Selling Bead Jewelry on eBay

I am not an “old eBayer” who has used this online mega-mall for years, so I have nothing to say about its pioneering days. Right now, eBay is obviously the 600-pound gorilla of the online auction world, dwarfing all its competitors.

There are some good reasons for this. The sign-up process for new users is relatively easy, there are lots of online tutorials, and of course there is the advantage of sheer size (which eBay plays up in its recent rather odd “It” advertising campaign), both for buyers looking for items and for sellers trying to find potential customers.

Yet considering that eBay is the market leader and has been in business for a decade, there are strange shortcomings, too. The PayPal system has its glitches, sometimes photos do not display in auctions, there are days when everything slows down to a crawl, and I even received a Dutch error message once when trying to access an eBay function. Considering that eBay does not have to find the merchandise, take photos, write descriptions, package and ship the merchandise, but rather just provides the virtual infrastructure for the sales, there should be far fewer glitches by now. Recently, store owners could not even access their sales reports for several weeks!

Are there alternatives? Amazon Marketplace has a brisk sale in used books, but is not too strong in other areas. Overstock.com has started its own auctions, and Yahoo Auctions recently allowed people to sell for free. Yet when you look through these auctions, you notice that (at least in my area) they appear to be smaller and less active. A while ago, I scrolled through one thousand auctions for bead jewelry and found only a handful of items that had a bid, and not a single one with multiple bids.

If there could be a contender in the auction arena, it might be Google, and recently there were some stories about Google testing an online sales service. So far, there has been no confirmation of this, though, and eBay still remains the king of auction sites.

- Photographing Bead Jewelry (on a Budget) -

When I think back and look at the first photos I took to use in my eBay ads, I can only shudder: they were rather blurry, looked flat and did not show true colors. While I am by no means an expert photographer, I have learned a lot since then, and I would like to share some tips and tricks on how to take good photos of jewelry without having to spend a fortune.
Here is what you will need:

1. A digital camera
2. Rechargeable batteries
3. A tripod
4. 2-3 worklights with 100 W bulbs
5. A translucent plastic storage box to set up as a "stage", in which the object is placed
   
6. Several pieces of silky cloth as backdrops
   
7. Display stands, busts etc.

You do not need to get a top-of-the-line digital camera with 5 Megapixels or more, but you should definitely get a digital rather than a conventional camera for the amount of money ( vs. cost of developing film) and time it will save you. The picture above was actually taken with a 1.3 Megapixel Canon Powershot A10 that I picked up for $139 several years ago. Recharagable batteries (my camera uses the NiMH type) are a must, as digital camera go through batteries quickly, and you could easily spend a lot of money on batteries otherwise. You should also invest in a decent tripod, as it will make your work easier and your photos less blurred.
The plastic box setup, with worklights shining from the side provides softened shadows, without your having to spend serious money on a cloud cube or similar equipment quite yet. Do not use your camera's flash (it tends to make small objects appear flat), and set the white balance to the type of lighting you are using (see your camera's manual). Some cloth (particularly the kind used for linings) in a nice neutral color makes for a good background.
Here are some further resources on photographing jewely:

• Camera Jim's eBay Photo Tips
  
• Building a Light Tent
• Practical eBay Photography Workshop

If yo have small objects, such as earrings, sometimes the best solution is not to photograph them at all, but use a scanner - but that would be the topic for another blog entry.

So much for today!

Cyberbeader
http://www.lovebeadsunlimited.com