Using FrontPage with EBay

By Amy Reedy and Tina Clarke

Using FrontPage with EBay. The layout of an auction listing is very important. Just as when designing your WebPages, you want clear precise pictures, and an "eye friendly" environment, you want your auction page to maximize your "real estate" and hold the viewers' attention long enough to want to buy your widget. EBay did a study, and found that buyers like the pictures on the left and the description on the right.

In FrontPage, make a new page and insert a table with two columns. Now you have the start of your layout.

NOTE: Do NOT use any FrontPage Bots in the creation of your template. They won't work on eBay because it does not have FrontPage Server Extensions installed.

I'm assuming you've photographed your widget and have made the picture nice and viewable.  (Those of you with flat screens, do not darken your pictures, because those of us without the latest technology do not have such nice bright screens) . Photos should be resized to no wider than 500 pixels, and the height will be proportionate. You are also going to publish/FTP that photo to your own web space.

NOTE: Tripod and geocities do not let you use them to host eBay photo's.

OK, back to your layout. On the left hand Column, insert your photos/ Remember to change the relative URL's to absolute URL's, e.g. www.yourdomain.com/yourphoto.jpg .  You can either do this in HTML view, or right click a picture and choose 'Picture Properties' and in the general tab where it says 'Picture Source', change this to the URL of your picture.  Include a description of the photo under 'Alternative representations' and press OK.  Then, on the right hand column write your description. Use a very friendly font, preferably
sans serif, and degrade the font; for example, Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif. Use a friendly color, such as: light background and dark font color (personally I hate Bright Yellow with Bright Pink writing, and I'll hit the back button before I even think about your widget). Don't forget to add your TOS, links to your email for questions, and links to your store for additional widgets (your eBay store, eBay does not allow 3rd party links in the auction, and will pull your auction quicker than you can say I'LL BUY IT!! Now, review your page, is anything moving?? It is? Well take it off now!! Nothing is more irritating than shopping and having a page with items bouncing, snowflakes falling, and words scrolling around.  Sure, its great you know how to do that cute little stuff. Save it for the page about your dog.

OK, do you have more of that widget? Good, put them in your eBay store for about $10 more than you want your auction to end at. Create links in this auction to those store listings with the nice little words made just for impatient people like me: "Don't want to wait for the auction to end? Click here to buy it now from my store". There now, for people who just don't have seven days to wait for that awesome little widget they can BIN and be happy.

Now you have a really pretty auction page laid out. Go to 'Save As', and save it as a template by clicking the 'Save as type' drop down arrow, and selecting 'FrontPage Template'. Then click 'Save". For all your other widgets, you just switch out the pic's and the description and everything else is all set. When you go to eBay to list that cool little widget, you will fill out the "sell your item" form, and when you get to the big box that says "DESCRIPTION" html allowed, you will go to your saved page, go to HTML view, right click, and choose 'Select all' . Then right click again and choose 'Copy'. Next, switch back to eBay and paste that your content.

Continue filling out your eBay form and go to preview. Check it out, did it work?? Yes!!!  Great, OH you in the corner, it didn't work????  OK, go back and be sure your pictures have absolute URL's, because otherwise, it just won't work. There, you fixed it. Check your preview again. YIPPEE it worked, and now you will officially spend the next seven days checking your auction approximately every 15 minutes to see if anyone bid.