posted on October 20, 2002 09:25:24 AM
I understand from reading Auction Watch that Auction Watch fees are less than e-Bay fees for listing your photographs.
But if I also pay the Auction Watch Final Value fees, am I not paying more for my photographs by using this service instead of e-Bay's photo service?
Thanks.
posted on October 20, 2002 08:03:50 PM
At first it may seem that way but do the math. Ebay charges, I think, $0.15 for each add'l photo. AW charges $0.10 for the first 50 listings and then $0.05 for each afterwards each month. Yes they do charge a F/V but that is only 1%. Okay, lets say you list an item starting at $9.99 with 3 photos. Ebay is going to charge you $0.30 listing plus $0.30 for the 2 add'l photos. That totals out to $0.60. However, through AW you're charged Ebay's $0.30 and $0.10 for AW for a total of $0.40. That's a $0.20 difference and you were able to post 2 more photos. Okay, now for the F/V. Let's say it settles at $20.00. Ebay's fee comes to $1.05. An Ebay only listing would cost you $1.65. With AW the F/V is $0.20 so your total AW cost is $1.65. In this instance the fees came out the same. However, if you're like me and you like to use LOTS of photos for your items, then AW is the way to go. Ex:I have had one run recently with 15. That listing would have cost me an add'l $2.10. Besides, Ebay only lets you have 6 photos total and sometimes that's not enough. Because AW does image hosting, you're not clogging up Ebay's system with hosting the photos. Also, AW has some handy tools for managing your auctions and I need all the help I can get.
posted on October 21, 2002 09:54:30 AM
Wow, is that true that eBay charges 15 cents for every photo after the first one? I had no idea. I've never used eBay picture hosting. It's in that crappy IPIX format, right, which limits your picture size to something like 2.5 x 3 inches? Yikes.
If I'd been using eBay picture hosting in my auctions over the last 30 days, I would have paid (lemme make a quick calculation) $165 for it. Contrast that with my ISP, which charges me $24.99/month for not just picture hosting, but 100 mailboxes, FTP, Unix shell, Web page, etc.
No wonder eBay keeps posting those quarterly profits.
posted on October 21, 2002 11:18:11 AM
There are alternatives. I use the first free ebay iPix photo and then put as many photos as I want in any size through an image hosting site. This way all of my eggs are not in one basket. If ebay's image hosting goes down I still have the independent image hosting service and vice-versa. And it's totally free if the image hosting service is free.
posted on October 21, 2002 05:46:37 PM
If you have thousands of images to manage you can use Boomspeed's pay account of 100 megs for $6/month.
Some providers like ImageMagican ( 3 Meg free ) have a thumbnail of each photo.
A good image file naming system is a must anywhere you store your images.
If either eBay or your image hosting service goes down for any period of time while your auctions are closing it could cost a lot of money in lost bids/money. With the free ebay image and the independent image hosting site you are all but guarenteed that at least one of your images with be there.
posted on October 21, 2002 07:02:57 PM
tooltimes: I can see where that would be an effective strategy for most sellers. We're a little different in that if we get one bid, we're happy. Since the price of admission (opening bid) is so low (1 cent), we usually have at least one bid registered in the first 8 hours the auction is listed.
