eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 1: Your eBay Photo Studio

In This Chapter

• Setting up a photo studio
• Looking into digital camera features
• Scanning your items
• Buying other tools for your photo studio

Welcome to the world of imaging, where pictures aren't called pictures but images. Pictures taken with a digital camera or scanned on a scanner can be cropped, color-corrected, and made near-perfect with simple software. Crisp images draw attention to your listings and grab viewers by the lapels.

Sellers, take heed and read why you should use well-made digital images in your listing pages:

• If you don't have a crystal-clear picture, potential customers may wonder whether you're deliberately hiding the item from view because you know something is wrong with it. Paranoid? Maybe. Practical? You bet.
• Fickle shoppers don't even bother reading an item description if they can't take a good look the item.
• Aside from using eBay's catalog photos (when available) taking your own pictures shows that you have the item in your possession. It is also required by eBay in most categories. Lazy sellers take images from a manufacturer's website to illustrate their possibly bogus sales on eBay. Why risk being suspect? Snap a quick picture!
• Everyone's doing it. I hate to pressure you, but depending on the category, several images are the custom on eBay. So if you're not using more than one, you're not reaching the widest possible number of people who would consider your item. From that point of view, you're not doing the most ...