Where do you keep yer eBay pictures?

[mr.elmwood]

I was using PB and Poco got me off that. I am now storing them in my 4 1/2 year old computer. That is what, about 73 in human years? The Mrs suggested a memory stick.

Poco. I can't thank you enough for getting me to change my ways. The time and aggravation factor drop was astounding.

[mr.elmwood]

Anyone wanna completely re-arrange my inventory, which, compared to a lot of folks is reasonably organized?

[triber]

After losing thousands of pictures when my old computer crashed and burned, I bought an external hard drive, and everything is backed up on that every couple of weeks.

[pocomocomputing · Accepted solution]

There are many places to store backups. An external USB hard drive, a USB thumb drive, free online storage (Google Drive, Microsoft Skydrive, DropBox), even a DVD burner if you have that in your computer. Capacity and speed to backup is important.

One thing to remember what a backup is. It means that the information is in two places.  So if you move some older data to another device and delete from the main place, it is not a backup anymore but the primary storage for that data.

A hard drive crash is one of the big risks. But human error is another. A simple mistake of deleting the wrong data or folder.

Probably the USB external hard drive is the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to do regular backups.  A large USB thumb drive can also be used since they are cheap, fast and easy to use like the larger external hard drive. But it is easy to misplace these because they are so small. You need to attach a string or a key chain to make it bigger and more visible.

[mr.elmwood]

Lemme re-phrase. I am using up too much space on my hard drive, I think. Maybe not? I would like to take pictures, load them into my listings, delete them my computer, yet leave them where eBay can find them.

Once I delete them, they would vanish from my listings, non? So, I would keep the storage device attached to my computer.

Am I making any sense? I know what I mean. Always, go by what I mean, never by what I say.

[pocomocomputing · Accepted solution]

Once you have uploaded the pictures to eBay, they are stored on eBay. No longer are they refereed to where they are on your hard drive. So you can move them to an external hard drive, a thumb drive, wherever.

If the listing ends on eBay and is UnSold, the photos are stored on eBay with the listing for the 90 days the listing is kept on eBay. If you relist an UnSold, the same eBay photos are used from eBay's storage for 90 days from that new relist.

If you are using GTC format, the photos are kept there until sold and 90 days after in Sold listings.

For a Sold listings, the photos will be deleted with the listing after 90 days.

Since you mostly sell one of a kind used items that use photos once, you can probably delete the photos for the items that Sold. To be safe, you can move them to an external storage and only have them there. For the Active or UnSold items, you should keep them on your computer in case you (or ebay) makes a mistake and loses them.

[mr.elmwood]

Really!

See, I was used to PB. Delete the pictures from PB and they would delete from the listings. Yeah, I get the "hosted elsewhere" concept. I "thought" I was hosting when I was "uploading" to eBay.

Ultimately, that was what I meant. Ya see how that works.

[karl*katz]

Get an external hard drive.

[rose-dee]

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@karl*katz wrote:

Get an external hard drive.

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A good investment in any case.  The portable ones that function like jump sticks (USB plug-in style) are the easiest to use and are getting cheaper all the time.  Many can also be set up to do incremental backups of ALL your other data as well, because they hold a lot.  

Mr. E., you could also consider an auction management site that includes photo storage.  For me it's been a lifesaver and time saver.  If you relist items, or list similar items a lot, you can save listings almost indefinitely until you need them again, complete with photos, then revise if needed, and send them up to eBay.  Uploading photos is a lot faster and better than it used to be (uses Java software, which just about everybody has -- for free).  

I'm not particularly pushing Auctiva, but they provide 500 MB of photo space (about as much as you can get onto one CD, so several hundred pictures) plus all basic listing services, for $2.95/month.  This includes a display of active and ended listings that is constantly synchronized and updated with eBay through an easy "token" system.  It also includes templates, boilerplate terms of sale, etc. and an automatic scrolling gallery, as well as a "saved listings" feature that allows you to keep listings for re-use indefinitely.  

Auctiva used to be free, but alas no more. Still, I feel I get my money's worth out of them.  I think Inkfrog may still be free, but I don't think they are as "professional" nor as seamlessly integrated with eBay. 

The thing I like most about my auction management site is that I've been able to set up "folders" by category/type to organize my photos so I don't have to go searching among hundreds of old photos to re-use just a few.  Once a OOAK item has sold, I remove the photos to make room on Auctiva and delete them from my computer.  If I think I may use a particular photo in future (such as for my line of sewing patterns, I keep the photos permanently on Auctiva.  I've never gone beyond 50% of my allotted space of 500MB at any one time. 

Being a belt-and-suspenders believer, and having had enough computer crashes to learn my lesson, I also back up all my documents (including current photos) onto a portable hard drive once a week or so.  I try not to make the "or so" more than 2 weeks! 

[karl*katz]

You can also burn your images to a DVD.

The average DVD will hold between 8,000 and 10,000 images depending upon the image size.

[reallynicestamps]

Why do you need to save your pictures at all?

If your items are unique, then you would be saving pictures of stuff that has already sold. And if it doesn't sell, well, you are either using Good Til Cancelled and eBay will keep the pictures for you, or letting items rest in Unsold for a couple of months before relisting.

I do keep my descriptions, but I realize it is just stupid of me to do so, since almost everything I sell is unique. (The exceptions being a few titles that I can sell and sell and sell, like Bescherelle either 8000 or 12 0000 and John Wyndham novels.)

[ricarmic]

Really....Poco mentioned this too but it takes moments to put a copy of your pictures on a flash drive, which is a lot less time than it would take to retake all the pictures for your GTC listings if ebay ever loses them......whenever I take pictures they go onto my laptop hard drive then immediately a copy goes on my flash drive.... so really I have 3 copies if you count the eBay version too (copying to the flash drive takes less than a minute, even on a big picturing day with 200 - 300 pictures)

[kashka]

Lots of free clouds out there:

SkyDrive 7 GB

Box      5 GB

Google Drive   5 GB

ICloud        5 GB

I use SkyDrive as I figure MS will be around for awhile..Not ebay pics( they get deleted after selling) ,as they are in Auctiva, but my photography is there.Plus I really like Evernote now because it syncs directly to the Iphone for misc photos, other files and notes.

[mr.elmwood]

My pictures are all listing specific. Never a re-use. I did not realize that using the 12 free pictures I was actually loading them into ebay. I thought I still had to have hosting.

Always learning new stuff.

[ricarmic]

PS my "flash drive" = Poco's "thumb drive"

[mr.elmwood]

I got overdrive in Melvin. Same thing?

[rose-dee]

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@ricarmic wrote:
PS my "flash drive" = Poco's "thumb drive"

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Also flash drive and thumb drive = my "jump stick".  

BTW, I see that Eastlink now has a free cloud service, and I would imagine Shaw does too (or soon will have).  Yahoo has Flickr which does much the same thing. 

I save my pictures for a number of reasons other than just for the eBay listings, so my actual picture storage/display site is Coppermine (which again, allows for a really nice hierarchical directory system).  

Or is this too much information?

[femmefan1946]

"memory stick"

In our Department, we went to 'iron keys', which are the same thing, but because they are loaded with Secret and Top Secret information, they are heavily secured. Enter the wrong password three times and the entire memory is wiped.

The fun thing to me is that these thumb sized 'documents' have scarlet plastic tags, 2"x3.5" with SECRET emblazoned on them. Apparently no one in Security has ever read 'The Purloined Letter'.