ISSUE 3 ....HOW TO INCLUDE PICTURES OF ITEMS
IN YOUR ONLINE AUCTIONS
Everything You Ever Needed or Wanted to Know....
PART THREE
This is the third and final part of this article. Part One and Part Two covered:
PART ONE
- What is a Pic?
- The Electronic Formats of Pics Explained
- Why Should Pics be Included For Items in Online Auctions?
PART TWO
- Equipment Used to Create Pics
- Guidelines for Editing Pics
In this Newsletter you will learn:
PART THREE
- Where to Store Pics on the Web for General Viewing
- How-to Put Pics on the Web
- How-to Point to Pics From Your Item Description
- Technical Aspects For Including Pics in Online Auctions
WHERE TO STORE PICS ON THE WEB FOR GENERAL VIEWING
There are many choices of where you can store pics on the web of your auction items. Some are free, some have fees, each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Here is an outline of each option available so you can choose the one that will work the best for you.
Online Auction Picture Services
Online auction sites and many auction management sites have picture services for sellers. Pics for auction items are uploaded and stored at their site for general viewing when items are listed. Some auction picture services have online tools that work inside a browser window where you can edit your pics. The pics are automatically deleted a few days after the end of auction. Most of these services allow sellers to post one picture of an auction item for free, but charge a small fee for each additional pic. This fee is usually about 1-5 cents per pic. These fees can add up, so if you are planning to include multiple pics of each of your auction items, you should find a place to store your pics on the web for free.
Web Site Communities
There are many sites on the Internet that give members free web site space with a unique web address, and about 5-20 megabytes of storage space. Thousands of people use these free web sites communities to put up personal sites about; their hobby, a tribute to their favorite rock band, photos of family vacations, and various other interests. Small businesses even use these free web site communities to put up a business web site in order to try out how their business will do on the Internet before spending money on a "dot-com" web site hosted by professional web hosting services.
The free web site communities are a great option for storing your auction pics. Most have built-in tools that help you to easily upload your pics from your computer to your free web site, and delete pics no longer needed at the site.
Free Web Site Communities
Free Photo Hosting Services
Free ISP Web Sites
Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) probably provides a free web site space for subscribers. ISP subscriber free web sites are similar to the free web site communities, and also include; built-in tools to upload files from your computer to your web site, a unique web address, but limited storage space - approximately 5-20 megabytes.
Commercial Web Hosting Services
Auction sellers who sell a large quantity of items, and need to store hundreds of auction item pics on the web for general viewing, will want to consider using a web hosting service to register a domain name, host the web site from fast UNIX-based web site server computers, and provide a large amount of storage space (approximately 50-200 megabytes or more). Professional web hosting companies provide a variety of service packages to their customers. The fees (monthly-yearly billing) are affordable to auction sellers that sell items in volume on a full-time basis.
It will take a bit of research on your part to find a web hosting service company and package that will work the best for you. To give you a start, check out the various affordable services provided by Smart Web Centers at www.smartwebcenters.com.
Get creative and share the expense of a professional web site hosting service with your friends or associates that sell items in online auctions! This is what I do with my auction seller friends, and the cost is VERY affordable when shared by ALL of us.
Connect Your Desktop Computer to the Web
A DSL Internet connection will allow you to connect your own desktop computer to the world wide web. You can store all pics of your auction items on your own computer for general viewing on the web for no additional cost than your monthly DSL Internet connection fee. If you are a savvy and experienced computer user, this can work for you. You will need to have your ISP (Internet Service Provider) provide you with a "static IP address" which works the same as a "dot-com" web address. You will need to put in time and effort to keep your computer powered on and connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Even though can be a very cost-effective way to provide a large quantity of pics for general viewing on the web, there are some major disadvantages. If your computer goes down because of a power outage down for repair, your pics will NOT appear at your auctions for that length of time. Also, desktop computers are not as fast and powerful as UNIX-based web server computers, so your pics will download slower at all of your individual auctions. Only experienced and knowledgeable computer users will have the ability to set up and maintain a firewall that can keep out potential hackers trying to snatch personal information from a desktop computer connected to the world wide web.
HOW-TO PUT PICS ON THE WEB
There are two ways to upload (copy) pics from your computer to the web. The free web site communities, ISP subscriber free web sites, and auction picture hosting services, have free easy-to-use tools for users that upload pics from a computer to the web site. These tools operate inside a browser so you do not have to install and learn a special program made to upload files to the web. The downside is that these tools are usually slow and only allow a limited amount of files to be uploaded at one time.
