Behind the Scenes on Listing Day

The Calm Before the Storm

It's Saturday!  That means that between today and tomorrow I'll be listing most of the items I'll be working on promoting throughout the week.

This week I've got mostly women's items with a couple of left over items from my raid of my brother's closet.  About two thirds of the items will be listed for the first time, and a couple are things that didn't sell last week, so I am taking new pictures and listing them again.

Here's the interesting thing I've discovered, particularly about skirts and dresses.  Pictures of hanging stuff for some bizarre reason do much worse than pictures of stuff that's been laid out on this one particular spot on my carpet.  Take a look:

Same skirt, totally different look.  Now, the picture on the right is still not perfect.  After all, I take all of these with my Blackberry! (I know, my next business investment will be a real camera)  BUT there is something about the lighting and the contrast of the skirt with the carpet that makes it look more appealing than the picture on the left.  In fact, I had the this skirt listed and used the picture on the left as the gallery picture, and it got very little attention.  Now I'm going to relist using the picture on the right and we'll be able to test my theory.

After taking each item's picture, I'm going to upload them to Photobucket and begin working on the item descriptions.  It's too early to list these items, of course, but I'm going to set a scheduled start time for tonight at 9 PM and tomorrow night at 9 PM.  That's going to cost me 10 cents an item, but with my son underfoot I may not have time tonight or tomorrow night to dedicate to this.  I also have to spend a little time researching completed items on eBay, trying to see what Buy It Now price to set (if any), and setting my own expectations for the final sale price.

In this lot, I don't believe there is anything that will start any major bidding wards.  Perhaps the two items below, but we shall see.  What I've realized about eBay is that:

1) It's very seasonal - the "it" items for the season always do best
2) It's a place where people go to get unique items they can't get anywhere else

Wish we luck for the week, guys!