• Home
• About TameBay
  • Contact TameBay
  • Comments Policy
  • About Chris
  • About Sue
  • Guest Posters
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertise on TameBay
• Links
• Archives
• Directory
• Forum

Professional product photos with Bling! It

Ever wondered how some sellers get fantastic product shots on professional looking backgrounds? Well the answer is photo editing software and a new product, Bling! It, aims to make it simple. Not only is Bling! It ideal for producing product shots for eBay auctions, but it’s at an affordable price that even the casual seller can cost justify.

There’s nothing more impressive than quality pictures in an auction, and nothing more off putting than a busy or unsuitable background. Too often eBay sellers don’t have a professional studio, and the kitchen floor isn’t an unusual place for photos to be taken. That doesn’t mean your pictures can’t be professional though, if you’d like to get from the picture on the left to the one below, for your eBay auction photos, then you need Bling! It.

Bling! It is a stand alone application that not allows you to replace the background of your photo with a professional one, but can also sharpen and enhance the products appearance. Best of all is how easy it makes the process. Broken down into four stages, removing the background, composing the picture, adding effects and saving the final image, a picture can be enhanced in seconds.

Bling! It software is based on Fluid Mask, but rather than being a photoshop plug in, Bling! It is a fully featured standalone product. You don’t need any other graphics editing software, just your digital camera. Best of all it only costs $49.95 plus VAT, that’s only about £30.00 in UK money. Not only that but you can download the full program on a free 15 day trial so why not test Bling! It on your own product photos?

To show you just how easy it is to get from the original photo to the professional product shot above we’ve got a tutorial in the TameBay Forum.

Funds from UK cheques guaranteed

Sellers today can breathe a collective sigh of relief when receiving payment by cheque. From today any cheque will clear six days after it’s paid into a bank account and on the seventh day it can no longer bounce.

Previously cheques never really cleared and banks could reclaim funds from their customer bank accounts weeks or even months later. A cheque could never be considered “cleared” and there was no certainty of the recipient keeping the funds.

As well as the certainty that the funds are yours on the seventh day, banks will also credit interest no more than two days after the cheque is paid in, and funds will be available to withdraw from your account after no more than four days (although some banks have already implemented terms more favourable than this).

It’s great news for eBay sellers, if a buyer pays you by cheque you can ship a week later in the absolute certainty that the funds can never be reclaimed at some point in the future.

eBay UK in meltdown on CLD

Well, it’s a cheap listing day and eBay UK has ground to a halt. I can’t get anything to upload from Turbo Lister: every listing gives me the error message “internal error to the application”. It’s only eBay UK, every other site appears to be working correctly, so I can only put this down to the CLD. Other people are reporting that all their listings have vanished from Seller Manager Pro, and that Picture Manager* is inaccessible.

Having spent the day packing up Christmas orders, I was intending to spend the evening listing. Looks like I’ll have to have a glass of wine and start my Christmas shopping instead - anyone manage to get anything listed I might want to buy?

* though really, you shouldn’t be using Picture Manager at all: get your own, more reliable and less expensive hosting!

Skype and Best Offer win a sale

For the first time today a potential buyer Skyped me from an eBay listing. They had some additional questions to ask that weren’t covered in the auction description and simply clicked the Skype call button on the listing.

I wasn’t expecting the call and it had slipped my mind that any and every potential buyer could contact me. That however is the whole point of having Skype on my listings. Buyers can easily communicate as and when they want to. This particular buyer could have simply sent a question by email but rather than a long drawn out email exchange the deal was tied up in two minutes on Skype.

The good news is that after asking about two particular products the buyer finished the conversation telling me to stand by for an order and sure enough he placed a Best Offer. Even better because I now have auto-accept on my Best Offers I didn’t even have to click a button for the sale to be completed and the buyer to pay.

I do like the new features such as Skype and Best Offer enhancements that eBay have introduced over the last year. Already I’m finding it hard to remember what it was like trading without them.

Buy a TV show on eBay

You can buy anything on eBay, even an entire television series of late night comedy. Producers of the Scott Conner Show are auctioning the syndication and distribution rights to their entire 2008 run - that’s 240 episodes - on eBay. Billed as “the fresh new face of late night hosting”, the Scott Conner Show claims to have “all the ingredients for a long term and successful run at a national late night venue”. And they’re donating a portion of the auction proceeds to the New Mexico Ronald McDonald House, which provides a home away from home for sick children and their families.

