Business & finance

equinux iSale 5

It’s that time of year to have a spring clean, so why not have an iSale?

Our Score User Score Be first to review this!

Last reviewed: April 1st

iSale is the perfect program for creating stunning-looking eBay listings thanks to the hundreds of editable, iLife-style templates it has on offer

Zoom

<1 2 >

Now in its fifth incarnation, iSale enables you to create and edit eBay listings on your Mac prior to uploading them to eBay.

It also enables you to track bids while the auction is running and manage completed listings, courtesy of editable groups and Smart Folders. There's a useful iSale widget that aids tracking, and this is a prime example of how iSale integrates itself seamlessly with both the eBay site and core Apple apps.

Working with the interface is easy, particularly because it ties into iCal (automatic auction-closure reminders, iPhoto (direct image uploads) and even .Mac for remote image storage.

eBay made easy for Mac

iSale makes setting up an eBay auction much simpler.

By linking directly to the eBay site, it enables you not only to create listings, but also to include specific selling options directly from eBay within those pre-prepared listings - genre, weight, condition and the like - without having to create the listing and upload it at that time. This means you can save up auctions and list a bunch of them at the same time.

New additions to version 5 include compatibility with sites such as Facebook and Flickr, great new iLife-style templates, which are all now completely editable with drag-and-drop ease, as well as Smart Folders and Groups, which will enable you to keep track of specified types of auction at any given time.

However, the most useful addition is the Research Assistant, which enables you to research your item online using bookmarked websites, and even drag and drop information, such as album listings from the web, directly into your auction. It also bookmarks searches for you, so you can return to any site you use regularly for information.

Flawed functionality

Although iSale does offer efficiency and convenience, it's still a third-party program and isn't, as yet, a perfect match for eBay's tools. It integrates seamlessly with eBay's servers, but it doesn't completely replace its listing engines, for instance, and it relies on equinux updates to keep up-to-date with pricing and genre changes.

What's more, much of the newer functionality iSale offers can already be utilised to some degree using existing Mac apps, such as Smart mailboxes in Mail instead of iSale's Smart Folders.