Auctions | Free Auctions | Online Auctions

7 Hot Tips For Taking Great Photo's To Get More Bids

1. Have proper lighting. Natural light is best, but a standard desk lamp with special light bulbs that create white light will do the job. Remember, the clearer your picture, the more bids you’ll get.

2. A Clear uncluttered background. There’s nothing worse than looking at a listing and wondering what exactly is for sale. Use a plain colored background, and showcase your item so the shopper knows exactly what you’re selling. You can use things like plain color sheets, or large white cardboard draped over boxes to create an attractive seamless setting.

3. Never use a flash or zoom when taking pictures. To get the perfect picture all you need is good light, and instead of using the zoom lens, simply move in close to your item.

4. When size matters. If you’re selling something, and find it hard to explain the dimensions of the item, showcase it next to something that is standard and people can relate to. For example a business card or a CD case or a real person.

5. Show every angle. For instance if you were selling a brand new pair of shoes, you’d show the top, the bottom, the inside, the heal, the side, and maybe even a real model to really show the buyer the shoe from every angle possible.

6. Focus on the item. If your picture has a lot of unnecessary background, you can crop the photo so only the item is shown. This can make the main item appear larger and clearer when the image appears in your listing.

7. Take honest photos. By this we mean that if your item has flaws due to wear and tare, or for any reason, take photos that include these flaws so that shoppers can see immediately that you’re honest and upfront as a seller.

For instance, one person’s trash is always another person’s treasure, and if you were selling something like an old antique chair and clearly pointed out all the flaws in your listing and showed photos of these flaws, you never know who might be more than happy to lovingly restore the old chair and couldn’t care less about the flaws.

Remember, honesty always pays off. Stand out and be known as a credible, honest seller, and you’re sales will soar through the roof! Guaranteed!

Bringing It All Together

1. Make sure you have a decent digital camera with features that include 2.0 megapixels or better, macro (Ability to focus on objects 2.5cm or one inch from the surface) and you can turn the flash off manually.

2. Camera settings: Set the camera to .jpg format and a high resolution, don’t use the zoom function (simply move closer to the item) use a tripod for perfect pictures.

3. Setting the background: Clear pictures can make or break your auctions so it’s important that the item stands out from the background. This is achieved by using a plain colored backdrop. The color of your backdrop should enhance the item you’re selling. Make sure you keep the item in the centre of the screen so it looks symmetrical.

4. Getting the perfect lighting: Where ever possible use natural lighting because your item will stand out better. The worst thing you can do is to take pictures of your item where the lighting is dull or dark. If you don’t have good lighting where you’ll be taking photos, add diffused artificial light, and never use a flash.

There are many options available on the market if you’re selling small items. If you’re selling big and bulky stuff, you might have to look at using white sheets or creating your own little photo studio.

5. Transferring your photos to your computer Depending on the type of camera you have, there are a few options available to you. You can use a memory stick, compact flash cards, smart media cards or CD ROMs.

It’s also very easy to download the photos to your computer if you can plug your camera directly into your computer by using a USB port. In most cases the computer will recognise the device and offer a download wizard to help you with the process.

Don’t forget to save and name your photos so you can easily find them on your computer when you’re ready.

6. Editing your photos to maximise page loading times.

Believe it or not, if the page your auction is on, takes too long to load up and appear on the screen, you can lose visitors because people are too impatient to wait around, and they’ll simply skip off to another listing.

Editing your photos, so they load instantly when someone clicks on your listing is paramount to getting more bids and ultimately more sales. Here’s the easiest and fastest way we’ve found to make this happen.

You can subscribe to Picture Manager in eBay where all this hard work will be done for you instantly with one simple click of a button.

When you upload a photo to Picture Manager, you can choose the photo to load up, and the system will automatically save it in different sizes.

All you do then is simply choose the photo you want to appear in your listing and how big you want it to be.

You can see from the example on the next page how easy it can be to choose the photo file, and then upload it to your account.

You can also save the picture to include your seller ID as a watermark within the photo itself.

This helps with preventing other people from using your photos for their own listings.

You Won The Bid Limited is an eBay education company, specializing in delivering the finest education programs for businesses or individuals in the world today. We help people who are seeking to realize the enormous potential of the world’s largest online market place, eBay.

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