Question
Do you use a gallery service in your auctions. Do you think it has increased sales. If you use one which service do you use and how much do you pay a month?
Answer
On the relatively few auctions I can launch using SpareDollar, I use the embedded gallery. It's free with the SpareDollar service. I'd use SD more except it's been so full of glitches and other problems such as failing to keep up with eBay's changes on a timely basis, it makes it hard to rely on for listing or image hosting. But I like the gallery when I can use it. No way of knowing whether it's increased sales, but I think it's a cool thing to have. But I doubt I'd pay extra to have it, if it didn't come for free.
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I have used MY AUCTION GALLERY for quite some time now and my sales definitely increased when I added it. I feel it is worth the money even though they recently doubled the cost.....but they did add new things. If you decide to sign up for it, I would appreciate it if you would use me as a referral. Check it out...........http://mygallery.timegonebuy.com/cus...ojisube.html?/
http://mygallery.timegonebuy.com/
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I still have the Andale gallery in our auctions. Mostly out of laziness. Because our ebay store is organized by size, I think it is a lot more useful to buyers than the gallery but the thought of editing the gallery link out of 200+ auctions just makes me tired (gg). Maryanne
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I use it for a few auctions that I want to feature but find it a waste of money for most of my items. I do think the usefulness depends on what catagory you are selling in. If there are thousands of similar items listed, buyers are probably more likely to rely on the use of the gallery.
If that didn't make sense, it's because I read the question wrong.
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I create my own pseudo-gallery with HTML code provided by Oscar's Tool - its not a complete gallery of everything, but it does draw traffic to my eBay store.
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Alot of the in-the-auction galleries tend to cause the page to load slower, and in the case of a couple of services(most notably Andale and SD) can actually cause the auction to hang and not finish loading. More Andale than SD, but both have done it.
I'd love to use something that was FAST loading and not full of glitches.
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As an image host myself, I'd like to add some input to this subject. I'm sure some people are thinking "oh boy, I'm sure he's just got some sales pitch", but I can assure that what I have to say is totally unbiased and based on a "what's good for some people might not be for others" premise and I am not trying to recruit anyone. That's what banner ads are for
First of all, to be totally honest, if you are someone who ONLY uses one image in your auction, then no you probably would not benefit greatly from using an image service. Why? Because your first image in each auction on eBay is FREE. So, if all of your auctions are only going to contain one photo, and you don't need it to be very big, then I'd say don't bother with an image hosting service.
However, some sellers like to have several photos of their item in an auction, usually from different angles, and usually they like to have it in a convenient gallery format. For frequent sellers, THIS is where using eBay's image services will begin to cost you money.
For example
- their fee for each additional photo is $.15
- if you want large images (supersize) 800x600 or bigger that's an extra $.75
- their popular "Picture Pack" gallery addon is $1 per auction for up to 6 images
Now let's say you're a busy seller who does about 100 auctions per month with a 4 image gallery in each auction. You're going to pay eBay anywhere from approx. $15.00 to $100 for that month just in image fees depending on how many of the optional features you choose. That's all money coming out of your profits.
So by comparison, and no I am not trying to solicit customers here, I will use some examples based on my pricing and features. Let's use the following criteria for the comparison:
eBay - a seller who runs 50 auctions this month, each with up to 6 images in eBay's Picture Pack gallery feature, will pay $50 for the month on average.
my service - that same seller will get those same features, and beyond (more than 6 images in the gallery if they want, other ways to link bidders to unlimited galleries, ability to send direct links to more images of the same item to the bidder in email, etc... etc...) for $3.95 for the month on average.
Wouldn't it make sense for that seller to pocket the extra $46 in profit for October??
And that's not to mention (well, I'm mentioning it now I guess) all the other benefits of using an image hosting service, depending on the features they offer. There are literally hundreds of image hosting services out there, and they vary in features that they offer. For example, my service gives the user a ton of extra storage space and the ability to also create personal photo albums, slideshows, e-cards, codes to insert their images into web pages, stores, about me pages, no extra fees for large images or gallery codes, and more. In essence you're paying a lot less and getting a lot more, depending on the service you choose.
Another thing to take into account is customer support. Some services are pretty bad about customer support. I've had customers call at 1:00am to ask how to resize an image and how to get it located in the spot they want in their auction, and I happily assist them. Try getting eBay to help you over the phone in the middle of the night with that, or without being referred to generic form emails or wading through tons of FAQ's and menus.
So to answer the question of the poll fairly you have to take into account the way a person is going to use it. Using an image hosting service will benefit some users greatly, while maybe not much for other users. All depends on how much you sell, how many pictures you'd like to store online, if you care about getting fast/free tech support, how many images you would like to be able to include in your auctions, etc....
I hope that nobody here thinks that I've posted this as some sort of recruitment, because that's not the case. I'm also not implying that my service is the only one out there. Like I said, there are hundreds to choose from, and they all offer different features, and for the user who is only going to post one picture in each auction there is no need to use a service.
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A nice long post, but what does it have to do with gallery?
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Originally Posted by commentary
A nice long post, but what does it have to do with gallery?
Perhaps I misunderstood the poll?
I thought mildreds was asking if people use a gallery service in their auctions, (which I interpreted to be a service that enables people to post a gallery of photos in their auction) and if it was a waste of money.
Sorry if I misunderstood