Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Selling on eBay › What's your listing process?
- This topic has 19 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 11 months ago by buytikiselltiki.
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04/23/2018 at 1:55 pm #38183
Hello fellow scavengers. I am working on my listing process and need some advice. I am currently creating drafts on mobile with a samsung 7 and shooting the photos in the ebay app, then finishing the listing on my laptop. I find shooting photos in the app extremely slow as it is approx. six steps for each photo. I have tried just shooting photos with the phone and loading them to DropBox, which is faster on the shooting end, but when I load the photos from DropBox into a draft on my laptop every photo needs to be rotated one at a time! What are the steps in your listing process? Thanks.
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04/23/2018 at 2:25 pm #38185
Hi there! My current listing process doing drafts on the computer then finishing with pictures on my phone. I have tried many different ways of doing it and this is what works best for me. I agree, the ebay app is SLOW! It is frustrating how slow it is to upload pictures, but I have not found an easier process.
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04/23/2018 at 3:04 pm #38186
For items I have to photograph, I just use a cheap point & shoot camera and pop the sd card out. I bought a fast desktop computer to speed up everything and paid extra for an sd card reader in it. I then put the photos in a folder dated that day, and can quickly upload photos straight from the computer into the ebay listing page. I sometimes photograph 5 items at a time, sometimes 2-3. I can zip in and out with picture taking.
For business, I want to be quick and get it over with. I find photographing with a phone and uploading it to various apps to be too cumbersome for the quantity I want to list.
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04/23/2018 at 3:23 pm #38187
You may want to invest in a used iphone 5. They are cheap now. I’ve heard plenty people on here say the app stinks on Android devices.
Doing photography in the app on an iphone is pretty quick.
I personally do everything except photos on a laptop and do pictures on iphone.
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04/23/2018 at 3:37 pm #38189
BwBark Atlanta,
The listing process is a hot topic on the forum. It may be of benefit to type in Listing Process in the search bar and then go through previous postings. There are multiple postings, so it may be of benefit to scroll down in order to go through each page of results.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by AdventureE.
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04/23/2018 at 4:35 pm #38191
Evolving process for me: I used to use an iPhone. Now like almasty, I shoot full auto (Auto white balance, aperture at 7.1, ISO at 800 and automatic shutter speed) on a Canon camera. I shoot as much as I can stand, the take the SD card to my computer (macbook with dedicated card reader). I put the jpg files into a temporary folder on my desktop. I then import them into Lightroom ($10/month from Adobe) do auto correct, crop, level then export to a second temp folder with names for each item. These are two separate steps that can be done in different sittings.
When I am ready to list, I use the laptop, scan the 2nd temp photo folder and choose what I want to list. I research then choose a listing category, title and upload photos. If I made measurements, I try to take photos of the measurements rather then record them on paper or in a file). If I am in doubt about the weight I also throw the object on a scale and record that with a photo. I write brief description, price, select shipping and list. Then move on to the next item (usually alphabetical).-
04/23/2018 at 5:53 pm #38210
aperture,
What does the Lightroom autocorrect feature do? What kind of problems does it help with?
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04/23/2018 at 5:32 pm #38206
I make 20 drafts at a time using my pre-made templates.
My daughter takes pictures on her iphone or mine.
Then I finish the drafts.Video: I watch hulu or you tube while I list. I’ve binge watched Broad City, The Handmaiden’s Tale (which is coming back again soon!), and a few other hulu shows – like the one about the fortune teller mob which is weird but interesting enough while I’m listing, I think it is called Shut Eye.
Podcasts: And lately I’ve been binge listening to the Dave Ramsey podcast, but I also love This American Life, Stuff You Missed in History, Nerdist, Making It with Riki Lindhome, My Dad Wrote a Porno, Anthropocene, The Hilarious World of Depression, The Moth, The Minimalists, And the Year of Polygamy Podcast.
When my daughter is taking pictures we listen to Bruno Mars or Justin Timberlake on Pandora. And sometimes I introduce her to obscure stuff from when I was a teenager – like Erasure doing Abba cover songs – weird & funny stuff you can find on you tube.
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04/23/2018 at 5:32 pm #38207
P.S. the trick is to keep it interesting so you can list for longer stretches of time.
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04/23/2018 at 6:38 pm #38212
Here is before and after Lightroom autocorrect:
Lightroom makes the images “pop” a bit. I use it because it is part of my normal workflow for images and I am quick with it. I can also fix problem images (black fabric with dust, clear glass that looks yellow etc.), crop quickly, and correct things that are not level that should be. I would not do it if it added much time to each image or if there was not a gain in my images on eBay, but I feel like I am getting better results than without it.
I have an evolving process, so perhaps I will move past this too. Best wishes, Daniel.
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04/23/2018 at 6:50 pm #38213
Wow. That is a really nice improvement. It looks like it corrects the colors to be a bit more accurate, too. Does it work well even in cases where the background is not white?
Thanks for sharing the before/after photos.
