20 Minutes per Listing................. Ugh!!!!

[goldrushfinds]

I desperately need to cut down on my time per listing. I am too much of a perfectionist and it will eventually make me broke. Mostly sell clothing, and between steaming out the wrinkles, taking the photos, editing the photos, researching sales (prices) and filling out the listing, it takes me approx. 20 minutes per listing. Far too much time. The big time kill is editing the photos. My camera will not take photos in a 1:1 or square aspect ratio, preferred by Ebay, so I must crop each photo. Also, I have to adjust exposure and usually use a background remover. Well I decided all this must go. Better off shooting on some other background, where you will not need to remove the background. Also I must get a phone/camera that shoots in a 1:1/square aspect ratio. So far from what I can find Panasonic Lumix cameras, iphones and some Samsung phones will do this. Thoughts/suggestions on speeding up the process. I desperately need to cut the time down per listing. 

[fern*wood]

Why have I never heard of this square photo thing?

[maros9416]

It is a fact that the algorithm has certain photo preferences. However,  some aspects are more important than others. They ideally want to see a crystal clear, focused square lead photo on a white background with no borders, split screens, light filters, words, or enhancements of any kind. Also, with no ' prop ' items in the photo. Some other little known plus's are naming the photo and adding meta tags. If you took 8 photos of a RL button down shirt and renamed the photos before uploading from DC10000235 to ' Ralph Lauren striped blue button down ' it will help greatly with indexing the search properly. Meta tags are also used by the system in the same manner.

[fm2000]

20 minutes per item isn't bad at all. I am a picker and mostly sell rare and one of a kind items, and I can sink more than twice that into some items (especially on research, though taking and editing photos is the biggest time sink overall.) Scanners can save a lot of time, if they can be used with a given item (like books, coins, DVDs, comics etc.), with no focus, flash or lighting to worry about.

Look on the bright side. The time to photograph and accurately describe an item can be very time consuming. But NOT doing that can cost you far more in INAD claims with the loss of the time and money, not to mention aggravation and stress, that goes along with them.

[chrispass918]

I know books are probably not what you’re selling but if you look through my sold listings I  showed everything that was important and it always takes me less than 3 minutes. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@fern*wood wrote:

Why have I never heard of this square photo thing?

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Because there is NOTHING with eBay listing that requires a square mode.  I don't know where this got started.  A couple of mobile sites (Poshmark and Mercari) want square mode (and it makes a difference), and Etsy went from 4:5 (I believe) to square, but their photo representation is krap and even square mode doesn't work in their thumbnails.

But eBay is easy.

@maros9416 If you took 8 photos of a RL button down shirt and renamed the photos before uploading from DC10000235 to ' Ralph Lauren striped blue button down ' it will help greatly with indexing the search properly. Meta tags are also used by the system in the same manner.

That hasn't been the case for years.  If you upload your own photos from a secure site into the description, yes, definitely.  But if you use eBay's upload, you'll get a URL like this:  

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QdMAAOSwoS9fxyYV/s-l1600 .jpg

I used the naming convention for years to get my photos to index, but that no longer works.

[chapeau-noir]

For quite a while I did embed a photo in the description just to tag, but it made so little difference that I just stopped, particularly when eBay struggled so badly to convert to mobile with the viewport meta tag nonsense (which we should not have had to worry about to begin with).  I even read through the code to see if it worked anyway when I used eBay's photo hosting.  At last I just quit. 

If there's any other way to do this, I'd love to know.

But don't worry about square photos - one thing eBay does do very well is deal with the photo resizing.  Many of mine are 1600 x 2000 and come up fine.

[johnrj1226]

1.  Here is what eBay's policy says about picture -

Photos must be at least 500 pixels on the longest side.  No mention of "squaring"

read this for more info

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/picture-policy?id=4370&st=12&pos=1&query=Picture...

2.  A  light blue background worked well for me -  learned that from   pro photographers I worked with  over the years -  yea they use white seamless  back grounds w/ flash umbrella lighting  and  cameras that cost more than my first new house i bought in1972 (20K)  and take  an hour to get one pic (pics were for product  brochures - industrial  equipment)

3.  20 minutes - is pretty  fast - I took much more time than that with picture  taking, editing photo, measuring,, proofing copy, getting shipping costs info , etc. ET  from start to finish w/o interruptions  90 minutes - And I used  a boiler plate type template .  Did not  use a  lot  of marketing/sales jargon - that is  like popcorn - full of air w/little substance.  Sold a  variety of items  - clothing, footwear  primarily but other odds an ends - like cameras -   quality items no fake or  junk stuff.  And  I researched what the current price the same or similar sold for including shipping.  Time changes every thing.   Used  data from eBays sold listings - that is  what a  willing buyer was will to pay vs active listing price - disregarded  high  and lowest prices.

Don't sell on eBay any longer - enjoying  our 3 year old grand son and   "free" day care services for him only - I made good profit  and enjoy selling on  eBay - for 41 years in my real career  was  sales/marketing.

[maros9416]

...and the questions, sometimes the same questions over and over. I learned this with belts. If you want to sell belts quickly and hassle-free, you should measure and put the length of the strap in the listing. I learned this only after listing about 50 belts and being hounded for this measurement. The size alone wasn't enough.

[maros9416]

I can't say it from an expert's standpoint, but every SEO optimization site recommends renaming the photo with keywords. I don't upload to eBay directly so maybe that means something different. My listings end up in the weirdest places and I get a decent amount of outside traffic to my store. 

