We like to keep the same color scheme in all of our eBay® ads so they're instantly recognizable as ads from Rainbo Animation Art. But there's no rule that says you can't use as many combinations as you like as long as you don't end up overwhelming the bidders with your exercises in creativity.
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Step 2: Picture Information
Having a picture in your eBay® ad is the best thing you can do to increase the chance that people will bid on your item. Many ads on eBay® are so poorly written that it isn't always clear what the seller is actually offering. With the vast number of Disney collectibles in the world, small details can make a big difference in the popularity and value of an item. Condition and overall appearance are extremely important to collectors, so obviously they will feel more comfortable about bidding on something if they can actually see it, too.
The first step is to photograph the item you want to sell. If you have a digital camera, you're in business. Just take the picture and store it on your computer's hard drive. If you have a 35mm camera, just ask the photofinisher to make a Picture Disk or a Picture CD along with the prints. This will add about $5-$10.00 to the cost of the photofinishing, but it is the fastest and easiest way to start.
If don't have a 35mm camera or a digital camera and you still need help getting a photograph of your item on disk, eBay® offers a nice tutorial.
Click here to see it.
In order for a webpage or eBay® ad to incorporate your picture file, it needs to know the name of the file and where it is located on the World Wide Web. The location of a file is described using a command called a Universal Resource Locator, or "URL". Whenever you see something like:
www.rainbo.net
you're looking at a URL. You can think of the "www" part of the URL as pointing to the computer that hosts a user's website, and the location of his account on that computer. However, in the case of letting a webpage find the graphics file we need to add the name of the file, as in:
If you're an America Online user and you haven't uploaded files to your account's webspace before, we have a set of instructions here. Click here to see them.
Do yourself a big favor and make it your practice to use a graphics program to edit your picture files before your auctions. Any picture file that takes more than 30 seconds to load will discourage many potential bidders. To be specific, any graphics file over 50,000 bytes is too big. To reduce the size of a graphics file, try these suggestions:
Crop out extraneous background areas
Resize the picture smaller - few items need to fill more than ¼ of the screen
Reduce the color depth of the graphic file to 256 colors. Some kinds of graphics files, like JPGs, can reproduce over 16 million colors, which is beautiful, but the result can be extremely large files. 256 colors is more than adequate for auction ads.
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Step 3: Enter Your Item's Description
This is where you enter a description of your item. Remember to include important information like the condition, the color, size, manufacturer, and the approximate age of the item. Unless your item is very common or very popular, don't assume bidders will know exactly what your item is. Be specific. Use nouns like "book," "video," or "figurine." You should also include the amount you will charge for shipping, including a notation that bidders can save money on shipping if they win more than one item from your auctions. And don't forget to mention the methods of payment you will accept: personal checks, money orders, or credit cards. Even though the eBay® form has checkboxes for this information, spelling out the details in your ad will always be welcomed by potential bidders.
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Step 4: Item and Transaction Details
This is where you can enter some specifics about the item you're auctioning and how you will handle the details of shipping and payment and have it appear in a highlighted section of your ad at the bottom of the Description Cell. These are optional features, and you don't have to use them at all. But they can let you point out the best (and worst!) aspects of the item and avoid problems down the road. Using this feature lets bidders see these crucial details at a glance, increasing the chance that they'll place a bid and reducing the chance they'll move on to someone else's.
If you leave an entry box empty, that item will not appear in your ad. So you don't have to worry about knowing everything about your item to include this feature in your ad.
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Step 5: Enter Your EMail Address
The EMail Link Section is where you enter your EMail address. It will let potential bidders contact you with questions about your item and also allows them to see any other items you have up for auction. Be sure to enter your real and complete EMail address here. DO NOT Enter Your eBay® Nickname Here.
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Step 6: Information About Your Other Auctions
If you will have more than one item up for sale when you submit this one, checking the indicated box will create a "Click Here" link in your ad that will let bidders see all of the items you currently have up for auction on eBay®.
Bidders often bid on multiple items from the same seller in order to save on shipping charges. You will sell more and get higher bids if your item descriptions make it clear that you will be willing to make allowances in your shipping charges for people who win more than one item from your auctions.
