Fireday - Firefox eBay Extensions for October 13, 2006

Friday, October 13, 2006 4:00 AM

Posted by Jonathan Danylko | Tag: Fireday | Comments: 0 | View blog reactions

This Week: eBay Ends, Biet-O-Zilla, and ShortShip

Ok, all of you eBay-ers out there (and yes, this includes my wife!)

This week's extensions focuses on eBay. The three extensions below will help you win those hot bids, price your shipping, and just let you know when time has run out on your items.

Of course, with all of these extensions, an eBay account is absolutely necessary.

Ok, then...Let's go!

eBay Ends

Rating: 3/5

eBay Ends is an extension that installs an 'EE' at the bottom of your status bar and provides a display of the date and time of when your watched items and "current selling" items will expire. 

The 'EE' indicator in the status bar shows you that the eBay Ends extension is active. Don't expect anything to happen right away. The eBay Ends extension will only kick in when you are on your "my eBay" page. If you have any items that you are watching or current items you are selling, there will be a new item under the "Time Left" column. A customizable date and time will display showing you the date of when the items will expire.

And no, it doesn't automatically count down. But, boy, wouldn't that be cool.

Overall, the extension was easy to install and the functionality is helpful enough. It's definitely easier to look at the date and time instead of clicking on the product and searching for when the auction will end.

Of course, since she's an avid eBay-er, I will probably be installing this for my wife.

 

 

Biet-o-Zilla

Rating: 5/5

B-O-Z is the boss!

Biet-O-Zilla is an extension that every eBay-er should have.

When the extension is installed, a menu item called Applications is added to the pulldown menu at the top of Firefox. Click on Biet-O-Zilla to run the application. Yes, application.

B-O-Z is a full-fledged application written with the XUL language. The extension displays a small detail list with some options at the top. First thing that occurs is a dialog box that asks you for your eBay user name and password. Enter your information and click Ok. After that, click on the Actions menu item, and click "Read Watched Items." This will import all of your watched items into B-O-Z. The cool thing is you get to see each watched item countdown when the auction ends.

B-O-Z also has a last-minute bidder option. Click on the Windows/Options menu item, then the "Bid" tab. You can set an interval for when the auction is about to expire and say that you want to place a bid 30 seconds (default is 30 seconds) before the auction ends. Nothing like gunning for that product that you have to have!

B-O-Z installed without any hassles and will definitely provide a lot of eBay watching functionality through Firefox and I commend the developer of the extension on a job well done.

ShortShip

Rating: 5/5

Let's say that you have a product you've been eyeing up in your watchlist on eBay for a while. Vendor A has the product for $10 with $2 shipping, but Vendor B has the exact same product for $9 with $10 shipping. According to eBay, guess who bubbles to the top as the cheapest product? Yep, Vendor B.

The ShortShip Firefox extension adds a lot of functionality to eBay that is deperately needed. For example, the scenario above has definitely happened to me a couple times while shopping on eBay. On eBay searches, the ShortShip extension will create another new column called Total and display the full price of the item in your results...price + shipping. Definitely a nice feature! You don't need to configure anything. The extension is seamlessly integrated to work with eBay.

Other useful features in the extension are:

  • Converts all values to the same currency, so you can actually compare things properly!
  • Allows you to filter feedback, so you can see only their negative comments
  • Allows you to report excessive shipping to eBay with one click
  • Filter results by a shipping range that you specify
  • Right-Click Search
  • Shipping Cost Filter

The ShortShip extension installed flawlessly and can enhance the way users shop around eBay. It even helps out the sellers in some respects.

*Bonus*

If you need more eBay tools for Firefox, you may want to install the Greasemonkey extension and then go over to the UserScripts.org site and check out all of the eBay Scripts that make your life sooo much easier.

Has anyone found any other eBay extensions for Firefox? Post below in the Chatterbox if you have or Contact me directly.

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