Many sellers have been busy modifying their listings since eBay first announced their photo requirements last year. eBay will officially begin enforcing their picture quality requirements for all new, revised and relisted items on July 1, 2013. Listings that fail to meet the new standards will be flagged and potentially removed from the site.

Note: New GTC (Good ‘Til Cancelled) listings created after July 1 will need to adhere to the new image requirements, but according to eBay, “Existing Good ‘Til Cancelled listings that automatically renew (without revisions) will not be impacted at this time.” So if you are a seller who has a GTC listing in place before July 1, it will be exempt from the new requirements.

In case you needed a reminder about the upcoming changes, here is a breakdown of the new requirements eBay will be focusing on.

1) Check your image size settings

A quick glance at your digital camera will tell you if your images will be able to comply with the first requirement regarding image size. eBay states that all images will need to be at least 500 px on the longest side of the image to be in compliance.

If your digital camera is less than a decade old, you most likely will be able to meet the 500 px minimum by setting your camera’s photo quality to the highest setting. Depending on how many megapixels your camera is, you may be able to get away with using a medium level of quality as well.

Once the image is downloaded to your computer, a simple right click on the file can tell you the file’s dimensions.

To double check the size of one of my photos of pants, I right-clicked on the file, then clicked on the details tab. The dimensions were more than enough to meet eBay’s new requirement and this image was taken with my iPhone 4s.

2) Clean things up!

eBay is getting serious about sellers presenting clean images to buyers. Once that July 1 deadline hits, they will be on the lookout for borders, text, logos, web links, email addresses and huge watermarks. None of these image additions will be accepted after the deadline.

We’ve all seen the images on listings that are surrounded with text that shouts out to buyers, “SHIPS FROM THE U.S.!” or ‘FREE SHIPPING!” I admit that as a buyer, my eye is always drawn to those images, especially when I am buying something common and easily compared like a memory card or an extra cell phone charger.

These brightly adorned images will soon become a thing of the past after July 1. (Or so eBay hopes.)

In addition to bright borders and text, eBay is also getting serious about sellers watermarking their images. Yes, it is still OK to add your photo credits to your images, but eBay says that the opacity of the text can’t be greater than 50%. Also, the watermarks will no longer be allowed to cover the entire item in the photo. Watermarks will not be allowed to cover up more than 5% of the image, although I am honestly unsure of how they would actually measure that.

I use Auctiva’s watermark feature when I’m adding images to my listings. There is a handy opacity slider that I can set to exactly 50%. I can also adjust the size of my watermark so my text doesn’t exceed the allowable size.

Auctiva’s watermark tool is extremely helpful with protecting my images and is very easy to use, but I always save a duplicate of the image since the watermarks I apply with the tool cannot be reversed or updated later.

3) Stock photos for new items only

The updated stock photo requirement says that sellers can no longer use a stock image as a primary photo to represent a used item.

Seems pretty straightforward, right? But you can use an eBay catalog image to represent used items when they fall into the categories of Books, Movies, Music, and Video Games. But if you want to sell a video game console, you will need to use your own image of the item and not a catalog or stock image as the primary image.

Bonus No-Brainer Update: All listings will need to include at least one image.

It’s hard for me to imagine buying anything that does not include a photo on eBay. As a buyer, I want to see as many photos as possible, especially when it comes to clothing, purses or shoes.

If you’ve been having great success on eBay selling image-less items, I’m amazed and I offer you my astounded slow-clap in praise of your efforts. But know that as of July 1, eBay will require you to include at least one image in your listings.

What do you think is the hardest image requirement to adhere to? Do you think these new image policies will improve the eBay marketplace in the long run? We’d love to read what you think in the comment section below!

It’s not every day you are offered a free trip to China, so when Auctiva’s parent company, Alibaba.com, invited the entire Northern California office to its side of the planet for an anniversary celebration, it caught many employees by surprise.

“I didn’t think they were serious at first,” says Brendan Fay, Auctiva’s media production technician. “Everyone just kind of stared at Jeff [Schlicht, Auctiva's CEO], during the announcement in pure shock!”

The company had about five weeks to plan for the long-distance field trip and worked on solutions for everything from how employees would get to the airport (more than three hours away), how to get expedited passports for many of the staff, and, of course, who’d take care of Auctiva.com while the majority of the team was away.

“Everything will be well-covered, and our users will have continued support and site maintenance as if no one had left,” says Auctiva’s Customer Support Manager Mike Davies.

A few of the employees put together a fun preparation video that includes a contrasting view of how two employees, Andy Bonnenfant and myself, Jenny Fuller, like to pack for international travel.

