GunBroker is where a lot of shops move real volume, and our GunBroker sync has been part of MFS Exchange for a while. It lists your products, prices them for GunBroker’s fees, keeps stock in step and brings orders back into WooCommerce. Over the last two months we rebuilt large parts of it around what shops told us they needed, and the newest version shipped this week. Here’s what changed. The GunBroker Sync page still has the full feature list.
Real auctions, without double-selling
Any product can now go up as a true GunBroker auction, or an auction with Buy Now, with its own starting bid and reserve. You can set it up from the product’s GunBroker box, or straight from the POS consignment panel when a consignor wants their gun auctioned instead of waiting for a buyer in the store.
While the auction runs, the gun stays on your website, but Add to Cart is replaced with “View auction on GunBroker” and the auction’s end date, so a shopper who finds it on your site goes and bids instead of buying it out from under the auction. The register refuses to ring it up and tells the cashier why. The sync leaves the running listing alone, with no price or quantity updates that could disturb it.
When the auction ends, the sync checks GunBroker for the result itself, even if GunBroker’s notification never arrives:
- Sold. The order comes in against the product like any other GunBroker sale.
- Unsold. The gun goes on an Unsold worklist, where staff can relist it as an auction or switch it back to fixed price. A product can also be set to re-run its auction a set number of times on its own terms.
A running auction can only be ended by hand while it has no bids, so nobody pulls a listing that GunBroker would charge you to end. And if you take guns to shows, a gun staged for a gun show counts as out of stock to GunBroker, while a gun that’s live in an auction can’t be staged for one.
Listing photos in your own frame
The sync has been able to add your logo to listing photos for a while. The new frame template goes further. You upload your own artwork, a full-size image with a header, footer or border around a blank space for the photo, and the featured photo on every new listing is scaled and centered inside that space automatically. Your listings look like they came from your shop, not from a distributor feed.
The settings page checks your artwork as soon as you pick it, and tells you where the photo will sit or exactly why the frame can’t be used, like a logo that crosses into the photo area. If a framed photo comes out larger than GunBroker’s upload limit, it’s saved again at a lower quality until it fits. If it still won’t fit, the original photo is used, so a listing never goes up without its featured image.
One listing per gun, every time
Duplicate listings were one of the most frustrating problems shops ran into. Some tools that sync product data into WooCommerce write an old copy of a product’s details back over the current one, and that old copy could bring back the ID of a GunBroker listing that had already ended. The next sync would see no live listing and create the same one again.
The sync now keeps its own record of which GunBroker listing belongs to each product, and nothing outside the sync can change it. A stale copy of product data can’t roll it back, so each product keeps one listing. We also fixed a delay where a price or stock change saved on a listed product could wait for the weekly full check instead of going out with the next inventory sync.
More control over what goes up
- Minimum listing price. Fixed-price listings below a price you choose aren’t created, and live ones that drop below it are ended safely. Auctions aren’t affected, and a worklist shows anything excluded or still waiting to end.
- Block a product. Keep an otherwise sellable product off GunBroker with one setting on the product.
- Internal barcodes. If your UPC field holds an in-house barcode with letters in it, a setting lists those products by SKU instead of letting GunBroker reject them.
- State restrictions. States you exclude are now sent to GunBroker correctly on new listings. Older listings are flagged for staff to check on GunBroker, because GunBroker’s API doesn’t offer a way to update or confirm them.
- Cost on the product screen. The product’s GunBroker box shows your cost again, so you can set prices with your margin in view.
GunBroker orders that always land
- Unmatched items. A paid GunBroker order with an item that doesn’t match one of your products now comes in with a placeholder line carrying GunBroker’s title, quantity and price, instead of failing to import. Staff link the line to the right product, and the order total stays exactly as GunBroker sent it.
- Unpaid orders. An order that isn’t paid yet comes in on hold with the gun reserved. It moves ahead on its own when the buyer pays, or cancels and releases the stock if the sale falls through.
- Card fees. When a buyer pays GunBroker’s credit card fee, it comes in as its own line, so the order total matches what the buyer actually paid.
- Import-only mode. For shops whose listings are managed somewhere else, import-only mode brings GunBroker orders into WooCommerce without touching a single listing.
Getting the update
All of this is in the current version of GunBroker Sync, which is part of MFS Exchange. Most of it works as soon as you update. The frame template, minimum listing price and barcode setting are switched on in GunBroker Sync’s settings. If you’d like help setting up auctions or a frame for your listings, book a time with us.