Striking a balance between buying and selling - Ebay listing advice wanted.

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batcap

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Jun 22, 2010
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Well it's about 9:30 pm. I should be posting stuff on ebay but instead I'm reading and posting on Tnet. Does anyone else have the same problem as I do - I love to hunt, but find putting stuff up for auction a bit of a chore? I used Auctiva for a while but the subscription thing doesn't work well for me. Every month I do exactly zip and get charged for it irks me to no end. Plus, how can it be convenient when their user interface takes twice as long as ebay's? The only thing I like about Auctiva is their photo hosting - you can upload your poorly sized pics and they'll make it fit right into your auction -with a 1-click "supersize".

In a huff over being charged $3 for doing nothing, I opened a photobucket account and downloaded Paint.net and learned how to use them. Now I can post pictures for free, half as well as Auctiva does, for 10 times the effort.

Has anyone some tips to share about posting auctions more quickly and easily? Our circumstances aren't the same as the turbo-listers. Ours are one of a kind, one at a time, found items auctions that each require custom pics and descriptions. I take pride in my photos, yet know I have a long way to go. My descriptions are thorough and accurate as best as I know how. You can't take shortcuts there. But what about quick and easy photo hosting, for example?

Well that's a long ramble, anyone want to share or add a question?
 

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I list a good amount of items. I do get burnt out, but not for long... I just use Ebay Pic App. and pay, just too lazy to use anything else. One pic on most cheap items. My photo set-up is right next to my computer. I'll generally take photos of 5-8 items, then list. I try and use lots of copying, pasting and same as auctions when possible. Love the hunt more, yes, but the hunt is too make the $$ in the end.
 

We like use.com

It is free and has a good number of templates. It takes a little longer to make the listing with them than it does with auctiva, but it's free. My wife does most of the data entry for the listings and she prefers auctiva because of the speed thing and the scrolling auction bar, but we have used use.com as well.
 

I do know that Turtle recommended "Garage Sale" as a program to do multiple listings with the same template. I think it is a 1 time fee of $30.

Personally, I am in a similar boat. I hate to list items and find it to be a chore to do so. I like going to the flea market much much better which is why I typically only list items that I am SURE I can get at least $15-20 for. Everything else I haul to the flea market and charge around $1-2 per item. It all adds up and I enjoy doing it. I have made a basic "template" that I use for all my ebay listings that I copy and paste for almost every item I sell. I try to limit my "liability" or risk significantly. I am overly honest about condition and I never attempt to be deceptive or sneaky with my listings. I do use the dreaded "keyword spam" and I know that is controversial but it really does help as a marketing tool. If I feel a listing will sell for a decent amount, usually over $20, I will post more than just the 1 "free" picture. I have found that good/creative pictures are key to a successful sale. Also, try to have a personal policy about your ebay practices and stick to it. Lastly, another way to limit your risk is include shipping in your final price (offer Free Shipping). That way, no buyer can claim that you overcharged them for shipping and the buyer feels like they are getting a better deal even if the item costs a bit more than other similarly listed items. Best of luck!
 

I also use http://www.use.com/, if the item i'm listing falls into an Ebay category that doesn't have free photos, with the listing. I usually only list my free 50 items per month too. I will list only when i'm not busy with my real job. If I make an extra $500-$1000 a month, then i'm happy. If I listed everything I have/buy, I would be doing it full time and then some. Some day, when i'm not physically able to work my regular job anymore, i'll go full time on Ebay and Etsy and maybe do shows and/or rent a booth at an antique mall. Until then, i'll keep storing it away for a rainy day. The really good stuff that will hold it's value regardless, gets wrapped and packed into banana boxes.
 

batcap said:
In a huff over being charged $3 for doing nothing
Click to expand...

$3 A MONTH???????????? They are charging me $9.95. >:(

I HATE doing the ebay thing, but love the hunt.

I force myself to do the photos & listings. What is worse I dislike shipping even worse. What I don't understand I love it when an item sells.

The only reason I use Auctiva is the the ability to use as many pics per auction as I want and the ability to schedule a start time (I like 8PM sunday evening the best) The same thing on feebay would put me out of business.
 

What's up guys? I have been doing a lot of reading on here but not a lot of posting. I figured I would chime in on the garage sale program again since I have been using it for 8 months now. Here is the skinny.

#1 It only works on macs

#2 I don't know what I did before I had this program.. Oh wait, I wasted a ton of time.

#3 Garage sale eliminates the need to go anywhere else. You don't have to edit or upload pictures
and you don'thave to even go on ebay to do your listing.

#4 It has good professional templates that are fairly customizable.

#5 It does take some time to figure out the program and understand how it works but once you
figure it out, you can knock listings out fast. I use a master template that I tweak for each item.

#6 I recommended it to my mom and she loves it now too.

#7 It isn't perfect ( I don't think it works on ebay motors )and there are some small bugs but for a 1
time fee of $30 for a single license it paid for itself in my first sale.
would highly recommend it for anyone that has a mac.

