New Item Detail Page and Other Fixes

We have updated the look of our item detail page with more prominent buttons and links to provide an easier interface for buyers.

Recently reported bugs and issues have been resolved with this update. Our engineers are also working on advanced reporting features to improve the overall user experience on iOffer.

Thank you for your continued support. Please check back for more updates.

Website Translation

With an increasing number of international buyers, we are proud to present the iOffer website in 16 different languages to enhance the global shopping experience. These languages include:

We'll do our best to guess your preferred language by analyzing where you are located as well as what your browser sends as its "preferred" language. If wish to view a different language, click on the language and currency link at the top right side of the page and choose your desired language (you'll see all 16 of these links also located on every page in our footer). 

Please be aware that we haven't translated the entire site so some pages may not change when you choose a different language. We're still in the process of translating additional pages. If your language isn't on this list or you find a translation error, don't hesitate to suggest a language or report the bug.

Google Base Update

Google Base recently changed their policies regarding item listing submissions on Google Product Search. They introduced a multi-client platform for online marketplaces to automatically submit their item listings, replacing iOffer's current method in which individual sellers were required to download and submit their own files every 30 days.

As we work with Google Base to set up our master account and ensure that all sub (seller) accounts comply with their policies, current files submitted by iOffer sellers will likely be rejected by Google Base. There is no current time table on when this process will be completed, so please review our Seller Promotional Tools for alternative ways to promote your store and items.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. Please check back here for further updates and thank you for your understanding.

Site load time enhancements & upgrades

We have recently upgraded our systems to use a global content delivery network, meaning all of our pages and images will load significantly faster around the world. Previously when a request was made for content in Europe the data was sent back to the user from our main data center in San Francisco. Now when that same request is made it will be sent from our edge network, from somewhere located in Europe (Amsterdam, UK, Germany, etc.) the same applies to users in the USA. Our initial tests have shown a 300% increase in load times from areas around the world. Here is a list of locations we are now serving content from:

North America

• Ashburn
• Atlanta
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Los Angeles
• New York
• San Jose
• Seattle

Europe

• Amsterdam
• Frankfurt
• London

Australia

• Sydney

Asia

• Hong Kong
• Tokyo

Please check back here for more updates as we continue to enhance the iOffer shopping experience.

User Profiles Redesign

Your new profile is now focused on your recent buying and selling activity. You can still add your own profile picture and personal quote, but the rest of the profile features your popular items for sale, Want Ads, recent offers and transactions, and past sellers/swappers.

Your new profile shows your reputation and presence on iOffer. The more activity you have on iOffer, the more likely members will want to buy your items or sell their items to you.

Learn more about why we changed the look of your profile.

Additional Store Features and Social Network Integration

Since our last update, we've added several new themes to seller stores. Sellers can now create their own store categories to match the items they're selling, and personalize a welcome message to greet buyers on the item detail page.

Buyers can save favorite stores to their watchlist, and subscribe to any store's RSS feed to automatically get notified of store updates.

Store Features Overview

iOffer is now fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter. Post stories to your Facebook News Feed to invite your friends to iOffer. Promote your items on Twitter to get more visitors, more buyers, and more sales!

Update your Social Network Settings

Store Enhancements

We've made some improvements to stores, now when listing items your store will be updated immediately with your items listed. There is no more waiting for items to appear in your store and buyers will see them instantly as well.

We've also added up to date category counts in stores. We do our best to keep these numbers updated, however there can be times when they may get out of date (we cache them to load the page faster) so we've added a link to "Refresh" your store underneath the categories section. Clicking this link will attempt to reload all items in your store and update the category counts.

We have several new features still being added to stores over the next few weeks including custom categories, store greeting message for buyers, custom landing pages in the store, sale items and several new themes!

Edit Your Store

Store Customization, Rating Map, Google Analytics

Seller stores have been given a refreshed and updated design. Store searches, policies, and customizable themes are improved. The introduction of a rating map with the rating chart lets buyers thoroughly review sellers' past transactions and shipping locations to make informed buying decisions.

Edit Your Store

Sign up for Google Analytics to track visitors to your store to see which of your items are more popular, who's viewing your items, where your visitors are coming from, and ways to improve your sales.

Google Analytics Tutorial

Bulk Editor, Enhanced Homepage and Search Results

Sellers can now edit multiple item listings all at once with the new Bulk Editor. Save time and update your items' price, shipping profile, condition, quantity, and description simultaneously.

Read the tutorial to get started.

Current Activity on iOffer is now shown in real-time on the homepage. Along with featured item listings, specially selected item listings are displayed to accommodate more buyers.

Improved search result pages provides highly relevant item listings, with related keywords to expand your search.

