Use eBay picture service or host your own photos?

If you use the eBay picture service, your first photo is free. But each additional picture will cost you $0.15 and the supersize picture will be another $0.75.

This can cut into your auction profits if you need, let’s say, 3 or 4 pictures showing different angles, and one supersize picture for the “WOW” effect!

So I found a way to have as many pictures I want in my listings without having to pay all these fees to eBay: I do my own image hosting!

They are a lot of image hosting services to choose from online. Some are free, and others charge a small monthly or yearly fee.

Currently I use Photobucket image hosting. They have a free starter package (which gives you 25 MB of disc space) or a premium package (unlimited disc space) to store your pictures. You can subscribe to the premium package for 3 months ($9.00) or one year ($25.00).

Now, how to load your pictures on your photo-hosting service?

First, you have to resize your images. One reason for resizing your photos is that Photobucket limits the size of the pictures you can load - 250 KB for the free package and 1 MB for the premium package.

The second reason is that you don’t want to slow down your eBay listings with huge images! Big pictures take forever to load, and potential customers will hit the back button instead of waiting.

So I recommend limiting each picture to a size of 500 pixels maximum. I use the free Irfanview image optimizer to resize my pictures.

Once your photos are resized, you can upload them to your image hosting service, which is very simple.

For Photobucket, you have to log in into your account. Once you are in, there is a white window on top of the page marked “picture”, with a “browse” button on the right. Click on “browse”, and a new “choose file” window will appear. That window shows the files in your computer. From that window, select the file containing the picture you want to upload to the Internet.

Once you have found the right picture, highlight it with your mouse and then in the “choose file window”, click the “open” button. The name and location of your picture will then appear on the Photobucket screen.

Now click the “submit” button, and voila! Your selected picture is on Photobucket. You can even load several pictures at the same time by using the “submit multiple pictures” feature.

All right, your picture is now on Photobucket. But how do you insert that picture in your eBay listing?

Once your image is hosted on Photobucket, you will have to copy the URL of that photo (which is directly under it) and paste it into your eBay listing. Use the following html code to display the picture correctly in your listing (don’t forget to inverse the quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of this code!); paste your Photobucket image URL where it says “the URL of your picture”:

>img src=”the URL of your picture”img src=”the URL of your picture” border=8

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What could this title possibly mean? Bananas and eBay sounds just silly.

But what if I said:

Imagine eating a yellow banana

What did you just do? I’ll bet for a split second you visualized in your head, holding a peeled banana and taking a bite. Right? Sure - You had almost no choice. Your mind took those simple words and ran with them. It was out of control for a second or two. You couldn’t prevent it.

Now, if you like bananas, this was probably an enjoyable thought. You may have actually had a banana earlier today and you quickly remembered what you were doing when you ate your last banana. Now, if you dislike bananas it was probably not an enjoyable experience and you would rather forget all about it.

So what does this banana memory and eBay auctions have to do with each other? Well this example show how the power of suggestion and how certain words, phrases, and pictures can influence a person’s thinking. You can take advantage of this in your auction listings.

With some minor changes to your listings you can create an auction that uses hypnotic elements to capture attention, promote trust, and evoke action, which I have named a Hypnotic Auction.

A hypnotic auction utilizes various hypnotic elements to actually control the bidder. They don’t even realize it is happening. It has probably even happened to you. Once you learn the techniques you will be able to recognize hypnotic auctions and create you own.

A hypnotic auction can be composed of hypnotic writing, hypnotic pictures, hypnotic stories, and hypnotic publicity.

The “inventor” of hypnotic writing, Dr. Joe Vitale, defines hypnotic writing as “anything you do which makes your readers react because of mental images you plant in their minds” or “is intentionally using words to guide people into a focused mental state where they are inclined to buy your product or service.”

So by choosing the words you use in your auctions, listings can greatly influence what a potential bidder will think and do. Just like forcing you to thing of eating bananas in this article. You can discover more hypnotic elements to use in your eBay listings at: http://www.hypnoticauctions.com

Discover how you can create auctions that receive more bids and higher final prices than your competiton with the free Hypnotic Auctions Newsletter available at http://www.hypnoticauctions.com
Gary R. Ferguson is an author, publisher, and on-line marketer and can be reached at me@garyrferguson.com

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There is a very simple formula you can keep in mind that will help you have successful auctions. Hypnotic elements can be used to enhance each part of the formula.

The formula is:

Eyeballs + Interest + Trust + Action = Success

While this formula is very simple, it does take a little explanation.

Eyeballs refer to the traffic that is received on the auction site. These eyeballs come from browsers, searchers, or external links. Your goal is to increase the number of eyeballs that find and visit your listing.

By adding hypnotic elements to your auctions listing you can increase the number of “eyeballs” (which may become bidders) that see your listing or read your item descriptions. These hypnotic elements include: Hypnotic Titles, Gallery Pictures, and Hypnotic Publicity.

Interest refers to one of the “eyeballs” finding something that compels them to look at the listing in more detail. Here the hypnotic description, hypnotic pictures, and hypnotic commands can increase interest.

Trust is very difficult to develop in the impersonal world of the Internet. People buy from people they like. If you like someone you generally trust them. So the bottom line is if the “eyeballs” do not trust you or your auction they will not convert to being a bidder. Hypnotic elements that can increase the level of bidder trust include: Hypnotic Pictures, Conversational Text, Hypnotic Stories, and Hypnotic follow-up.

Action refers to what you want the eyeballs to eventually do, either bid on your item, check out your other items, visit your “About Me” page, etc. A correctly constructed hypnotic auction can “command” the eyeballs by using: Hypnotic Questions and Hypnotic commands. Action can also refer to an “eyeball” forwarding the listing to someone else, (a new Eyeball) they think might be interested in the item, and they could take action.

Each of these elements needs to be addressed in order. You can’t build trust if someone cannot find your listing. Each builds on the prior. So by using the Hypnotic elements you will be able to obtain auction success!

Discover how you can create auctions that receive more bids and higher final prices than your competiton with the free Hypnotic Auctions Newsletter available at http://www.hypnoticauctions.com
Gary R. Ferguson is an author, publisher, and on-line marketer and can be reached at me@garyrferguson.com

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