Get a Digital Camera
This should be obvious, but what the heck, I’ll stick it in here just in case you really have just realized that it’s now the 21st century.
Fact is, images sell on eBay. Data to back that up? None off-hand, although I’ve seen stats out there and I’m just too lazy to dig it up.
What I do have is anecdotal evidence: Some of my best eBay deals were wins from listings with no images. True, the descriptions were basic text and sparse, and the sellers were obvious newbies (or just lazy… it’s common, I should know), but still, an image or two would likely have brought bidding up a tad. Instead, I’ve faced no competition whatsoever at these non-image listings more often than you think, even where the pageview counters at the bottom show that there has been enough interest to garner at least a few preliminary bids.
If you’re one of those holdouts still pulling out a film camera at parties and making everyone wait days to see prints instead of just pushing a few buttons to email copies free to everyone the day after, well, maybe the promise of having a viable eBay business operation is just the nudge you need to go get yourself a digital camera.
It just plain makes sense.
Good news: For eBay-quality images (to be viewed on the computer screen, in other words), you don’t even need the latest and greatest — you can no doubt save lots of money getting an older model digital camera specifically for taking eBay product shots. They’ll more than do, as you’ll soon see in future posts on this topic where I’ll show you that decent eBay product images can be easily produced with even some of the earliest digital cameras (like those that came out in the mid- to late-90s, and I kid you not!).
But, if you’re thinking of shelling out bucks anyway, you may want to look into the new stuff and using it obviously for more than just eBay product shots. A lot of the latest tech wizardry, such as my latest workhorse’s “Image Stabilization” feature, make it super easy to produce good eBay photos with minimum effort… and quickly.