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04/23/2018 at 6:58 pm #38214
I am not sure. I shoot with 5000K lights on a neutral (white) background and with auto white balance on a Canon 6D. My experience is that autocorrect will make most of my shots better, but occasionally misses the mark (over exposes or puts too much contrast in usually). I think if I shot with more yellow (or blue) lights or on a natural wood background, it would be hard to color correct in lightroom. Most of the color selection is done by the camera at the time the photo is taken.
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04/23/2018 at 7:04 pm #38216
wow that is a big improvement.
I used to use Picasa for stuff like that, it worked fairly well and was free but I don’t think it exists anymore – I think Google bought it.
Now I just use iphones to take photos with no photo editing.
I think if I ever got into really selling higher end vintage items, I’d consider doing the photo editing again.
Really nice work.
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04/23/2018 at 8:47 pm #38219
I also make the listings in the desktop, take photos and launch from the iphone. Sometimes I need to go back and lighten up the pictures since I’m working in a room with less than ideal lighting. I’ve kind of given up on having fantastic photos in terms of lighting and due to time constraints, just want to get items up! I’ve abandoned hopes of getting on Etsy with perfect presentation, social networking, great packaging, etc. I feel like Ebay is great in terms of selling anything and listing quick and dirty style. If I can get through my backlog and bring up ASP, then maybe I’ll look into an autocorrect program – nice results up there!
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04/24/2018 at 9:38 am #38242
I use IrfanView to crop images and make other corrections when editing images for listing. It is free for Windows users. I have pretty much used it everyday for years, love it.
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04/24/2018 at 12:12 pm #38271
Listing Process:
Troy: 1) Create draft listings in SixBit. This is everything for the listing without the photos. 30-50 per day when listing 2) Give items to photographer twice a week. 3) When items are received back with photos, drop the photos into the listing and schedule them in SixBit to list during the week.
Veronica: 1) Photo 5 items 2) List 5 items 3) Repeat About 15 per day
Veronica 2: 1) Create draft listings in eBay 2) Give items to photographer to photo 3) When items are received back, drop in photos and list About 20 per week.
PS- -For photo editing, Veronica uses GIMP Version 2.8 (this is a free software) that does even better than what we saw on Lightroom.
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04/25/2018 at 5:44 pm #38343
Thanks for your input. Anyone else?
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04/25/2018 at 7:54 pm #38346
I either take photos on my iPhone or regular camera (just whatever mood I’m in). The good thing about the iPhone is that I can zoom in and get good details that I can’t just using the Ebay app (especially good for tiny items). I then plug in the Iphone to my computer and move all the photos to my computer (just a few minutes to do). I may do some light editing in the Photos app on my MAC computer, but most of the time I try to get good photos that don’t need editing (for example, I try to shoot photos in bulk on sunny days to help with lighting versus darker rainy days).
Then I create drafts on my computer and upload the photos right from the computer Photos app. I prefer to draft from my computer, I don’t care to list from my phone.
Photos take me the longest, so that’s why I try to bulk photograph items in one day. Then I can list for a few days just off of those photos.
If I really want a photo to shine then I use the ColorStory app on my phone on photos before I move them to my computer. It’s an app that has great everyday lighting filters. Very natural looking.
All in all the process is fairly quick. The process that takes me the longest is photographing items.
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04/25/2018 at 8:06 pm #38347
anniethrifts,
How do you upload photos directly from the Mac Photos application to your ebay listing draft on ebay.com? I also take photos on my iphone and then they get transferred to my computer somehow via icloud which enables me to see them in the photos app. But then to get them to ebay, I’ve always exported them from the photos app into jpeg files, which I then upload to ebay.com. Is there a way for me to skip a step and get them to ebay without exporting?Sonia
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04/28/2018 at 10:30 am #38570
About 2 years back went to “all iphone app” process – didn’t (and mostly don’t) use anything else. UPC scanner when the product allowed – search comps in sold and “sell similar” where possible – or go straight in when comps were either not available or really badly done.
Not a fan of ALL CAPS titles, RARE when dozens are listed or Jay’s favorite ~~@@LOOK@@~~!
Shoot pictures on the phone, use the iPhone DICTATION mode to enter titles, condition and descriptions, check the results because my original WV accent apparently is occasinally challenging to the dictation, get a weight in a likely box, choose the shipping service and – DONE1
Really like using this method because larger complicated items with detailed tags and info can get descriptions while the item is laid out for photos. ( repeat after me: armpit to armpit about 22″, tag reads made in USA of imported fabric, etc etc)
Business policies have added a wrinkle since they were creating a new policy for every subtle variation – mostly have that cleared up but the app and the site don’t seem to relly like each other. If every single listing for the past 2 decades is “calculated shipping” can’t understand why the app is recently making everything Flat shipping!
To be continued.
Agree on the podcasts, listing favorite is streaming the RETRO COCKTAIL HOUR but listing is also a great time to play those boxes of records that I never seem to get around to selling . It’s getting like the House of Guitars around here!
Pointless dictation example – if I say “Seam to seam” it always comes out “seem to seam.” never right once.
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