Shipping Profiles, New Help Layout

Default shipping profiles benefit both buyers and sellers. Shipping and handling information will be pre-filled for sellers when listing an item, and buyers will see estimated shipping costs to their location on item detail pages. Create shipping profiles in your Selling Preferences.

Our re-structured help pages are more informative and easier to use. Information on account and transaction issues are displayed at the forefront of the page, while all the links you need to navigate around iOffer are located on the left. Click on Help at the top of the page to find answers to common questions and issues.

Item Detail Page, Secure Payment Protection, Google Checkout

The new item detail page enhances the buying experience with improved features and faster load times. A simple, clean layout lets you view the most prominent information quickly and easily (item info, buying terms, seller info). Sellers benefit with increased exposure to their items, having multiple links to their store.

Click here to view a summary of the changes.

To increase online security, we implemented a Secure Payment Protection for credit card payments through Verified by Visa™ and MasterCard SecureCode™. All you need to do is create a PIN to authenticate your Visa or MasterCard, confirming your identity as the cardholder.

Prevent unauthorized online use of your credit card(s) before it happens.
Verify your credit card information to activate Secure Payment Protection immediately.

In addition to Mpayy, PayPal, credit cards, and checks/money orders, sellers can now use Google Checkout to pay their monthly iOffer account balance.

Home Page Redesign

iOffer is proud to unveil a new home page design. The refreshed home page exemplifies what iOffer is all about: better deals for buyers through open negotiations and higher profit for sellers with FREE item listings, transfers, store, and other features.

Improved navigation allows visitors to search and browse items effortlessly, while featured items gain better exposure with improved graphics. Current Activity on iOffer and What Buyers Are Saying uses real buyer and seller ratings to ensure the quality and merit of the site.

We hope you find these updates beneficial and look forward to more improvements from iOffer.

Currency Conversion

International buyers can now conveniently browse the site and view item listings in their local currency. We will try our best to predict your location, but if your currency is set incorrectly, click on the country name on the top right side of the page to update your country setting.

Prices are adjusted and estimated based on daily exchange rates. However, all negotiations and transactions are still completed in U.S. Dollars.

To learn more about Currency Conversion, click here.
To read the Currency Conversion FAQ’s, click here.

Amazon Payments

iOffer is now accepting Amazon Payments as its newest payment option. It is free to open and use, with multiple payment sources available worldwide, including payment from your mobile device with Amazon TextPayMe.

Funds are generally available within one business day, and can be stored in your account, transferred to your bank account, or turned into an Amazon gift card.

All payments are covered by Amazon's A-to-Z Guarantee protection, and Amazon's fraud protection covers all unauthorized transactions on physical goods.

To learn more about Amazon Payments, click here.
To start accepting Amazon Payments, update your selling preferences.

Mpayy, Checkout Process, Credit Cards, and Other Upgrades

Mpayy
Mpayy is iOffer’s newest payment option for U.S. buyers and sellers. Conveniently send, receive, and track all payments through the Mpayy website, your mobile phone, and your Facebook or MySpace profile. It is FREE to open and use, and buyers can earn cash back.
Learn more about Mpayy

Checkout Process
We have redesigned the checkout process with a fully automated step-by-step service so buyers can easily edit, review, and purchase their items. Buyers can now track the status of their items through the shipping website.
Learn more about the improved checkout process

Credit Card Payments
Credit cards are now only accepted through PayPal or Google Checkout. Sellers may continue to accept credit card payments through their own merchant accounts by stating it in the "Other Methods" section of their selling preferences. Buyers will need to choose "Other" as their payment method to pay through seller merchant accounts.
Update your selling preferences

Please check back for more updates. Thank you.

Rating Details Diagram

On the member rating page, a new "Rating Details" link opens a scatterplot diagram of the members’ buying or selling activities. Data includes: average sale price, number of items sold, and rated transactions in the past 6 months. Visualizing the summary of a member’s recent activities in a detailed diagram helps buyers and sellers understand the member better in making buying and selling decisions.

Vacation and Other Enhancements

After reviewing members’ feedback, a vacation feature is now available for all sellers. Sellers can set their accounts to be on vacation for a minimum of 3 days. Items will remain active for buyers to only ask questions. Sellers can customize a vacation message to be displayed on their profile page. Their item detail and store pages will have a default vacation message. Seller icons will be replaced with a vacation icon until they return from vacation.

You may update your vacation setting in your selling preferences. Learn more about the vacation feature here.

When creating or editing an item listing, the item preview will now match the look of the item detail page to provide a better visual of the item listing. Updating changes is now easier and more convenient with better navigation links.

We have added and improved many item categories to enhance the category browsing experience. These categories will also be applied toward new listings, bulk uploads, and item transfers.

Thank you for your patience in our continual process to improve the iOffer website.

