eBay Tips 2008: Pictures Perfect

by Dan Wilson

This post was written in January 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Having recently moved house, I’m in the market for a lot of new things. As a ‘check eBay first’ kinda guy, I’ve been looking for more than my usual book and CD purchases and spending time in parts of the site I seldom visit, looking at beds, sofas, rugs, kitchen stuff and the like.

I have been astonished by the number of sellers, yup powersellers too, who expect me to splash out hundreds of quid on something I’ll have to live with every day, but who provide me with only a single picture to help me form a judgment.

Pictures aren’t a luxury

A great many sellers do a really good job on photos. Quite right too. It’s such a vital part of a listing that the time invested is surely reflected in profitability. My big ticket purchases have been made from sellers who have given me all the information I needed to login to PayPal and ping them my hard earned. Take a cold, dispassionate look at your pics and ensure that you’re helping convert viewers into buyers with your images.

eBay Picture Tips

Tooled up? Are you ‘making do’ with a crap camera? Better cameras do yield better results and equally things like lights, tripods and backgrounds can give your images a professional zing that gets those bidding fingers twitching. Editing software (which is cheap and sometimes free) can help you improve your pics immeasurably.

Customer Focused Pics: Are you taking the easiest or most obvious photo? Or are you aiming for an image that will encourage bidding. Think about what a buyer would want to see. For instance, I was looking at beds on eBay. Most sellers provide a homely shot of the bed, made up, in a charming room. I actually want to see the bare bones of the bedstead and how it’s constructed.

More is More: There aren’t many things that you’d sell on eBay that wouldn’t benefit from having more photos showing them off. It also strikes me as incredible that eBay essentially ‘taxes’ better listings and a better buying experience by charging for additional images. But you don’t need to pay extra for extra images. Obviously, the first one is free and you should take that, not least because it’s your Gallery image. The rest you should be hosting yourself and popping into your templates with HTML. Learning a few tags could save you a lot of dough.

Top and Centre: When you’re hosting your own pics, you also have greater flexibility in how you position them. Make a photograph the first thing a browser sees by putting your image top and centre. It’s madness to make them scroll down and down and down just to see what you’re selling.

Visit Dan at wilsondan.co.uk.

Tags for this post: , ,
Author: Dan Wilson
Posted at: Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Filed Under Featured
 

Comments

10 Responses to “eBay Tips 2008: Pictures Perfect”

  1. Josordoni on January 10th, 2008 6:20 pm

    If you haven’t looked at ClicPic yet http://www.isdntek.com/clicpic.htm
    then you should.

    Best money I EVER spent…

  2. Chris Dawson on January 10th, 2008 6:38 pm

    Dan’s spot on with this one, and the best thing I’ve ever done was to start using either Fluid Mask (expensive but worth the cost) or Bling! It (Very affordable). If you want to know how to get the very best from your camera take a look at either of these products.

    Like Lynne I’m also a clickpic user

  3. Sue Bailey on January 10th, 2008 7:06 pm

    Obviously, the first one is free and you should take that, not least because it’s your Gallery image.
    It doesn’t have to be, and often, you’d be better off with a picture specially for Gallery. Here’s how to make it a seperate pic:
    http://www.tamebay.com/2007/09.....-want.html

  4. Dan Wilson: UK-Based eBay Expert, Online Community Specialist, Author, Copywriter and Blogger on January 11th, 2008 1:02 am

    [...] It’s madness to make them scroll down and down and down just to see what you’re selling. Read the comments on Tamebay. Stumble [...]

  5. northumbrian on January 11th, 2008 8:54 am

    cant believe vazaar has not had a plug was their christmas card not big enough lol

  6. Dan Wilson on January 11th, 2008 12:42 pm

    Norf: wait for it. ;o)

  7. Sue Bailey on January 11th, 2008 1:03 pm

    I’m sure that “put video in your listings” is worthy of a post all to itself, not just a tag-on to “photographs” :-D

  8. Josordoni on January 11th, 2008 2:07 pm

    Probably the tip for tomorrow….:-D

  9. Chris Dawson on January 11th, 2008 3:58 pm

    You were saying…. :D

  10. Josordoni on January 11th, 2008 7:05 pm

    but…. Saturday morning pictures are supposed to be on Saturday mornings….. (sulk)

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