All the employees are feeling very honored to be included in the Chinese celebration. Check back here for some fun travel photos of our adventures.

Here’s why:

When I first began selling on eBay in 1999, I was living in a very remote mountain town ninety minutes from any major city (well, from ANY city), so getting my film developed was no easy task. I only went down the mountain about once a month, and my limited time in civilization was spent shopping for a month’s worth of food and baby supplies, not dropping off film at a 1-hour photo business. Besides, the cost for that luxury was pretty high when compared to the cost of mailing the film into a photo processor. My budget just didn’t have room for that.

So when I had items to list on eBay, I took out my trusty 35mm Pentax and ever-so-carefully took pictures of my items. There was no preview screen like the cameras of today, so I had no idea if the photos were sharp, centered or if the lighting was sufficient. I would place my rolls of film into a York envelope and mail it off.

And wait…

Around ten days later (sometimes it was longer than that) I’d receive a thick envelope back from York with my photos. Yay! I could list my items for sale! Well, not always. I cannot count the number of times I excitedly began sorting through my pictures, only to find that many were blurry, or a portion of the item I photographed was cut-off in the frame. GRRRRR! That meant that if I didn’t have enough good photos of the item, I had to retake them. Then mail the film off.

And wait, again…

Even if I had enough “good” images to include in a listing, I still had to scan them so that I could upload them into the listing. I would lay the photos on the glass bed of the scanner, carefully put the lid down, hit the “scan” button and patiently watch the light bar hum it’s way across. Sometimes even that wasn’t foolproof–there was usually at least one photo that would get cockeyed while I put the lid down. An entire afternoon was often spent scanning, editing, and re-scanning all the photos and saving them on my computer.

Finally, after weeks of prep work and patiently waiting by my mailbox, I would be able to get my listings up on eBay. Even though many sellers didn’t include images of their items, I just couldn’t do that. I wanted buyers to know exactly what they were bidding on–no guesswork required! After doing this for a few years, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a fancy Sony Cyber-shot 3.2 megapixel digital camera (complete with a 16mb memory stick!) to use for my eBay selling. What a difference that made! It wasn’t cheap, but it paid for itself in no time with the increased selling productivity (not to mention the photo processing and postage fees!)

I can’t even imagine going back and doing things the old fashioned way, but I know there are some sellers who still do this. Have you used the “scan” method for photos (or do you currently do this) to use in your eBay listings? Tell us about your experience!

The annual Go Green Challenge was issued once again to Auctiva employees and everyone was encouraged to take a few extra steps to conserve energy and show a little love to planet Earth. For each extra ‘green’ act employees reported to HR, they earned a drawing ticket for the Earth Day prize drawings.

Some employees mowed their lawns using an electric lawn mower, while others chose to walk to work. Many employees participated in an e-recycle program where they donated old cell phones and computers to the local Computers for Classroom program.

On Earth Day 2013, employees enjoyed a delicious pot luck that had everything from a savory chicken and rice dish to a mountain of lunchmeat pinwheels. Afterwards, the winning tickets were chosen. This year, I was happy to hear my name called and I opted for a blue Klean Kanteen, a matching Chico Bag reusable shopping tote and a tube of Sierra Nevada Brewery lip balm. Hooray for winning!

Auctiva employees line up for some delicious pot luck chow!

Eleven other winners were selected and everyone was thrilled with their eco-friendly prize.

Customer Support member, Jaime Raigoza won some movie bucks!

Chris Eckland, one of Auctiva’s Product Managers, chose a Mystery Envelope and won a gift certificate to Starbucks.

Web Designer, Megan Bielich won the greenest prize of call -- $50 cash!

Did you do anything special to commemorate Earth Day this year? Share what you did in the comments below!

If you are selling purses, jewelry, or any item aimed at women, just a simple template change can dress up your listing and catch those shoppers’ eyes.

This first template, appropriately called “Mother’s Day” is an obvious choice for reminding shoppers about the upcoming holiday. It’s clean, simple, and your description text will be easy to read on the light background.

I really like this Rosie template. It reminds me of my own “Supermom” and I think it would be a really fun Mother’s Day themed template. It would also be cool to use to highlight some women’s fitness items, too.

The “A Gift of Love” template is a more classic Mother’s Day themed template. I’m a sucker for the vintage-looking icon at the top of the template.

Auctiva’s “Blossom” template is extremely versatile. I think the nice blue background helps images pop and the contrasting blossom frame won’t compete with your item.

I know, I know…another vintage-themed template, but they really are my favorite! This Cameo Rose template is another clean-looking template that places the focus on your item, while adding subtle details to make your listing stand out from the crowd.

