It has been a weekend of relative quiet and peace – where most of the time was spent cleaning up the apartment, and discovering that I had more digital device clutter than any sane person should have. In other words, time to head on over to eBay and list some old stuff to make room for the new gee-gaws. Apparently I am not alone: a recent survey released by eBay shows that the average US household has approximately $3,000 of unused things in their home
Call is serendipity, but right after watching Roger Clemens right the New York Yankees’ ship, I met with Bill Hudak, cofounder and CEO of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ztail, that has come up with web service that allows you to easily create “classifieds” and then publish them to not only eBay, but to other sites such as Edgeio, Facebook, MySpace, TypePad and WordPress blogs, and of course the Ztail listings site.
The company launched earlier this week has been bootstrapped by Hudak and Dave Keefer, and the duo have lot of online commerce experience, having worked at companies such as Google, Shopping.com and Epinions.
Ztail is a dead simple and easy to use. Once you go to their site, Ztail starts you off by asking you the question, what do you want to sell today? You type in, say, Nokia E61 – and Ztail gives you all options, including photos and technical specifications that you might have to otherwise type out. You personalize this information, describe the condition of the item; add your eBay ID (or Facebook ID or your blog credentials) and hit publish. That’s it! You are done.
Being someone who is flummoxed by the eBay listings process, I found Ztail a time saving utility. Of course there is the added bonus of listing my stuff in many different places and thus increasing the chances of selling makes Ztail worth giving a whirl. Okay, time for me to go make listings, create a special blog for listing the items, and then have a massive virtual garage sale!
10 comments so far
10:54 AM PT
Hi Om
And when you make that blog make sure to include the tag “listing” with each item so that it ends up in edgeio directly. Its that simple :-)
Keith
edgeio
10:57 AM PT
Yes, that is the plan. Also good to see the nice and easy integration with edgeio.
11:11 AM PT
What happens when someone agrees to buy the item on Craigslist and Edgeio while someone else does a BuyItNow on eBay? Do you guys have a way set up to handle buying ‘race conditions’ (for lack of a better phrase :)?
Nick Mazza
(link) | free blog review swap
1:07 PM PT
That’s what I was about to ask. How do you manage the multiple markets/auctions at once? Or do you pick a single one (like eBay) and have the others link there. e.g., “I have a powerbook for sale, auction at eBay” and have that show up on facebook and edgeio
3:34 PM PT
Keith, good point. Ztail users can select automatic publishing to edgeio when they create a listing. Let us know if we can do anything to enhance this feature. Very excited to work with you.
Nick, Bill Erickson has it right. If you are selling on eBay, links to the listing will direct buyers to transact on eBay.
We just released this week, many more features coming. The comments are great!
9:33 PM PT
I know a couple of the guys that work at Ztail, including Hudak, and they’re good guys. Congrats on the launch! I need to sell some stuff - this is a good reminder to try it out.
10:56 PM PT
how is this service different from, say, (link)
and edgeio is really cool!
8:00 AM PT
Hi Bill
Let’s meet and brainstorm that question. keith [at] edgeio dot com.
Best
Keith
9:39 AM PT
I’ve used the site fairly extensively and found it really helpful. I HATE the process of selling stuff, but zTail has made it easy so I’m digging out all the hidden treasures I have laying around and putting them on the market! Good stuff, zTail. I highly recommend given it a try.
-Craig D.
4:24 AM PT
How do they make money? I’m leary in putting in the time and effort to list items on a site that doesn’t seem to have a clear way in making money.
Also they say that you can list your items on all of their listed areas (Tell us if you want to sell on eBay, classifieds, your social network or all of the above!) - but that doesn’t seem to be the case, it’s either eBay or Ztail (Edgeio, Oodle, Google, etc.) not both.