If you want to see the show before you bid, the website has clips. I’m not quite convinced it’s my taste, but I have to give them ten out of ten for the innovative marketing.

Ecstasy oil eBay buyer pleads guilty

An Australian man bought enough sassafras oil to make 1900 ecstasy tablets on eBay, an Adelaide court has heard. Wayne Peter Bahnisch bought the oil from a Canadian eBay seller: it has a number of legitimate uses, and Bahnisch claimed he wanted to use it as massage oil. His lawyer said that “he thought, wrongly, that because you could purchase it on eBay it was legal to do so.” He did, nevertheless, as the seller to label the package just “massage oil”, not “sassafras oil”.

When questioned by customs officers, the unfortunate Bahnisch made a full confession but was unable to hand over the oil as it was among items stolen from his flat during two robberies. He pleaded guilty to two counts of intentionally attempting to import a prohibited item, and will be sentenced next month.

It’s salutory reminder that eBay is a bad place to buy anything illegal: the records are there for the world to see.

Charity auction goes down the drain

Ever wondered what happens when you empty the bath or flush the loo? Well now you can find out, Oxfam are auctioning a “London Sewer Exploration” for six intrepid explorers.

Described as “A smelly, dingy and dark labyrinth” or a “Fascinating insight into a hidden historical city” depending on your view point, this is a must for the curious explorer. London’s sewers were built over 150 years ago and are large enough to walk though and it will be an amazing day out for the winner of the auction.

Trudging through sewage might not be everyone’s idea of a great day out, and not everyone who’d want to go would find five likeminded muck loving friends to take with them. Don’t let that put you off having a look at Oxfam’s other auctions which include experiences ranging from Sports, Travel, Food and Drink, Conservation and some special auctions for children.

My favourite has to be being a real character in a Desperate Dan cartoon strip and appearing in the Dandy comic.

All the auctions are run with eBay for Charity and 100% of the proceeds to to support the work of Oxfam. If you’re unsure what to buy someone for Christmas you’re sure to find the perfect gift amongst their auctions.

PayPal giveth and PayPal taketh away

You wouldn’t think it possible, but PayPal almost got me excited! Yes I know payment services are a little dull, but they’ve introduced a fantastic feature in the US and it appeared in my PayPal account so of course I subscribed immediately. Sadly it’s a mistake and PayPal are in the process of removing it from UK users accounts.

The feature is a downloaded PayPal plug-in for Internet Explorer and add-on for Firefox. Once installed it allows you to make payments to any website that accepts MasterCard even if they don’t accept PayPal.

To make the payment the plug-in creates a pseudo one time MasterCard debit card number. Once the card is used it can’t be used again so you never have to worry about online fraud. You can generate a unique Secure Card number on the spot for a particular purchase and you’re 100% protected from subsequent unauthorised purchases using that card.

Making the service even easier to use is the autofill which can populate checkout forms with contact information and addresses at the click of a button. No more manually typing your address each time you purchase from a new website. At the same time the plug-in will warn you if you’re visiting a suspicious website.

So all in all it’s a great feature, one time secure debit cards, the ability to use PayPal on sites that don’t accept PayPal, autofill of checkout information and fraud alerts for dodgy websites. Even better is that it puts PayPal directly on your browser, you can pay without visiting the PayPal website. What a shame it’s not available in the UK!

Springsteen promoter “takes precautions” against eBayers

The promotor of Bruce Springsteen’s May 2008 gigs in Dublin has promised to try to keep tickets for concert-going fans and out of the hands of eBay sellers. Tickets will be limited to two per purchaser, and will be sold through town centre outlets as well os via the internet.

Promotor Peter Aiken said “We will be taking all possible steps to ensure that people buying tickets are real fans planning to be at the RDS and not speculators about to auction them off on eBay.” However, he covered himself against blame for the reseller market which will inevitably arise, saying that “once tickets go on sale matters can be taken out of our hands.” What he failed to explain was why, once buyers have paid his price, they shouldn’t be free to sell on the tickets if they choose to.

Fans of The Boss were furious when tickets for the Belfast concert sold out within minutes, only to reappear almost immediately on eBay at prices up to three times the face value.

eBay help page search is broken

eBay help is broken, if you use the search function to find help topics it returns an error page.

