Why is my private seller listing not displaying?                   

 Are dealer accounts really free?                   

There is no charge for creating a new dealer account.

There are no commission fees, no hidden charges.

Brokers and dealers are allowed to post unlimited ads with up to eleven photos per listing.

We make it as quick and simple as possible for dealers to get your listings online. 

 What are the requirements to get a dealer account?                   

For verification purposes, all companies must meet the following minimum requirements:

1- Business website.*
2- Business phone number matching the Boat World account and your website.
3- Contact name of the company representative.

* If you do not have a business website and would like to use your dealer gallery as an online website, please contact support to verify your company.

Sign Up As A Boat Dealer                    Sign Up As A Yacht Broker

After you create your account, log in on the following page to post your listing. 

You will be able to log in and post your listing as soon as you create the account.

Once your company has been verified, your account will be activated and the listings displayed.

If you have any questions, please contact support.

 Why are my dealer listings not displaying?                   

When a dealer first signs up listings will not display until the account has been verified. 

As long as you meet the requirements listed above, you can post listings, once the account is verified, the listings already in the system will be displayed.

Most dealer accounts are activated within a few hours. If your account is not activated within 24 hours, please contact support.

 How do dealers get free automated uploads for our listings?                   

Data Feed Process

If you have listings on an existing website, the information is stored in a database, which can be exported into a comma delimited file.

After a few preliminary steps, you can upload and update hundreds of listings with a click of a button.

Below are the steps required to set up your account for automated data feeds.

1- Request your web designer or programmer to export the data to a comma delimited file.
2- Store the file on your server and provide a URL or FTP login info to access.
3- Your data file will be configured for the import process and your listings created.
4- For future updates, your programmer needs to create a daily or weekly file to access. This is usually done by an automated process called a "Cron Job".

If your website is managed by a web development company that specializes in the boating industry like www.marinewebservices.com, it is possible they are already providing a data feed and simply need to add your company for complete automated updates.

Additional Instructions

-We will need an initial file that defines each field in the file.
-It does not matter what order the fields are in, but it is extremely important you do not vary the field format with subsequent updates, or the results will be incorrect. If you must make a change, please notify when sending a modified update.
-You do not need to include company information in the data file, only the boat ads.
-Outside of the usual fields, you can include all general information in a single description field up to 5,000 characters.
-General fields such as the year, make, model, and description are required.

Adding Photos To Data Feed

To import photos using the data file, please include the URL of the photo on your own server in the data file. 

For example, if the photo for a particular listing is on your server at /yoursite.com/photos/ad102-photo1.jpg enter the following into a data field for that ad: http://www./yoursite.com/photos/ad102-photo1.jpg 

We do not link directly to your website for image hosting.

During the import the photos will be downloaded and stored on the Boat World server. 

At the moment we are importing a maximum of six photos. If you include more than six photo URLs, the first six will be used, and the remaining photos, up to twelve, will be posted in the coming weeks as we finish up a new site upgrade.

If you have any questions, please contact support.

 How do I delete a listing?                   

To delete a listing, please log in as a Private Seller or Boat Dealer, then click the listing ID button on the left side of the admin menu for the listing you wish to delete:

On the following listing edit page you will see a button at the bottom of the page titled "Delete This Ad". Once you click the button the listing will be removed and you will see a link back to the main admin menu.

 How do I retrieve my user name or password?                   

Your user name is the email address you used to sign up with when you created the account.

If you do not remember your password, please click the following link Forgot Username or Password?

You will be taken to a form to enter the email address associated with the account. Enter your email address and click the button titled "Mail User Name and Password".

Your login information will be sent to the email address on file.

If you no longer have access to the original email, please contact support for assistance.

Why did I not receive a test email from my listing?                   

Whenever you post the first listing you should check to be sure you are receiving email inquiries.

Certain mail servers like Hotmail.com do not allow emails from our mail server IP 65.17.197.160

To run a test, go to your listing and select the link "Reply To Ad Via Email". On the email form enter your name and a valid email address, and for the comments box it is very important to only enter a single word, such as test.

Hit the submit button and confirm that you receive the email.

If you do not receive the email, and your email comes from your own mail server, for example: youremail@yourdomain.com, please contact whoever handles your website mail server and tell them to set the server to allow for emails from the IP address 65.17.197.160

If you are using a pulbic mail service like Hotmail.com and do not receive the email, you need to get an email account that will accept them. The free email service at Yahoo.com will work, we have not tested others.

