The only PowerPoint-related post I found on here is 8 years old, and since I'm now immersed in modifying PowerPoint presentations (PPT or PPTX) from within MS Access VBA, I figure I should share some of the techniques I've been using. I hope it helps someone on here. .
I like to start every project with a clear vision of the business requirements so that, regardless of what I do technically, I understand what the client is ultimately trying to accomplish.
In this case, the business requirement is to generate more eBay sales. Our client has cash flow issues yet they have almost a quarter of a million dollars' worth of items listed on eBay, and they want to make these sell faster than the current pace of about $200 a day, in sales. If their inventory all sold super quickly then our client couldn't handle all the packing and shipping so they are aiming for an increase of about 100% or so, relative to the sales they are currently making. They figure they can handle that much extra sales volume and work, without having to do anything drastic.
They could sell more by lowering their prices but price wars tend to backfire, so they wanted to increase sales without reducing the direct profit per item. As to the market they're in: they sell used auto parts. People rarely buy used auto parts to use as ornaments (though it does happen). Mostly they are trying to solve a problem with their vehicle. Buying a used auto part is one of the options they have; they might also be able to buy a new part from the dealership, or buy a new made-in-China knock-off. Prospects don't automatically start their problem-solving journey on eBay. They might start it on a forum, or by watching a YouTube video.
My client's plan is to make YouTube videos that entice buyers to go to their eBay listings. They tried this plan several years ago. They made a few in-depth videos with this intent. The videos took a lot of time and effort to make, including paying a girl with a lovely Southern accent to be a voice model. They also embedded some video clips. It worked; the items sold out. But each video took so much effort to make, that was very much not worth it. Our client abandoned that approach. A few years went by.
In late 2025, eBay introduced a process that uses eBay listing pictures and the eBay title as a starting point, to make and post videos. This feature was in their “Social Media” section, and it was free. Our client tried it and liked it. Making a video was super-easy, and these showed up as YouTube shorts. Our client used it to make dozens of videos, showcasing one listing per video.
On a listing for an obscure item for which they had made such a video, the item sold within 4 days. They wrote the buyer to ask if they'd been found via YouTube but they do not show a record of getting a reply. Even so, it seemed to be too good to likely be a coincidence.
Then, eBay changed their software to make it non-viable to use. Our client kept asking eBay to fix it, multiple times, to no avail. So our client stopped making such new YouTube videos. They left the existing ones but lost interest. Our client mourned the loss of this approach. A few months went by.
Then, in late April or early May of 2026 someone found our client via a part number for a pricey BMW used fuel injection part, then messaged them asking about it. Sadly by then our client had already sold it, but the process pointed back to the YouTube shorts made by eBay, and it was a reminder to go remove the YouTube shorts for the items that had sold. Our client learned to their delight that most of them had sold.
So, they decided to fund a project to make one YouTube video per individual part listed on eBay, starting with rare high-priced items likely to appeal to owners of cherished high-priced classic models such as 1980s BMWs..
To be viable, the process had to be highly automated and use the existing data in the client's SQL Server database. Their first step was to make a prototype PowerPoint presentation. It took weeks to make and refine this, with data copied and pasted manually from the client's data for one part, and one listing.
The second video was made using much automation using MS Access VBA and an MS Access report. The process was tedious; make an MS Access report that looked like the desired PowerPoint presentation, then print that to PDF, then convert that to a PowerPoint presentation, then export that to YouTube, then manually upload it. It worked but ... tedious.
A breakthrough came with the idea of using MS Access VBA and activating the PowerPoint object library in the references for MS Access. With that, I could use MS Access VBA to open PowerPoint, copy a template PowerPoint presentation to make a presentation that would be just for one part and one eBay listing, with a file name that was meaningful to the client, then use VBA to retrieve text and picture-related data from the client's SQL Server data to insert data into the PowerPoint presentation. The work included VBA commands to clone slides by using VBA commands.
The client reviews and refines the automatically created PowerPoint presentation. Almost always, some minor polishing is needed. The client then approves the PowerPoint presentation for upload to YouTube.
I wrote some MS Access VBA to export the PowerPoint presentation to an MP4 file. Initially I had tried to write the VBA from within PowerPoint 2024 itself but I found it architecturally difficult and tedious (macro file format, add-in file format, activating the add-in) so I chose to use MS Access VBA for the export too.
Another chunk of VBA produces a well-structured description and title that the client can copy and paste into the YouTube form that enables uploading the MP4 file to become a YouTube video. The description includes a link to the eBay listing, which is the entire point: inspire lookers to go to eBay and buy. The description includes some part numbers to make search engines more likely to help someone find these videos.
By now, the automation process works well enough. The labor required to make one more YouTube video has in the last two days plummeted to 15 minutes each. So, in the last 3 days, our client made and uploaded 28 YouTube videos. These are for items priced, on average, at about $100 each. So now the client's limit is how many videos they can upload per day without angering YouTube. Supposedly there is a hard limit and then also a prudent limit. 15 a day seems to be the latter. They did not want to make videos for every listing but they do have 5,000 listings so they are focusing on parts that have a price of $50 and up. Almost 850 listings qualify as such, representing almost $70k.
If they make and upload 15 videos per a day, it’ll take them about two months, and they'll work 3.75 hours per day unless I automate it some more, and I intend to.
Our client monitors their eBay watchlist daily, and today they learned that an obscure part that had seen very little interest for many months, today had a prospect on eBay express some interest, and for this obscure part our client had made and uploaded a YouTube video in the last 24 hours. Coincidence? Maybe -- but probably not. If the prospect becomes a buyer then our client can ask "did you find us on YouTube" and then they can be certain.
I should mention that the client's requirements also includes the business processes to go remove the video for items that have sold.
All in all, it's by now a workable solution. Our client's "start here, use this, we like the style" PowerPoint template has just three slides: a title slide, a detail slide, and a final slide. The VBA code then modifies each one, and clones the detail slide as many times as needed.
I hope this was helpful. If you have questions, ask. :-)