Group Offers

To help optimize our members' buying and selling experience, we have added a new feature we're calling Group Offer.

Buyers can send a single offer to multiple sellers on similar or matching items, saving time and energy while increasing their chances of getting what they want. The first seller to accept the offer wins the buyer's business.

Sellers are encouraged to update their notification settings to be notified immediately once they receive a new offer. The remaining offers in the Group Offer will automatically be retracted once the first seller in the group accepts.

For more information, please visit the Group Offers FAQ.

More Enhancements for iOffer

After reviewing many suggestions, we have upgraded some of iOffer's features to improve the website's usability for our members. These improvements include a new look to the "Questions and Offers" board in item listings and the "Questions and Answers" board in the want ad pages. Accepted offers and bought items will now be highlighted with a green shade to increase its visibility and importance.

All image uploads are now FREE. Feel free to add more pictures when you create new item listings, and preview them immediately with the new image upload process.

Members are now able to modify sub-categories when editing an item listing.

To maintain a safe and secure online community, we have also upgraded security checks in the member registration process.

Thank you for all the suggestions. We appreciate your support and commitment to iOffer.

Member Rating Page Upgrades

In addition to our updated rating system to present a more accurate percentage of members' past transactions, we have improved the look of the ratings page with softer tabs to view all ratings, ratings from buyers, ratings from sellers, and ratings left for others.

We also added a new link to direct you to the item you last viewed from the seller in the Quick Links box, giving you a convenient way to return to the item detail page.

Website Improvements

In our continual process to enhance the iOffer website and maintain the website's user friendliness, we have made improvements to the My iOffer message center and the item negotiation process.

Messages will now be automatically archived once they are read or acted upon. Old and invalid negotiations have been cleared out of the message center to keep it up to date. Members can now use the Buy Now button at any point in the item negotiation process. Improved Question and Offer reply pages are easier to understand and use.

In addition, we have shortened the page-loading time in the community club pages and the Swap center. Member searches will provide more relevant results based on recent activities. Our updated rating system will present a more accurate percentage of members' past transactions.

Thank you for your dedication to iOffer. We hope you are having a wonderful experience with us.

Recent Upgrades & Enhancements

Recently we have been experiencing a delay in the process of item updates and listings changes and been working hard to resolve this issue. With a redesign of our item index system, all future item updates and listings changes will be made and visible within one to two hours, depending on the amount of inventory we get in any given day. Loading speed of search results has also been increased by loading the Hot Items section on the left bar after the center content of the page loads.

Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused. We are in a continual process to make further upgrades to our site.

Thank you for your support and commitment to iOffer.

Google Checkout Integration

We have added support for sellers to give buyers the option of Google Checkout as an alternate form of payment.

To add Google Checkout to your list of accepted payment options simply enter your Google Merchant ID on your Seller Preference page

We have also added support for Western Union payments.

Update your Seller Preferences

Store Widget

We have created a Store Widget to allow sellers to feature their iOffer items anywhere on the web.

The widget is customizable and you can select from 10 pre-defined themes and two different layouts. You control what items you wish to display and what order.
Here is a sample widget:

New Features

We have received several requests to allow the removal of friends from your profile page and have added this feature.
When you are logged in and looking at your friends list there is a link that will allow you to remove individual users from your page.

iOfferLite Program Ended

As of February 1st, 2008 we will no longer allow items to be listed using the iOfferLite option. Any items that have been listed in iOfferLite will remain as a "iOfferLite" item and will be subject to no final value fee, however no new items can be listed with the iOfferLite option.

Site Updates

Redesign of the Seller Center page. We've re-organized the layout and actions on this page to make it easier to find out all the different ways to list items on iOffer. We've also added quick links to all Selling related actions in the left column for logged in sellers.

New password "meter" and registration tips added to the new user confirmation page. The idea of adding these is to help new users select a strong password to prevent unauthorized access to their iOffer account.

Failsafe listing path added to the item listing form. When a seller tries to list an item using a browser that may have any javascript issues we will automatically take them into the listing form to allow their item to be listed. Previously if there was a javascript error the listing form page wouldn't load.

New Offer Forms on Items

We've made it easier to purchase an item and added what we call a simple path.

The previous Make Offer, Buy Now and Ask Question forms on the item detail page used advanced javascript that would scroll your browser down to the bottom of the page. The problem we found with this was that it caused a lot of issues with older computers and the like. We've re-engineered these forms and now open up a new layer so there is no scrolling.

The simple path provides a method to complete a purchase even if you encounter issues with the new forms. By clicking on the Help with this page link on the item detail you can go to a very basic form page to Make an Offer, Ask a Question or Buy Now.