To be honest although they’re working to fix the problem it’s no great loss. ebay’s help search is, to be frank, not that good. If you’re trying to find a help page it’s much easier to search on Google. Simply type the search into Google, instead of the eBay search page, and append the word “eBay” to your search string. Nine times out of ten you’ll get more relevant eBay help pages than by using eBay’s own search engine.

Don’t tell eBay I said so though, asking them to implement a Google custom search engine on the eBay site might not go down too well

Comic sold £100k of stolen books on eBay

A stand-up comedian stole books from his day job in a publisher’s warehouse, in order to sell them on eBay. Gary Little worked as a forklist truck driver in HarperCollins’ Glasgow warehouse. The books he stole included valuable limited editions; as a friend commented “many of them commanded premium retail prices. So when they were offered cut-price on the internet, there was still good money to be made.”

Little traded on eBay under the ID skech20, and looks like he was a model seller - if not exactly a model employee - until he was caught in February 2005. Police estimate that he made around £100,000 from the proceeds of this threfts. Around £60,000 went through his PayPal account, and he also took other methods of payment. The scam was discovered when police raided Little’s flat after an investigation at the warehouse. He pleaded guilty this month at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

eBay France lures sellers back

eBay France is running a sellers’ promotion from 30th November to 3rd December. Those who have never sold on the site before are offered three free* listings: this particular promotion isn’t new, it’s been run over and over again on eBay.fr this year. What is new is that those who have sold on the site but haven’t done so for six months or more are also offered one free* listing.

The chance to save a few centimes isn’t, I think, going to rock anyone’s world, but it might just prompt a few sellers to come back and give the site another try this side of Christmas.

* “Free” in both cases includes insertion fee, subtitle, listing designer and up to 12 photos. Gallery is also included as it’s included with the insertion fee anyway on eBay.fr. Final value fees will still be charged.

Postal workers accept pay deal

The CWU has announced that the pay and modernisation deal offered by Royal Mail has been accepted by its members. This should see the end of the recent round of industrial action by postal workers in the UK. 64% of members voted, and of those, 64% accepted the offer. The union has asked Royal Mail to incorporate the pay rise, back pay and lump sum payment into workers’ pay packets before Christmas.

eBay dispute console gets revamped

The “Dispute Console” where buyers and sellers can manage communicate with their trading partners in a formal setting has had a makeover. Now it matches the look and feel of other eBay consoles such as “My Messages“.

The Dispute Console is now split into two logical halves with the ability to report a problem with an item you’ve purchased, or as a seller to report unpaid items. In the tabs below you can track any open disputes in progress.

I still don’t like the term “Dispute” as the title for communications between buyers and sellers. It implies a disagreement whereas in reality many sellers and buyers are only too willing to work together to resolve any trading issues. For buyers there’s nothing quite so antagonistic as getting an “Unpaid Item Dispute” email land in your inbox from a seller, it immediately makes them defensive.

Whilst the Dispute Console is a necessary evil a term such as “Resolution Centre” would be less acrimonious and more descriptive of how the tool should be used.

Christmas cheap listing day this Thursday

Just in time for auctions ending at the begining of December comes a cheap listing day. Just 10p for items listed that accept PayPal as a payment method.

To make the most of eBay’s Christmas promotions to buyers it’s worth considering shipping with free carriage as eBay are promoting listings with free shipping to buyers.

Shoot! eBay’s got a new darn policy

If you’ve ever posted on eBay’s chat boards about your sales on Big River or Ratbaz, used the Powerseller Board’s favourite “donkey” or even told someone to piff oss, you may not be able to do so much longer. The Americans are cracking down on such naughtiness: eBay.com have just announced a new euphemisms policy for their community boards to prohibit such circumlocutions: “if something can’t be said openly with the policy guidelines, using a euphemism does not make it acceptable.” Using “alternative ways to be disrespectful” now means you’re risking your posting privileges or even your eBay account.

Via Skip.

Ghost town sold on eBay for $3m

A Texas ghost town has been sold for US$3million on eBay. Albert, a town 62 miles outside San Antonio, was sold by estate agent Bobby Cave, its current owner, as he said he was ready to move on to his next project. Included in the sale are an icehouse created from the frame of the old general store, the schoolhouse attended by Lyndon Johnson, an 85-year-old dance hall, a tractor shed and a three-bedroom house, together with peach and pecan orchards. The current population of the town is Mr Cave, and a groundskeeper at weekends.