Lately, the color “mint” has been prominently featured in everything from fashion to cell phone listings. This template, called “Wedding Doves” is another great way to showcase the peppy color and add a touch of femininity to your listings. Despite the name, I think this template applies to to a lot more than just wedding-themed items.

What are some items that you enjoy selling for Mother’s Day? Do you notice an increase in sales as the holiday approaches?

Happy selling!

Our shipping insurance rates are less than the ones you will find at the USPS. And with Auctiva, you can set up your shipping insurance rules to auto-purchase coverage, or manually purchase coverage on an item-by-item basis.

Learn more about how to set up your shipping insurance preferences in this Shipping Insurance tutorial.

Happy selling!

This year Auctiva will be fielding two teams; a Tuesday evening men’s team and a Wednesday evening co-ed team. Both teams enjoy getting together after a hard day’s work and enjoying the outdoors.

Here are a couple pictures from a recent practice at one of the Chico State fields.

Auctiva Developer, Bruce Longacre, pitches the perfect strike.

The Online Seller editor, Olga Munoz, gets ready to swing for the fences.

Does the springtime weather get you thinking about outdoor activities as well?

Don’t forget about the Auctiva scheduling tool! Create your listings on your time, then schedule them to post while you’re busy with other things! (Like softball practice or little league games?)

Happy Spring, everyone!

With just a few simple steps, you can create listings that will look good and stand out to buyers whether they browse eBay using desktop computers or smartphones. Check out our latest video for tips on how you can improve your listings and make them more mobile friendly.

When you create your Auctiva listings, do you take mobile shoppers into account? We’d love to read about how you target mobile shoppers in the comments below.

Many sellers are feeling frustrated about the push toward committing to an eBay Store and the changes in eBay’s fee structure, while other sellers are thrilled with the new discounts their store subscriptions will afford them.

Here is a simplified breakdown of some of the 2013 Spring Seller Update changes and how they will affect Auctiva sellers.

A is for Availability

Currently, when a buyer commits to purchase an eligible fixed-price, Buy It Now or Best Offer item, the listing is removed from public view. This can lead to sellers getting duped if the original buyer decides to not go through with the transaction.

Beginning in May, eBay will change the item’s availability to the public.

With this new update, when a buyer agrees to purchase an item, the listing will remain visible to the public until the buyer pays. If a seller accepts a buyer’s offer for a Best Offer item, yet the buyer doesn’t pay immediately, the merchant will still be able to accept other potentially higher offers, since eBay will still be displaying the listing to the public.

The original buyer who made the lower offer, will be unable to post negative feedback or Detailed Seller Ratings since, technically, there was no transaction to rate. (The original buyer simply made an offer, and never completed the transaction.)

If a seller does happen to get a buyer who commits to buy, but then never follows through with the payment, the seller will be able to file a case after two days, versus the current four-day waiting period.

For more details on how eBay is battling the increasing number of unpaid items, be sure to read Auctiva EDU’s recent article “eBay Tackles $468M Unpaid Item Problem.”

B is for Buy It Now and Buyer Feedback

May 1 will mark the start of the new Buy It Now price requirement as well as some buyer feedback changes. Let’s start with the Buy It Now price changes.

Today, if you choose to add a Buy It Now price to your auction-style listing, you would have to make sure the price you entered was 10 percent higher than your starting listing price. Within Auctiva’s One-Page Lister, a listing will generate an error if it detects that your Buy It Now price doesn’t meet eBay criteria.

On May 1, the lister will be updated to meet eBay’s new Buy It Now price requirements that the price must be 30 percent higher than your starting listing price.

Just a new math requirement, but luckily Auctiva’s One-Page Lister will catch any math errors you may make and keep your listing from failing to launch to eBay.

For sellers who have won a case against a disgruntled buyer, eBay has committed to removing all feedback from that buyer regarding the item. After digging a little deeper, I discovered that “all feedback” really means “all.” eBay will remove not just negative or neutral feedback left by the buyer, but also positive feedback, if the shopper happened to leave that.

eBay mentioned that it will notify both the seller and the buyer by email of the case’s decision, and the email will remind sellers about the feedback being removed.

Ultimately, this should be a positive thing for sellers as eBay stated it plans to move quickly in adjusting the feedback.

C is for Casual Sellers Freebies and Category Updates

Casual sellers are defined by eBay as sellers without an eBay Store subscription. Starting April 16, all casual sellers will begin receiving their 50 free listings (either auction style or fixed-price) each month. These casual sellers will also be able to add a Buy It Now option and scheduled listing option without the additional fee.

For these casual sellers, final value fees will change to be a flat 10 percent rate of the total sale price of the item with a cap of $250. Yes, the final value fee will still be calculated by including shipping fees, which gets plenty of sellers steamed up.

