3. These are:

  • Excluding multiple quantity listings is not supported at this time.
  • Subcategories are not automatically included when filtering by category number. Subcategory numbers need to be specified. More details in the docs about this.
  • Filtering by Seller Type (business/private) is not supported at this time.
  • Max Distance for Postal Code searches. You can now enter multiple postal codes instead or even postal wildcards.

The new system adds the following search capabilities:

  • Items are selected from top level categories (channels) and specific categories.
  • Items can be filtered by the country they are located in. Use this to exclude foreign sellers.
  • Full wildcard support of keywords. To find bluetooth,  you can use wildcards like: blue*, *tooth, or *luetoot*
  • Global seller exclude list that allows you to exclude specific sellers from all filters. Think of this as a permanent block.
  • Search results can now be designated to appear in specific panels in the streamer display
  • Multiple Postal Codes can now be specified in filters. Ending wildcards are supported.  e.g. 902* finds any postal code starting with 902.
  • New selections: free shipping, returnable, best offers, top rated, worldwide shipping, store items, and variation listings.
  • Filter out seller by feedback scor and/or percentage.
  • Auctions without bids can be excluded.

 

New Keyword Search Features

You can now search using extended search syntax, including wildcards, boolean search and negative searches. Complete details are in the user’s guide.

Here’s a simple example:      ipad -blue*

This finds items where the title contains “ipad” but does not contain any word starting with “blue”. So blue cases and bluetooth headsets would be excluded.

 

UK and EU users

Server selection has been removed, and all users are now hosted by the US server.

Since bandwidth requirements have been significantly reduced in the new system, overall operation should be faster for international customers.

 

Get the Addon

You can get the new version direct from our site here http://auctionbucks.com/binsniper.xpi

It will also be available from the Mozilla Add-ons page shortly at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/binsniper/versions/

And available thru automatic updates once approved by Mozilla.

Docs are here: http://auctionbucks.com/binsniper