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I have been an avid auction enthusiast for dozens of years, and the Internet has opened entirely new horizons for buying and selling at auction. It is amazing what you can find or sell at online auctions! And I have also gotten a LOT of useful information about things that I have by checking out some auction descriptions.
Keeping track of auction activities is EXTREMELY important for you and for those you sell to or from whom you buy. The following are ideas and suggestions which I have implemented over a four+ year period in my dealings with several auction sites on the WWW (including QXL, eBay, BidBay, etc.)
Many general concepts and useful forms may be found in my original Beanie GUIDELINES.
For a SELLER who places items up for auction on a regular basis, the following notes may prove useful:
Gather the items together which you plan to auction on a particular day in one batch. Place them in a corner / box / shelf, all together.
Make an auction FOLDER on your desktop, which will contain ALL of your individual item blurbs and PICS as FILES in consecutive numerical order.
I use the designation x.html (= Hyper Text Markup Language) and x.jpeg (xa.jpeg for a second pic for a particular item) as the file names for the item and its corresponding item PIC/s. x = a number, starting with "1". (I am currently up to file b100)
The top folders, marked in RED are my previous series y items (for convenience - they later go to a ZIP disk, which I INDEX to be able to locate any item/pics with ease), as well as some early a stuff -- just to keep the **newEBAY folder a little less cluttered. The GREEN items refer to the first in a new batch (of usually about 10 items). As mentioned above, the item description is the html file and its correspondingly numbered pic a jpeg file.
You will note several html files without a corresponding jpeg file. They are copies of previous item descriptions which I have duplicates of, and since the pic is already on one of my aol screen names, I only had to DUPLICATE the item description, changing whatever had to be updated, and it is ready to list as a new goodie - a real time saver!
Using some Web design program (I use Adobe Page Mill), figure out how you want to present your item/s to your potential audience so that it is both attractive and informative. Of course, you can do your own html code if you are that advanced (<hehe>), but the programs do all the work for you, so why waste the time??
This extremely easy-to-use software can be found at reasonable prices doing an eBay SEARCH for PageMill OR Page Mill -- and look for the entire retail package (box, CD, manual, etc. - I dislike ANY manual/instructions included on a CD and prefer having the actual text in my paws). Version 3.0 was the last one that came out -- and it is no longer being upgraded/produced, unfortunately! There are PC and MAC versions.
One thing I learned after scores of years at flea markets and auctions is that a buyer usually does NOT want an excessive amount of information (unless, of course, they might be interested in an item of great value, and even then they want it brief, cut and dried!!). Although an added MIDI sound file can seen like a kewl added attraction, and MORE THAN 2 PICS might just help visualize the item from every possible imaginable vantage point, MOST people find the added download/reading times distracting when ALL they want is to get straight to the point! (It does show off your Internet skills, though, for whatever that is worth!)
Include information about the item, its size, condition, etc., including data on accompanying documentation, weight if it is somewhat heavy, instruction books and other accompanying materials.
How do you ship and what will it cost? Do you accept foreign orders and/or credit cards / personal checks?
If you have a web site, most people seem to include a LINK to their site for further information about the item or other related things.
DO NOT include such data as your address, telephone number or other personal information. The winning bidder will receive same from you at the end of the auction.
Be as all-inclusive as possible without becoming tedious. GAWD, I should talk!! -- some of my auction blurbs are so complete that even I sometimes wonder if it is all necessary!! [SEE BELOW]
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words !! Auctions containing a photo of the item do seem to get substantially higher bids than the same item without a pic.
A. scan the item at a MAXIMUM of about 350 dpi (= dots per inch)
B. save the pic in THOUSANDS rather than MILLIONS of colors, in jpeg ( = Joint Photographic Experts Group) format
C. scale it with a width of NO MORE than about 4-5 inches wide
A, B and C help keep the loading time at a minimum, as jpeg files are more compressed than other formats -- translated to simple terms, the person sees them faster than if they are larger or in some other format.
Item pics must already be parked on some website in order for them to show up in your eBay item description. MANY ISPs (= Internet Service Providers - aol, compuserve, etc.) provide subscribers with a limited amount of web space for home pages and pic parking.
And don't be a cheapass -- spend the extra 25 cents to have your kewl pic placed in the GALLERY! It provides more initial visual access, PLUS tends to bring in MORE bids -- often far exceeding the measly quarter!
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Page ------Y12---------
Z _____________ |
(you may wish to do something similar using your word processor. I did an original on the computer in legal-size format and make photocopies of my master) NOTE that I frequently write one key word in small letters and the next in CAPITALS, just to make it easier to read -- PLUS the different key words stand out better that way.
The Page : the sequential page of your item series file. eg: I change my series every 800 items or so just to keep the number of individual data sheets easy to manipulate when checking for already finished items.
The columns represent : your item sequence number, item title, pic file reference, opening bid, reserve (IF any), what it sold for and the item closing date.