New and Improved Listing Forms

The listing forms have been given a complete overhaul. We've re-organized the page and added a few new features:

1. Easy to use drop down menus for category and subcategory
2. Easy access to pre-fill your previous keywords (clicking on the previous keywords link)
3. Larger description box to describe your items (the previous one was too small)
4. Preview or Create listing buttons - You can choose to preview your listing or simply create and move on to the next one

Scheduled Downtime

On October 20, 2007 11PM PST - Our datacenter is upgrading several power distribution units in our location and we will need to power down all of our equipment during the upgrade.

We are planning on this during our slowest traffic time which happens to be a Saturday night. It is scheduled to start around midnight and last 1-2 hours.
Thank you for your patience during this time.

iOffer Gets a New Look

We've completely redesigned our homepage as well our our header. The header now has several features that will help both buyers and sellers alike.

• Saved "History" - Searches and items you visit are easily retrieved
• Quick access to the most important pages on the site
• My iOffer areas can all be accessed in one click now
• Buy categories accessible on any page

We'll be enhancing the header a bit more over the next couple weeks, so keep an eye out and we love to hear your feedback!

Mr. Grabber Application Now Entirely Web Based

We have archived the Mr. Grabber client application that was needed to transfer items and ratings from other auction sites and made in completly web based. By getting rid of this application we can better manage updates and keep an eye on possible issues with Mr. Grabber.

First time users of Mr. Grabber can simply enter their remote site user id & password (we never store this and is only used one time to authenticate your account) to get started. When your account is successfully authenticated your items and/or ratings should be transferred within a couple of hours, depending on the number of items you may have.

Read our entire Mr. Grabber FAQ's

iOffer Swap Released

We are proud to announce something NEW for our members!

Innovative & easy to use ’Swap‘ allows members to swap items with ease. Everything is built into your store listings and functions. There is a ’Let's Swap‘ button on the item detail page. Clicking this button will allow you to start a swap with another member.

How does the Swap process work?

The swap process is fairly straight forward, the steps to swapping are below:

1. Make sure you have Items Listed
2. Post more Want Ads so other swappers know what you want
3. Find an item you are interested in swapping
4. Click on the ’Swap‘ button to initiate a swap
5. Fill out the Swap Invitation form (you can send comment to the other swapper)
6. The other swapper will receive your invitation to swap and decide if they wish to swap with you
7. You will receive messages via your iOffer inbox letting you know if the swapper selected items from your store to swap

Read our Swap FAQ's now and have some fun swapping!

New Help Layout

We have better organized our help section updated with the most frequently asked questions we receive. This includes an updated set of buyer and seller safety guides as well as safe trading tips and buyer and seller help. We hope that providing this information should assist most users to find what they are looking for.

Simply click on the Help button located in the upper right hand side of our header to find easy access to any question that you may have.

Want Ad Homepage & Snag a Sale

We have added a new tab in the navigation bar that leads to our Want Ads homepage. This page is designed for both buyers and sellers alike;

• Sellers can find new Want Ads posted from buyers
• Buyers can see how fast our Want Ad system works by browsing our Recent Finds area (Want Ads with responses)
• Sellers can also browse Snag a Sale* items and list items to current negotiations.

ID Card Summary and Banners Page

Due to popular demand, we've brought back some banners to help promote your iOffer store & profile: Click here to place on your external blog, myspace, any other site you are using.

We've added an ’ID‘ card summary to profile pictures. Take a look at the ratings page and hover over the mini avatars on the right hand side and you will be presented with an ID Card summary of the user.

New and Improved Header

We've released a new header that centers on an action that over 95% of users who visit the site perform; search. The search box has been enlarged and its size reflects the dominant action on the site. Most people come to iOffer looking for something and we want to make sure they find it. We've also re-organized our header navigation to allow for the smallest of screen sizes to work with our header. The logout link is now located on the left hand side while the login boxes are on the right.

Keep Me Logged In

We have added a feature that will allow you to remain logged in everytime you visit the site (for a period of 2 weeks).

To enable this feature, simply check the checkbox on the login page http://www.ioffer.com/login

Seller Center Updates

We've redesigned the layout of the entire Seller Center:

• Currently Negotiating
• Current Inventory
• Items Sold

The new layout has drop down lists of available actions that can be performed. We have also added a mini-thumbnail of your item with a magnifying feature so you can view the larger format if desired.

Item Detail Updates

After digging through nearly 6 months of data collected from our Item Detail page we've redesigned the layout and added a vertical item scroller.

The most widely used link on the item detail page is View Seller's Other Items so we thought it would be more convenient to allow the buyer to browse other items without leaving the item detail page

We've also re-positioned the Action links (Buy Now, Make Offer, Ask Question) on the left hand side of the page. Another new feature we've added is the ability to ’zoom‘ on large format pictures. This can be found on items that have large format images by clicking on the Zoom icon in the right hand corner under the image.