As for the PC side, sorry I can't help, does anyone use iSale?
 

cyberdan said:
batcap said:
In a huff over being charged $3 for doing nothing
Click to expand...

$3 A MONTH???????????? They are charging me $9.95. >:(

I HATE doing the ebay thing, but love the hunt.

I force myself to do the photos & listings. What is worse I dislike shipping even worse. What I don't understand I love it when an item sells.

The only reason I use Auctiva is the the ability to use as many pics per auction as I want and the ability to schedule a start time (I like 8PM sunday evening the best) The same thing on feebay would put me out of business.
Click to expand...

I had the "Basic" plan, which is the same as your "Unlimited" except Basic only gets 15 listings per month. Additional listings cost $.50 ea. So I'd have to list 29 items in a month to pay $9.95. I've never done that yet, with or without Auctiva. I think the most I've ever listed in 1 month was about 19 items. That was posting straight to eBay, using Photobucket to host pics for free. This way my listing cost was virtually nil and all Ebay could take was their 10% final value fee. Throw in another 3% for paypal and I have a rough estimate of my cost on auctions that sell. Auctions that don't sell are "free".

Here is an auction I ran with 18 pics that cost me nothing to list by using Photobucket. Ignore the Ebay pics and head for the auction body. . .

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140674274029


What kind of listing can you create with Use.com? This is not a competition, just notice that I can post as many pics as I want for free, but I had to resize each and every one, and they don't pop out or supersize with a click, and there are no borders.

Other methods are welcome too! Show off a Completed Listing Only that uses Auctiva, Garage Sale, or any method that works for you.
 

As an eBay Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
You can post as many pics as you like with USE.COM with no resizing, and there are many templates with different formats for each to choose from.

Here is a listing where I used Use.com- http://www.ebay.com/itm/270850835677 Click on a photo and then click "view full size image" to see BIG pics.
 

As an eBay Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
famous turtle treasures said:
What's up guys? I have been doing a lot of reading on here but not a lot of posting. I figured I would chime in on the garage sale program again since I have been using it for 8 months now. Here is the skinny.

#1 It only works on macs

#2 I don't know what I did before I had this program.. Oh wait, I wasted a ton of time.

#3 Garage sale eliminates the need to go anywhere else. You don't have to edit or upload pictures
and you don'thave to even go on ebay to do your listing.

#4 It has good professional templates that are fairly customizable.

#5 It does take some time to figure out the program and understand how it works but once you
figure it out, you can knock listings out fast. I use a master template that I tweak for each item.

#6 I recommended it to my mom and she loves it now too.

#7 It isn't perfect ( I don't think it works on ebay motors )and there are some small bugs but for a 1
time fee of $30 for a single license it paid for itself in my first sale.
would highly recommend it for anyone that has a mac.

As for the PC side, sorry I can't help, does anyone use iSale?
Click to expand...

Nice too hear from you Turtle! Do you have a link for the program/site? I use a Mac, so I'd like to take a look.
 

Thanks everyone for the motivation. I gave Use.com a test drive and I can see where it will definitely save a couple of steps. I'll probably still crop and resize to my preferred "popped-out" image size, but I can save them at max quality, rather than agonizing over the balance between size and quality. Also no more copying individual picture links from photobucket to paste into an html list, then pasting that list into the ebay Html descriptions. That's a major time saver.

In my opinion, ebay's listing interface combined with use.com's photo-hosting, description templates, and bulk uploader is faster than Auctiva. Maybe I wasn't taking full advantage of Auctiva.

I hope as people run across this thread they will continue to share their methods for the benefit of all who care to read. Thank you in advance.
 

batcap said:
Thanks everyone for the motivation. I gave Use.com a test drive and I can see where it will definitely save a couple of steps. I'll probably still crop and resize to my preferred "popped-out" image size, but I can save them at max quality, rather than agonizing over the balance between size and quality. Also no more copying individual picture links from photobucket to paste into an html list, then pasting that list into the ebay Html descriptions. That's a major time saver.

In my opinion, ebay's listing interface combined with use.com's photo-hosting, description templates, and bulk uploader is faster than Auctiva. Maybe I wasn't taking full advantage of Auctiva.

I hope as people run across this thread they will continue to share their methods for the benefit of all who care to read. Thank you in advance.
Click to expand...

Quick tip, there is a much faster way to post all your pictures at once using photobucket. When you look at your gallery of pictures just click the little box to highlight the picture(you have to mouse over the picture to bring up the info, then click the little box). When you highlight all the pictures you want for the post scroll all the way to the bottom and at the bottom there will be a "choose action" tab. Click on it and a drop down menu will appear and select "generate link codes for selected". It will do just that, generate the link codes for all selected pictures. Next step is to single click which one you want, HTML, Image, etc. It will even do full size html or thumbnail html. Great time saver. Copy and paste is a thing of the past.
 

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