Despite the auction not having met its reserve price, this is being widely reported as a done deal, though Mr Cave told reporters he was still verifying the identity of the Italian high bidder. Lets hope this ghost town doesn’t end up with a ghost bidder.

Display eBay in your own time zone

I’m easily confused and anything that makes my life easier is a good thing. That’s why I like the myTimeZone Firefox add-on that displays times from eBay sites around the world in local time that makes sense to me.

Normally if I visit eBay.com I’ve not got a clue what time auctions actually end. In truth I’m never quite sure whether PST is ahead or behind EST, although I’m pretty certain that CST is somewhere in the middle. It’s just all too much like hard work, I want to think in UK time as that’s what I wake up and go to bed by. Shopping on eBay.com or other eBay sites display times local to that site and sometimes even the date can be wrong (or at least wrong in the UK).

myTimeZone for eBay 1.4.0 is an add-on for the FireFox browser which turns foreign times into local times. It doesn’t even need me to tell it what “my time” is, it automatically recognises it from my computer clock.

Now if I view eBay auctions on sites other than eBay.co.uk it simply displays the time and it even corrects the date. That tells me if I need to be up early, go to bed late, might be at work, or could be up the pub, when an item I’m interested in will be ending. I don’t need to try and figure out if I’m likely to be at my computer to place a bid at some point in the future, in a random time zone. From now on I’m shopping on UK time all around the world!

myTimeZone for eBay supports eBay.co.uk, eBay.ie, eBay.com, eBay.ca and eBay.com.au. It is only available for the Firefox browser and can be downloaded from the myTimeZone website.

Bid for a White Christmas on eBay

For the second year in a row Sno!zone are auctioning a real white Christmas for one lucky bidder. On Christmas Eve they’ll receive a delivery of ten tonnes of snow to be professionally spread around their house and garden. Of course it wouldn’t be complete without carol singers and a visit from Father Christmas who will bring a sack of presents for the winner.

The auction is to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and runs until 2nd December. Get your bids in early and it could be you and your family having a snowball fight the night before Christmas!

Now they’re putting ads on listings!

The more cynical amongst us have been expecting this for a while, but now it’s here: eBay are putting ads on listings. Under a section entitled “Helpful information” and then “eBay recommended services”, an animated banner pushing PayPal has appeared, reading “Picking up your item in person? Pay your seller with your mobile phone.” The ad is shown on items which do not allow collection in person; it’s likely to cause some confusion which is not going to improve the famous buyer experience.

I’m told it’s also appearing on listings which don’t accept PayPal at all; the potential for confusion there is going to be a nightmare for the sellers.

Sellers should remember that if they allow collection in person and then take PayPal, via mobile phone or any other means, they will have absolutely no seller protection in the event that the buyer decides to do a chargeback. People allowing collection should use a more secure and reliable method, like cash.

Those of us who pay eBay to list on their site are not going to be happy about this frankly outrageous move. Today it’s ads for eBay’s own payment service; tomorrow, are we going to see ads for our suppliers and our competitors appear on our listings?

Updated to add: It’s gone… for now. A Pink on the Powerseller Board has just commented that “clearly it wasnt the right creative for this placement. I asked PayPal to remove it - looks like its already been taken down.” So ads are coming, just not this one.

Updated again to add: eBay deny that there is any intention to feature advertising on the listing page. Here’s the post from the PSB:

Well… they would say that, wouldn’t they. This is the company who said that third party ads would only appear under search results when there *were* no relevent search results… and now carry more advertising all over search pages, above paid-for eBay listings. So forgive me if I remain sceptical.

Disposable credit cards for ebay & PayPal

The Irish are making it easier to open eBay and PayPal accounts by accepting prepaid credit card style vouchers. 3V, the voucher issuer, say they will enable users to open PayPal accounts and buy and sell on eBay or indeed anywhere that accepts Visa payments. Vouchers can be purchased in local shops around Ireland, so they’re accessible to anyone over the age of 16.

I’m in two minds about this, firstly it’s good that eBay is open to users who don’t possess a credit card. The more people that can buy and sell on the site the better for everyone. However I don’t see a credit card styled voucher as giving the same verification as a proper credit card.

The 3V vouchers do offer a measure of protection to those wary of entering their credit card details online. Users are issued with a randomly generated Visa number and the CVV number is sent by text message to the users mobile. Even if the voucher is lost it can’t be used without the CVV number and essentially it’s a throwaway account once it’s used. The downside is the cost of purchasing the vouchers which in Ireland is a €5 surcharge.