  As for the squaring, I will always square my first photo only for the huge positive effect it has on my listings and overall store presentation. eBay does it for you, but it isn't good enough if there was no forethought put in to it. Either you get left with blank bars on the tops or sides, or even worse your listing did not show up in  full sized frame. As I search though categories, I can always spot my listings quick because the actual listing frame is much taller than the others. My photos are huge compared to other listings and much more noticeable and presentable. I like all of my badges and free shipping bells and whistles to stand out. The extra room provided by squaring the title photo makes a huge difference to me. While editing the photos, 2 clicks of the mouse rename all the photos at once.

[iart]

Time & Money... you might think instead of making more on your items than spending less time (especially with clothes since they do take a lot of time to prepare, clean, measure, etc).

In your case, maybe your lowest sale price should be around $20. Anything you can't get at least that much for, isn't worth your time.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@fern*wood wrote:

Why have I never heard of this square photo thing?

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Because there is NOTHING with eBay listing that requires a square mode.  I don't know where this got started.  A couple of mobile sites (Poshmark and Mercari) want square mode (and it makes a difference), and Etsy went from 4:5 (I believe) to square, but their photo representation is krap and even square mode doesn't work in their thumbnails.

But eBay is easy.

@maros9416 If you took 8 photos of a RL button down shirt and renamed the photos before uploading from DC10000235 to ' Ralph Lauren striped blue button down ' it will help greatly with indexing the search properly. Meta tags are also used by the system in the same manner.

That hasn't been the case for years.  If you upload your own photos from a secure site into the description, yes, definitely.  But if you use eBay's upload, you'll get a URL like this:  

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QdMAAOSwoS9fxyYV/s-l1600 .jpg

I used the naming convention for years to get my photos to index, but that no longer works.

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Thank you, that was my understanding too.  The naming thing s'posedly (I never saw it) made a difference many, many years ago.   

I've heard of the square photo thing, but not sure that I've heard it from Ebay & I don't do it & never have.  The white background thing I've heard from Ebay, but again I don't do it, it's an extra step & I don't find it looks good with clothing.  Though I use it occasionally for non-clothing items. 

As for the no split screens (NEVER heard that), almost all my items use split screen, no words - ideally this is best, but I've had items with words sell just fine, no borders, this is true, I use them on rare occasions & they sell fine too, no enhancements or props - probably a good idea, but I doubt the algorithm looks for them, how would it no what was a prop & what was the item?  That's the same reason they never enforced the 'no words', they couldn't determine what were words on the item vs words someone added.  

I also think *some* props can enhance sales.   A white tray in the corner & furry rug, not so much.  A color coordinated necklace on a mannequin, can absolutely help to sell an item.   I just was searching a non-clothing item, an Easter pottery item.  There are several listed.  One has it photographed with fake green 'Easter grass' on the bottom & a worn wood background.  The others, all poorly lit white backgrounds with shadows all over the place.  Guess which one has watchers?  The nicely presented one.  I'll bet money that one sells first, even tho' some of the others are cheaper. 

In other words, YMMV, do what works best for you.  

[maros9416]

Reader books take less time, though a collectable book would be subject to the same listing scrutiny as any other collectable item. Photos of all damage, the spine, and perhaps the publishing info page are necessary to achieve the highest possible price. After those photos, that info has to be reiterated in the listing specs. I find it easier to list media using the eBay catalog as all that pertinent info is laid out for you. It takes me about 12 min per book all said and done. 3 mins per listing is stellar for time's sake, but the listing is left a little incomplete for eBay's liking. But hey, they sell either way so it's all 50-50 in the end.  

[chapeau-noir]

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@maros9416 wrote:

I can't say it from an expert's standpoint, but every SEO optimization site recommends renaming the photo with keywords. I don't upload to eBay directly so maybe that means something different. My listings end up in the weirdest places and I get a decent amount of outside traffic to my store. 

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That's the reason - the direct upload renames all photos to ebay's convention.  If you upload from your own photo host, it will retain the tag - that's why it was so useful to rename photos when we used to embed them, because it does help with traffic and why I kept up with one embedded photo still even after I started optimising for mobile, but I don't really bother anymore - maybe I should.

I have both square photos (transferred from another website where I sell) and just whatever size they ended up being after putting them through post.  I can't tell the difference save that in the square frame the object 'floats' a little more, but I sell mostly clothing where filling the frame works a bit better.  With objects, a bit of a drop shadow and float gives a nice 3D effect.

My photo setup is very simple - it's just that I have to move furniture every time I want to photo because I don't really have any room and am squashed into a corner behind an easy chair and couch.

[maros9416]

I don't think technsports is a good example or what you can get away with because he has over 10,000 followers. I'm sure when he started out he was stressing, but when you get to know your customers and when you have that many repeat buyers that only go to you, you've become a success. I think you can draw a cartoon of the shirt and still sell it to a repeat buyer at that point because they know they can rely on what they get from you.

  I think your listings are perfect for the field and putting up 100 a day is top form. However, the other guy probably has workers doing the listings for him. On that note, if I was paying for the listings I wouldn't accept those results as they seem to be shortcut style. If I was alone, I would do it any way I could to keep the ball rolling.

  I think the goal of the presentation would be to convince one of his 10K to buy from you instead. I don't think that would happen with the same quality listing as his. They would need to be charmed over.