Using Video in your eBay listings

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a moving (video) picture worth?

You may or may not know, that you can now put videos in your eBay listing and smart eBayers are jumping on this like a dog on a bone. Over the years eBayers have done some very creative things to separate themselves from the herd. Listing template with flashing lights and flying cows, sometimes the templates got so complicated it was hard to figure out what item was for sale.

Anyone who has taken one of my courses will know TRUNKS LISTING LAW

1. Descriptions should be written as if you had NO picture.
2. Pictures should be taken as if you had NO description.

Now with videos, number 2. takes on a whole new level of capabilities.

I think the most important aspect of any eBay listing is, that it appear professional. People buy from you , and they want to feel comfortable buying from a professional and the one of the ways you can communicate that is with good descriptions and pictures. Now with videos in your description you can do both. On a recent blogtalkradio show www.blogtalkradio.com/auction-tutor I talked with Dan Wilson of VZAAR.COM. Dan was gracious enough to share with us some of the ways videos can be used in our listings. Dan has a great article about this at http://www.auctionsoftwarereview.com/articles/ebay-competitive-edge-video.asp.

VZAAR.COM is one of a number of companies that are approved by eBay to do this. One of the ones most people are familiar with is YouTube.com . While YouTube is a great tool for showing videos of your last embarrassing moment, I'm not sure it is great for showing videos of your products. One, you have to cut and paste HTML into your description and second, and more importantly people leave your listing and they are taken to YouTube. They might just go off looking at YouTube Videos and forget about your product or auction.

I've looked at most of the eBay approved video sites (you can find them in the eBay LINK POLICY)and VZAAR seems to have been built from the ground up to host videos on eBay. I've used it and it is dead simple to use. VZAAR has some great tutorials and you don't need a big investment to get videos in your listings. If you have a digital camera it probably take videos or even your cell phone. VZAAR gives great instruction on HOW TO, and the best thing right now you can try it for free and even if you are doing a large volume of listings they have very reasonable pricing plans. I'm sure after you use it and see how it make your listings standout , I'm sure that you will be signing up for one of the premium package. I'm betting VZAAR know that also.

I rate VZAAR.COM 5 STAR.

Not forget www.Blogtalkradio.com/auction-tutor ever Tuesday 6PM Eastern. Go there and sign up for a reminder and to join our listen list.

eBay the evil empire?

Gimme a break! I'm writing this blog because I've had it up to here with all the whining over the changes in some of eBay policies. I just have to get it off of my chest. Most of the people complaining couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. If it wasn't for eBay they'd be flipping burgers at Mike-Ds or greeting a Wal-Mart.

One of the changes is that a seller can no longer leave negative feedback for a buyer.

This has really ripped some people. Negative feedback for them, was their pit bull, or 45. It was their equalizer. How many auctions have you seen where the seller has something like this in their listing

"If I don't hear from you in 24 hours I'm cancelling the auction and leaving negative feedback."

Don't wavy your gun in my face ahole. First problem, unprofessional sellers, this person should get negative feedback just for putting this in their listing. Would you want to come back to eBay and buy from idiots like this. Now don't get me wrong, -- are there bad buyers out there? You bet. I'll discuss them further on but if someone doesn't pay, file a GD UPI and get over it. You'll get your eBay fees back, and the buyer will take a nick. If the buyer gets a number of those, eBay drops them. Also, you can add them to your blocked buyers list.

You can generally spot the unprofessional seller quite easily, bad pictures, no pictures or even someone else's picture--bad descriptions--stupid and excessive shipping--and poor or no return policy. They are probably cheap to take credit cards or PayPal. You know stupid stuff. If you buy something from one of these yokels you deserve whatever you get or better yet what you don't get. If you do get it, it is generally poorly packaged.

Second problem, unethical sellers this is a problem eBay must address. I believe any buyer who have been stung has the right to leave negative feedback. Unless eBay reviews negative feedback and other buyers can see the negative feedback, they will never get rid of the unethical sellers. Ebay claims they are going to crack down; and in effect have, by changing the feedback calculations. Everyone is upset over the counting of neutral in the feedback rating system. Personally, I have always thought that there wasn't any difference. I react the same if the feedback wasn't positive. Negative or neutral you have an unhappy buyer.

Hopefully this change will get rid of unprofessionall and unethical sellers.

Here is the second half of the equation, bad buyers. We have all had some. You get a couple of eBayers together and they call fill your day with bad buyer stories. Again they fall into two classes: the stupid and the mean. Stupid, I had someone leave me negative feedback because they didn't know any other way to contact me. I mentioned to a friend of mine who has a Brick and Mortar store how stupid and mean customers can be. He looked at me stunned and said," You're in retail, of course their stupid and mean. You just took their money." I have been fortunate and have run into few mean buyers. Almost every negative(12) I have received in 9 years came from someone with a feedback score of 10 or less. Newbies who didn't understand eBay. Thankfully, eBay made a rule about 2 years ago that a buyer with less than 10 feedback couldn't leave negative feedback unless they read the feedback tutorial.

I must admit that it is really painful when you knock yourself out to give good service and product and you have someone leave negative or neutral feedback with no notice, that's mean. I add all mean and stupid buyers to my blocked buyer list. I understand that eBay has expanded how many blocked buyer you can have to 5000. That lead me to believe that the bomb is going to fall on bad buyer. I believe that you will shortly see a bad buyer list either developed by eBay or some third party where you can log the bad buyer's eBay id so other ebayers can avoid selling to that person. A buyer could be blacklisted. If this doesn't exists I bet right now some enterprising individual is banging away at the code.

Well I feel better. I will address DSRes in my next a future blogs