The other option is to use FTP software to upload your pics to the web. FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol" or "File Transfer Program". FTP programs are free or cost under $50 dollars. If you are not familiar with using any type of FTP program, you will find it simple to learn how to use one, and many come with setup wizards and help tutorials. Try out any or all of the popular programs listed below, and decide which one works the best for you before purchasing.
Popular FTP Programs
Free 30-day Trial Download Sites
Determine the Picture URL
This is the last step of including pics of your auction items. So far you have completed these steps; taken photographs of your items, transferred your photos to your computer in an electronic image file format, edited and saved your pics as JPG files, and uploaded your pics to the web.
Now you are ready to include a pic or pics of items you are listing in online auctions. Online auction sites provide a box in the auction listing form for you to provide the web address or URL (Universal Resource Locator) of one auction item pic.
The first part of the URL or web address is the web site address of your hosted pics on the web. This URL is provided to you by the free web site community you are a member of, your ISP, or web hosting service. This part of the URL will look something like this:
|
http://www.freewebsite.com/username/ |
The second part of the URL or web address is the exact name of your pic, for example: auctionitem.jpg. The complete URL or web address of your pic will look something like this:
|
http://www.freewebsite.com/username/auctionitem.jpg |
Auction sellers that use the picture service provided by the online auction site they are selling items at, will not need to enter a specific URL of their auction item pics. The picture service provided by the online auction site will have the service built into the auction listing form, and auction item pics will be uploaded for general viewing on the web as the item is listed.
This is also true for any online auction management service that provides their users tools to list (or relist) auction items from their site and provides a picture hosting service. Some of the auction management sites that provide both of these services together are:
Some online auction sites and auction management services even provide to picture service users some additional slick features such as: auction pic galleries, slide shows, attractive pic rotations with various types of fades to the next pic, thumbnails with hyperlinks to the matching larger pics, and more. New features are being added everyday. You may like to try some of them out, especially if you have a special item to sell, an don't mind paying the fees for adding extra pics. Add some pizaz to that special item using these types of special features.
TECHNICAL ASPECTS FOR INCLUDING PICS IN ONLINE AUCTIONS
Adding more than one pic for an auction item will require some HTML code. Yes, this is a technical aspect you are going to have to deal with, but adding this HTML is really very easy.
Online auction sites provide one box for one auction item pic, and no HTML is required in that box. But, if you have more than one pic of your auction items, you will need to add the exact URLs of the additional pics in the description box of the auction listing form, along with some HTML in order for the pics to properly appear on the auction pages. The simple HTML for adding multiple pics to your items is:
|
<p><img
src="put_2nd_pic_url_here"></p> |
And so on....The HTML code for adding each additional auction item pic is the same. Only the pic URL is different for each additional pic you point to on the web.
Avoid typos! If you type out the HTML code and appropriate pic URL - from scratch for each pic you are including in an auction, you are apt to make a typo eventually. You will review your item during listing, and wonder why the pics or some of the pics are not showing up. You will go back and proofread your item description text, not see the typo, and get exasperated. Believe me, I have been there!
Internet users that know some HTML code can find free scripts on the web that can make their auction item pics have the same kind of slick features the auction picture services provide for a fee to users. Review the user policies of the online auction site(s) you use to find out what types of script codes can be used in auction item descriptions.
Most online auctions sites at least allow sellers to provide hyperlinks (as thumbnails or text links) to additional pics of the auction item, within the item description. You can create a page at your web site for a picture gallery, or slide show for the item in auction.
IN CONCLUSION....
The information provided in this article, and skills you have learned will enable you to provide attractive pics of items you would like to sell, or currently sell using this new feature available at the top online auction sites.
This article was originally written as a supplement to my ebook - "How To Make Money with Online Auctions: A Proven Method" - and to expand on the information provided within the section about how to list auction items. This ebook teaches readers the exact methods I use everyday, and have developed over the years as an auction seller and this article appears at www.makemoneywithonlineauctions.com .
I have personally taught some friends my method for making money with online auctions, and have listened and taken note of their questions. Each had questions in one form or another about adding pics of items to their auctions.
Here are all the answers to your questions. I know that in applying this information, you will NOT make the same mistakes I have already made and learned from the hard way, or have to spend hours compiling a little info here and a little info there in trying to get educated about this subject, or luckily stumble across a useful tool or option that has been right under your nose the whole time.
Use this information as a constant reference for the better success of your auctions. Watch your sales increase when you competently provide attractive pics of your auction items....and do it better than the pros and power sellers do....!
Don't miss PART ONE and PART TWO of this article....
Article by - Evette Eleese
© 2003 - Make Money With Online Auctions
www.makemoneywithonlineauctions.com
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