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Step 8: Create The HTML For Your Ad
When you've completed the form and like the results shown in the Preview Window, just press the "I Agree - Make My Ad!" button. If you've checked the box marked "Check This Box to Use a Pop-up Window For Your Ad's HTML", a window will pop up containing the HTML code for your eBay® ad. The HTML code will also appear in the text box below the "I Agree - Make My Ad!" button. Follow these steps to complete the process:
If you see the pop-up window containing the HTML code:
Choose Edit·Select All
Choose Edit·Copy to copy the HTML code for your ad onto Windows' clipboard
Press the "Close This Window" button at the bottom of the pop-up window to close it
Open your favorite text editor (like Windows Notepad or SimpleText for Mac)
Select Edit·Paste to retrieve the HTML code from Windows' clipboard
Choose File·Save As in your text editor to save the HTML code for your in a text file for use on eBay®
If you're an America Online user and you haven't uploaded files to your account's webspace before, we have a set of instructions here. Click here to see them.
Some browsers do not support pop-up windows well. If the pop-up window is blank, or if you unchecked the "use a pop-up window" box, you can retrieve the HTML code for your ad from the HTML Box under the "I Agree - Make My Ad!" button using the following steps:
Use your mouse to select all of the text in the HTML Box containing the HTML code from "<TABLE>" to "<\TABLE>"
Choose Edit·Copy to copy the HTML code for your ad onto Windows' clipboard
Open your favorite text editor (like Windows Notepad or SimpleText for Mac)
Select Edit·Paste to retrieve the HTML code from Windows' clipboard
Choose File·Save As in your text editor to save the HTML code for your in a text file for use on eBay®
The "Reset" button will clear the entire form and let you start over.
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Uploading Files To America Online
To create your own webpage or to simply make picture files available to other users for online auctions, you need to transfer (or "upload") files from your computer to the America Online computers. This is done using a method called "FTP" which stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is an acronym for the protocol (i.e. the "method") used to transfer files over the Internet. But like most computer jargon, the term is loosely used - sometimes as a verb and sometimes as the name of a program that uses this protocol.
There are several shareware programs that you can download that have FTP capabilities. These are generally intended to work over the Internet with standard Internet Service Providers, but you can also use them on America Online. Netscape has FTP capabilities built into its browser, for example. And there's a popular shareware program for Windows called "WS-FTP" that is very easy to use. However, America Online has its own FTP tool built into the standard AOL program, so stick to that until you become a bit more experienced.
To begin, make sure you know the names of all of the files on your computer that you want to upload, including where they reside on your computer's hard disk. That is, in which folder or subdirectory they are located. I suggest printing out the list of these files so you'll have the names and locations handy during the file transfers. Keep in mind that much of the Internet is case sensitive and has no respect for the MS-DOS "name-dot-extension" format for file names. That is, "Index.html" is not the same as "index.htm" on the Internet even though most Windows systems would think they were identical. To avoid many such problems, make it a practice to use all lower case for file names.
1. Log onto America Online with the screen name whose webspace you want to use for the file(s) you are uploading.
2. Press the "Internet" button on the AOL main page.
3. Press the "Internet Extras" button on Internet page.
4. Press the "FTP" button on Internet Extras page.
5. Press the "Go To FTP" button on the FTP - File Transfer Protocol page.
6. Select "members.aol.com" from list on Anonymous FTP page and press the "Connect" button.
7. Press the "OK" button on the Connected page.
8. A window labeled "members.aol.com/" followed by your screen name comes up showing the directory listing of your AOL webspace that includes the names and sizes of all of the files in this screen name's webspace. Underneath the list of these files is a row of buttons that gives you a choice of functions.
9. Press the "Upload" button.
10. A window opens with a text box labeled "Remote Filename."
11. Enter the name you want to give the new file in your AOL webspace. Make sure the "Binary Mode" radio button underneath the text box is selected no matter what kind of file you're uploading.
12. Press the "Continue" button. A new window labeled "Upload File" opens.
13. Press the "Choose File" button and a standard Windows file selection dialog box pops up that will allow you to choose the file from your computer to upload to your AOL webspace. Press "OK" when you've selected the file you want to upload.
14. Press the "Send" button in the Upload File window.
Repeat steps 9 through 14 for each file you want to upload.
Don't forget that America Online allots 2 megabytes of webspace to each screen name. This means that every AOL account has 10 megabytes of storage available if you set up all five of the screen names you're allowed. Once you reach the space limit for each screen name, AOL will refuse to allow further uploads. Thereafter to make storage space available for new files, you will have to delete one or more of the existing files. You can delete files by pressing the "Utilities" button on the "members.aol.com" page that shows the directory of your files.
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