3V have operated in the UK since November 2006 and on their UK site advertise their vouchers can be used on eBay.co.uk.

Illegal botox parties sold on eBay

Consumer magazine Which? says it has found an ex-nurse illegally selling botox parties on eBay. A researcher posing as a potential customer was told how the seller had injected drunken customers with the anti-wrinkle treatment. The researcher was told the treatment had no possible side effects “apart from drooping”, although in fact bruising, bleeding and infection can all follow, and the procedure should only be undertaken under medical supervision.

An eBay spokesperson said that “eBay does not permit the listing of any controlled drug or item that requires a prescription from, or the supervision of, a licensed practitioner (such as a doctor, dentist, optician or vet) to dispense.” The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has said it will investigate the matter.

More changes to eBay UK search results

eBay UK are making yet more changes to search functions on the site. Users in Antiques, Crafts and Dolls and Bears will see search results based not only on title and description, but on the category itself, item specifics, misspellings and common abbreviations and acronyms.

At first glance these changes might seem sensible, but many sellers will be asking why eBay make these critical changes - or worse, run tests! - at the busiest time of the year. Right now, all anyone should be doing is selling. So next year, can we please have a moratorium on tests and site changes from October to January?

Updated to add: This change has been rolled back for technical reasons. eBay weren’t able to confirm if it would stay rolled back until after Christmas, but my fingers are crossed

Skype cancel your 0207 SkypeIn numbers

Skype users who have paid for London based 0207 SkypeIn numbers have been given a months notice that their phone numbers will be terminated. Users are faced with choosing a new number from an 0208 or 0203 range as Skype hands back the 0207 numbers to their supplier.

Users on the Skype forums complain that a month’s notice (the date numbers will be terminated is the 20th December) is simply not good enough. Many have business literature printed with their exisiting SkypeIn number and of course every previous customer will still have their old SkypeIn number.

Anyone who’s inherited a phone number will know it takes years for calls to the old user to cease and that’s part of the attraction of a SkypeIn number. When you move it stays the same, or was supposed to. The big question of course is will people trust Skype with their business again? Cheap calls are great, but are they worth the price of losing your telephone number with practically no notice?

Skype appears to have simply rented the numbers that they then sold for SkypeIn but rental agreements can and do end. The affected numbers appear to be allocated to Gamma Telecom, but there may be a third party in the chain between them and Skype.

Affected users are being called by Skype with the offer of a new SkypeIn number and voicemail free for a year. Voicemail is always free with a SkypeIn number. There’s also a post on the Skype Blog which in typical Skype fashion thanks all of their disgruntled customers for their kindness.

Signpost auctions raise Uni money

Exeter University have found a novel way to raise some money: they’re selling off old campus signs on eBay. Signs for halls of residence and university departments are being sold in aid of the university foundation, which supports scholarships, libraries and student volunteer training. With a day still to go, bidding on some of the more popular signs has exceeded £200, so we can probably expect more educational institutions to follow Exeter’s example.

Via vnunet.

Next Page »

• Recent Comments

  • vzaar Jamie: Bad hair day…?
  • the_cd_collector: I don’t think it’s going to make any difference to be honest! I sell mainly second hand...
  • Jade: PMSL @ #5 & #6!!
  • Super Max: #5 - no they keep it safely locked up in the cellar
  • northumbrian: do Austrians nick bread ?
  • Super Max: How embarrassing, the worst thing was when i wrote it I was thinking about how the Americans always mix...
  • Chris Dawson: Austria not Australia You’ll upset those central Europeans if you relocate them to the...
  • Viktor: 80 billion annual Skype minutes to listen to! We finally found what Australian taxpayer are funding!
  • Super Max: If your not dealing drugs or planing a terrorist attack then theres too much skype traffic to worry about...
  • biggles: With all the bitchin going on, you have to wonder who is benefiting from the ebay changes. - are they too...

Recent Forum Threads

• sellers dashboard-postage and packaging charges
• A LCD 37" - 42" Screen , Silver with Built in DVD, Freeview
• David Camerons Mountain Bike - For sale on eBay.
• birds
• eBay - Tap On / Tap Off Effect
• Amazing value laptops - 1 Day only.
• mmmmm... that went to plan..not
• 2 weeks in the sun
• Nochex is no better than PayPal
• Spattzz!

Copyright © 2006 - 2008 Chris Dawson & Sue Bailey