There is nothing Boat-World.com can do to facilitate the acceptance of emails,  it is up to your mail server to set the proper permissions to accept emails from IP address 65.17.197.160

 How do I change the price of my listing?                   

To add photos to an existing listing, please Log In, then click the listing ID button on the left side of the seller admin menu:

On the following listing edit page you will see a box listing the current price.

Change the price in the box to the new price, then click the button titled "Update and Preview Your Ad" at the bottom of the page:

Once the price has been changed you will see a preview of your listing.

 How do I post photos to a new listing?                   

Uploading photos to your listing is the final step in the listing process.

Once you register and place a listing, you will be taken to a page with eleven fields with a "Browse" button beside each, as in the image below:

Click the first "Browse" button and the following properties box will appear:

When you double click the photo file, in the case "boat", it will appear highlighted in the "File Name" field. Once it is in the field, click the "Open" button to close the box. You should then see some information in the first photo field like the image below:

If you see the information in the field like the photo above for all of the photos you wish to upload, then click the following "Upload Your Photos" button at the bottom of the page:

Once the photo has been uploaded you will be returned to the main seller admin screen.

 How do I post photos to an existing listing?                   

To add photos to an existing listing, please Log In, then click the listing ID button on the left side of the seller admin menu:

On the following listing edit page you will see a section near the bottom to remove or add new photos:

In the photo above the image has the "Delete Picture" box checked. If you check this box then hit the button titled "Update and Preview Your Ad" at the bottom of the page, the photo will be deleted.

To add a photo, click one of the "Browse" buttons beside an empty, like the image below:

Clicking the "Browse" button will bring up the following properties box:

When you double click the photo file, in the case "boat", it will appear highlighted in the "File Name" field. Once it is in the field, click the "Open" button to close the box. You should then see some information in the first photo field like the image below:

Once you have selected all of the photos, click the button titled "Update and Preview Your Ad" at the bottom of the page:

Once the photo has been uploaded you will see a preview of your listing.

 Why won't my photos load?                   

Photo requirements: JPEG files under 250kb.

The number one reason why images do not upload properly is because they are too large.

Many digital cameras have the file size set to extremely large, and when you try to upload the photos, the system will time out.

It is best to keep photos under 250kb, but you can upload images up to 500kb if you upload them one at a time.

Please note: the following information is for Microsoft Windows, if you are using a Macintosh, the file names or programs will be slightly different.

To find out what size a photograph is, hover over it with your cursor and a properties box should pop up like the following:

You can see that the image is a JPEG and is much too large at 1.80 MB. A mega byte (MB) is 1000 KB, and you want to keep the photos to a maximum of 250 KB.

It also says the image is 2493 x 1659. It is best to keep images to 500 x 400 or less. (Additional information on resizing photos below).

If you hover over the image and no information appears, click the right button of your mouse and an options box will appear:

Scroll down the list with your cursor and select the options for "Properties", and the following box should appear:

Again, you can see that the image is a JPEG and is much too large at 1.80 MB.

 How do I reduce the size of my photo?                   

Please note: the following information is for Microsoft Windows, if you are using a Macintosh, the file names or programs will be slightly different.

To reduce the size of a photo, you can simply use Miscrosoft Paint, which is installed on almost every Windows system.

If you do not have MS Paint or any other photo editor installed on your system, you can also use use a program like Irfan View.

To start MS Paint, go to the bottom left and select the "Start" button, then select "Accessories", then select "Paint", as indicated by the three yellow arrows in the image below:

Once you open MS Paint, drag the image into the open window and select "Stretch/Skew" from the "Image" drop down menu:

When you select "Stretch/Skew" you will see a new properties box with 100% in the "Horizontal" and "Vertical" fields of the "Stretch" section.

At this point you need to guess a little as far as how much to reduce. The most common choices are to reduce to one third (33%), or to one fourth (25%).

For this image we chose to reduce the photo to one fourth by setting the percentages to 25% in the image below:

Once the photo has been reduced, save the photo by selecting "Save As" from the "File" drop down menu like in the image below:

The next box will appear and should be set to "JPEG" like the image below. If it is not, please select it from the drop down menu before saving.

We changed the name of the image from "boat" to "boat1" to be sure not to over write the original image in case it is not the size we wanted.

Once you have finished, you can right click to view the properties of the new photo to be sure it is the correct size for uploading.

If you follow all of the steps above and are still have trouble, please contact support and we will assist you.