No matter what you want to sell on eBay?auto parts or
designer apparel?weird, unique wares or pricey
antiques?the principles and basic rules for successful
listings are the same. eBay Listings That Sell For Dummies
follows the advice it gives you for your ads?it tells you
what you need to know without bogging you down with lots of fluff
and peripheral stuff. From the mechanics to descriptive ad copy to
photography to getting it on eBay, this guide covers:
eBay options that can boost the appeal of your listings,
including Buy It Now (BIN), Subtitle, Bold Title, Highlight, Box
border, Home Page Featured, Featured Plus!, and Gallery
Picture (a must)
Constructing catchy listings with a title that sells and
keywords that pay off
eBay Acronyms you?ll need to know
Tackling and completing eBay?s Sell Your Item form
HTML formatting basics plus some free JavaScript scripts you
can use to dress up your listing
Embedding images, creating thumbnails, and adding bells and
whistles (or not)
Buying a digital camera for taking eBay photos and equipping
your ?studio?
Lighting correctly, and using the Cloud Dome, light cubes,
panels, and umbrellas
Retrieving your images and uploading them to a server (your
free ISP space, AOL, eBay, eBay?s Picture Manager, or
others)
Editing your photos, including cropping, enhancing, resizing,
sharpening, and more
A checklist of techniques for preparing elegant, fast-loading
images for your ads
Sprucing up your eBay store
Posting your listing to other sites such as half.com,
amazon.com, and overstock.com
Automating with HTML Generators, including eBay?s Turbo
Lister, or Third-Party HTML generators such as Mpire.com Launcher
or the authors? free tool from www.coolebaytools.com
Written by eBay pros Marsha Collier, a successful PowerSeller,
and Patti Louise Ruby, a trainer at eBay University events and eBay
Live, eBay Listings That Sell For Dummies is loaded with
tricks of the trade. It?s complete with step-by-step
instructions for many tasks, tables and checklists, lots of screen
shots, and examples of good and bad ads. With this friendly guide,
your merchandise will quickly be going?going?gone on
eBay.
Author Biography:
Marsha Collier spends most of her time on things related to
eBay. She?s a charter member eBay PowerSeller, as well as one
of the original instructors for eBay University. As a columnist, an
author of four best-selling books on eBay, a television and radio
expert, and a lecturer, she shares her knowledge of eBay with
millions of online shoppers. Thousands of eBay fans also visit her
Web site, www.coolebaytools.com, to get Marsha?s latest
insights on e-commerce.
Out of college, Marsha worked in fashion advertising for the
Miami Herald and then as special-projects manager for the
Los Angeles Daily News. She also founded a home-based
advertising and marketing business. Her successful business, the
Collier Company, Inc., was featured by Entrepreneur magazine
in 1986, and in 1990, Marsha?s company received the Small
Business of the Year award from her California State Assemblyman
and the Northridge Chamber of Commerce.
Bargains drew Marsha to eBay in 1996, but profitable sales keep her
busy on the site now. Marsha applies her business acumen and
photography skills to her eBay business ? and in this book,
she shares her knowledge about what makes good, profit-promoting
listings on eBay.
Patti ?Louise? Ruby, an Indianapolis native,
was born to work on a computer. In junior high, she took a class in
the programming language Fortran. She excelled and enjoyed the
class: The die was cast. Patti went through several jobs as a
programmer and then became a consultant. In the late ?90s,
Patti was part-owner of an antique mall, and coincidentally found a
Web site called AuctionWeb (the original eBay). She was fascinated
by the concept, and began selling on the site. She also became an
integral part of the chat rooms, which initially served as loose
customer support where users helped other users. Patti?s ease
with computers helped many a new user feel comfortable on the
boards ? and with using the AuctionWeb system.
In February 1997, Patti was hired as AuctionWeb?s second
Customer Support Representative. In this position, she became the
main interface between the engineering staff and the user
community, where she communicated members? ?bug?
reports and suggestions for site enhancements. When AuctionWeb
became the new eBay site in the fall of 1997, she headed up a
?live? question-and-answer board that was set up to
help members make the transition between platforms.