# means that I can look up THAT item number on the ZIP disk where I store ALL of my old item descriptions, DUPLICATE the file, change the file # and use it for the NEW item -- IT SAVES YOU LOADS OF WORK!! Any text or format changes you may want to make can easily be done on the duplicated file, which is NOW the NEW ITEM file. Changes might include : new background and header/footer in keeping with the season (one of my favorite changes!), new shipping info or payment options, notice that you will be away when the item ends and will get back to the winner as soon as you return, or other details.
IF, as in the example above, you have 10 different Celebrity Bears to offer 3 weeks from that one, you would then make a COPY of 672.html and SAVE it as 873.html, the next number in your new batch of items. You then update any necessary data for the new item, SAVE it, and repeat the above step. You can reuse the SAME pic, since it is already parked on the Internet. You then simply write the data from the old item description, including the pic reference, in the new item space and are ready to post!
With one standard format for each of several different types of items, you can easily do a whole series of new items quickly and more efficiently.
Z : the TOTAL winning bids for THAT item page, if you want to keep track of how you have been doing.
eBay - go to LIST ITEM, fill in the various details they ask you for, then choose the appropriate category (IF they are all bears, you might want to list some under Toys, Bean Bag Plush : Plush : Bears, Sports Memorabilia : Memorabilia : Baseball, Collectibles : Memorabilia : Rock-n-Roll : The Beatles, etc.-- depending on the theme of the critter. This gives the items MORE exposure under different categories, and since you already have your web site LINK in your description, the person can go there to look for more goodies or just click on VIEW SELLERS OTHER AUCTIONS).
Potential buyers will use the SEARCH resource to find some KEY WORDS related to what they are looking for-- thus the importance of carefully choosing the TITLE of your item, including as many KEYS as possible in the limited space provided. Unless you make sure that your item title has ONLY KEYWORDS in it, MANY people will NOT find your treasure doing a simple search. Leave out VERY NICE, L@@K HERE, EXCEPTIONAL VALUE, MY LAST ONE, A REAL BARGAIN, and such words which might be nice on a roadside billboard BUT they offer NO clue to the EXACT item you want to sell. And make sure that you SPELL the keywords correctly! People will look for GOLDEN COWRY or COWRIE (a somewhat rare shell) BUT they will NOT search for COWERY!
Then get the item file you made using your web program, view the html format for your item description, COPY and PASTE it onto the item description area.
Your accompanying PIC file reference would go in the next blank, using the URL (Universal Resource Locator = Internet address) of where that particular pic is parked. IF your pics are in the same sequence as your items in your desktop files, the following item will ONLY necessitate the change of 1-2 numbers in the pic address.
REVIEW the item you want to place, making sure that the PIC corresponds to the item description (which you proof read 2-3 times when you made the item description). IF it DOES NOT, click on BACK to return to your initial entry page and correct any mistakes.
You should now have your first item listed.
Click BACK twice to get back to the item entry page, change the title, go to the next item file on your computer FOLDER and repeat the process outlined above.
Unless you put your item up for 10 days, you may lose out on potential bidders, taking into account the sometimes frequent DOWN TIMES due to whatever excuse. It took me 2 years of 7-day auctions to realize this simple logical fact! It ONLY costs 10 freekin cents more for ten days and you do get a LOT more bids!
And remember that although bidding may seem slowish at times, invariably it picks up within minutes and even seconds of the auction end!
The summer is VERY slow. As the Christmas holidays approach, there is more action.
I usually try to get my auctions listed between 20 and 23h, Eastern Time, which means that the West coast bidders are home from work and actively bidding (17-20h their time) instead of making dinner, cleaning the house, walking the python, etc. There is a 3 hour time difference between the west and east coasts -- and five to six hours between New York and Europe.
Check to see when eBay has down time (listd on their Announcements page) for upgrading their site and DO NOT have your items end during those hours! At the present time, it is Friday morning from 24h - 03h, and seemingly whenever else they want to be, lately! It is getting to be that a 10-day auction is reduced to 9!! They are really getting on the nerves of MANY users, including myself!
Here are some LINKS to several different types of actual items which I have had on eBay in the past -- few frills, much info
You may check to see how these somewhat simplistic formats have changed over time by looking at
OK, your auction ended -- now what?
I have a desktop folder titled **SEND in which the eBay end of auction email, my winner's notification and ALL related email files are kept (why do I use the ** before some folder names? Because when I want to SAVE something it places that particular folder BEFORE the many others I keep on my desktop which do NOT have the ** -- it's just a trick I use to structure lists of stuff with the most used/important being the top things in the list. Two ** would come before a single * -- and if you really want to get hairy, using a # makes that thing come even before one with a *).
I use the first 4 letters/numbers of the winner's email address as a reference to organize the stuff -- which can get just a tad complicated IF the winner uses different email addys for a reply (IF they send one!) and/or their PayPal account name.
When the number of items in this folder reaches about 500, I then transfer ALL the BLUE sent item files to a ZIP disk for completed transactions - just to keep this folder manageable and containing only current stuff.
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