w~~_7.JPG "pjcdn2005"){kind=avatar}
The listing looks fine to me. I tested both MS-Explorer and Firefox.
What PJ says about pictures. Poco got me doing that over a year ago for the exact reason PJ states. Plus? It is a lot faster and easier to do.
"mobile viewers don't have to click on a separate area to see the pictures "
That is interesting. Never considered that.
For sixteen year I have always incorporated my images in the description.
Why? I trust my server (I pay for them) more than I trust eBay's.
Pierre, I had several email discussions with Poco, about this, last summer. I, too, had all my pictures in the description. That was a lot of work.
eBay is the industry leader in sales through mobile devices. It is the way of the future.
I was going to do both and then, why? Pictures and title are all there on one line, basically. That is my chance to "hook" the buyer, not later. Problems with eBay hosted pictures has been nil.
@althetrainer wrote:
I sure hope this transaction will go smoothly. All those years of selling on eBay I experienced almost no hiccups and I would like to keep it that way.
I don't know how most Canadian sellers compete with our US counterparts. Most of my potential buyers are in the US and shipping within the US is still much cheaper than shipping from Canada. A lot of my future items are very heavy, between 25 and 75 pounds so I don't know how this is going to work out for me. Until I figure out a good strategy I still have only one foot in the eBay door.
I'm glad to see your item sold, but as for selling on eBay now (as opposed to even 4 or 5 years ago), the key is to expect the hiccups and deal with them as best you can, to protect yourself against defects. It used to be all about good feedback for good customer service, but now they've turned us into bean-counting defect-avoiders. The buyer definitely rules on today's eBay, and the bar for sellers is being raised with each successive Seller Update.
As far as competing with US shipping rates, I've competed mainly by lowering my expectation of margins, cutting necessary (small) corners wherever possible, "subsidizing" my US buyers' shipping (and providing free shipping promos), saving money wherever I can, and taking a hard look at where I can either lower the shipping weight or reduce the thickness of my items to stay within the Light Packet service range. If Canada Post removes or significantly increases Light Packet costs, I'll be in a real pickle.
You will probably find that those 25 to 75 pound items will give you a lot of shipping grief now because of recent changes by Canada Post. Depending on where you live (anywhere near the US border?), it may even be worthwhile to cross over the line and ship via USPS, or find a service (like Chit Chat Express) that does so.
The other issue is that recent eBay policies have heavily discouraged anything but a 1-day turnaround time for shipping out parcels, so unless your volume is high enough, it might not be cost-effective to use anything but Canada Post. And surface shipping these days on eBay is just a recipe for defects, as many are finding out. So you're pretty much stuck with Canada Post Expedited Parcel (tracked and insured air service) to the US for anything large or heavy, and the rates are pretty outrageous these days.
Quite frankly, my impression is that if you're selling items of those weights, they have to be valuable enough that buyers will be willing to pay the shipping costs to get them. For example, I quite often ship items to the U.S. weighing around 2.5 kilos in a box about 40x30x10cm. The cost runs between about $35 - $40, even with the eBay/Paypal label discount. At those prices, the item has to have a substantial value.
Accordingly, the only items I sell that I know will have to ship by Expedited are usually worth between around $150 to $300. The rest go by Small Packet Air, but there is, as you probably know, a size and weight restriction on that service. Most of my items are small enough to go by Light Packet Air to the U.S., but even that is getting pricey, and means it's hardly worth it to sell anything under $10 anymore.
The best suggestion I could offer if you're planning to jump back into this is, unfortunately not to make assumptions based on your experience. Read through the last 4 Seller Updates (Spring and Fall), as there have been some massive shifts on eBay over the past couple of years. And do drop in to these boards on a regularly basis, since most of us are hashing out the new issues as they arise and generally get to a resolution after a few back-and-forth sessions.
The picture issue is a good example. I've always used a 3rd party service provider (Auctiva) for most of my listings, so I've always had the luxury of quick and easy listing preparation, including up to 24 photos in the description section. However, slowly I've switched over to using the eBay Gallery too -- the belt-and-suspenders approach. Mr. Elmwood has a point in that, depending on your category, you may need to capture people's attention the first time through, so having photos in the description area may just be a waste of time. I know that my buyers tend to be "grown-ups" who do want to read, so I provide both Gallery and embedded photos in the descriptions.
Remember too, that once you have one listing that looks good, with the photos set up properly, you can now save it as a "Draft" (if you have Selling Manager, which I believe is still free to access). That way you can use it over and over again as a template without having to start at zero every time, for every listing. Still, I would strongly suggest making use of the eBay Gallery, for all the reasons others have pointed out.
As for concern about eBay servers crashing and losing your pictures, you can always back up your photos onto a flash drive. Personally I've never had a problem losing listings/photos on eBay, but for $2.95/month I rely on Auctiva (where I can store tons of photos and hundreds of listings as a backup. Not that I'm a salesperson for Auctiva (
), but they also have free scheduling of listings too, which saves me a lot of trouble.
Best of luck to you! Just keep telling yourself this is a different place than it used to be a few years ago, and that you need to keep informed -- when I think of it, OMG it was so easy to sell here then!
http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Site-Issues/pictures-not-showing-on-listing/m-p/265359#U265359
That is one reason I continue to use html to show my images within the listing.
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