There are a myriad of other fee updates as eBay is actively promoting its three eBay Store subscription plans. Each plan can be committed to on a monthly basis or by annual plan, with sellers saving a few dollars by choosing the annual option.

eBay has created a new Fee Illustrator where sellers can plug in their specific eBay selling info to help them determine what Store plan is best for them. ChannelAdvisor’s Scot Wingo also did an excellent job at breaking down the fee changes in his “Part II/II: eBay Announces Spring 2013 Changes – Seller and Fee Changes” blog post.

As products that sellers list continue to change, so do eBay’s listing categories. Our Auctiva lister will begin to display eBay’s new category additions when they go into effect in early May. Hopefully these new specific categories will help buyer find exactly what they need with a quick and detailed eBay search.

Bonus Letter: I is for Images (still)

Remember eBay’s image changes that created such a fuss last year? Well, the enforcement of those eBay-hosted photo changes has been delayed until July 1 of this year (and not July 2012 / fall 2012 like they previously announced).

As a reminder, eBay will flag and block listings that include images that:

- Are smaller than 500 pixels on the longest side

- Have watermarks that include a website or email address

- Show borders

- Show any text (i.e., “Located in the U.S.” or “free shipping!”)

Sellers will need to individually update each image in their listings to meet these new requirements, or they will risk having eBay pull their listings for incompatible images.

Good image-news for Auctiva sellers

If you are an Auctiva seller and choose to host your images with us, only the first image in your listing (the one used for eBay’s gallery image) will need to meet eBay’s strict requirements mentioned above. All other images could contain all the borders and text you desire!

But remember, if you plan on targeting mobile shoppers, you will need to make sure all your images coincide with eBay’s requirements, even if they are hosted by Auctiva, since you will need to manually check the ‘Enable Optional eBay Gallery Images’ box to ensure your images are being seen properly on mobile devices.

What do you think of the recent eBay updates? Do you feel like eBay is continuing to look out for sellers by changing how negative feedback is handled and simplifying final value fees? Have you played with eBay’s new Fee Illustrator to see what your eBay fees will most likely be after the changes go into effect?

We’d love to hear your thoughts in our comment section below.

I’m a bit of a denim head. I have a burning love for raw, premium denim. Something about buying jeans with wear patterns, fading, and holes already strategically placed on the indigo canvas seems a bit too disingenuous to me. There’s something special about getting a nice, stiff — and, truth be told, fairly uncomfortable — pair of raw denim jeans and wearing those suckers ‘til they feel like your favorite pair of flannel pajamas. It’s a process of love; one that harkens back to the days of shrink-to-fit Levi’s.

The wear patterns on your jeans tell your story. Work on a ranch? The ground-in dirt and fading at the knees will show it. Mechanic? Oil stains make for some of the best storytellers — coffee stains too, for that matter. Sit in a cubicle staring at a computer all day? Sadly for me, your jeans will share your dirty little secret.

Here’s is an image of my current favorite pair of jeans. Shout out to the rectangular iPhone fade on my front left pocket! You’re beautiful just the way you are.

Some of my friends think I’m a bit crazy, for lack of a better word. I probably spend far too much of my disposable income on jeans. But hey, it’s not like I have kids or a mortgage, so get off my back, friends!

Now to the story of my listed item

A while back, I purchased a pair of Imogene + Willie Bartons. They really are a beautiful product: Handmade in Nashville, TN, from premium selvedge denim straight outta Cone Mills in North Carolina. That might not mean anything to you, so I’ll sum it up: American-made from some really good stuff.

The jeans come in a standard cut, but the masters at I+W will tailor them to your liking for free. Note, however, that they aren’t returnable at that point. I took my chances anyway and had them tailored, as the initial fit wasn’t absolutely perfect. In hindsight, they actually fit pretty darn good.

When the jeans finally made it to my doorstep, I ripped open the box with the kind of excitement you could only expect from a young’un on Christmas morning. To my horror, something had been lost in translation. There was a misunderstanding and the jeans had been cut to the wrong measurements. They simply did not fit and weren’t wearable. Not by me, anyway.

(Note: This in no way is a knock on I+W. They do fantastic work, and because of their awesome customer service, I would recommend buying from them a million times over.)

I decided to try to turn them into some cutoff shorts for my girlfriend, but unfortunately they didn’t fit her either. My last hope at recouping some of my costs? eBay.

Aiming my listing at a particular audience

I knew these jeans would sell. I’m not the only member of this small, but quickly growing niche market. The question was: How much would they go for?

Now, I would describe myself as “wordy.” It wouldn’t really be my style to just write a quick description and throw the jeans up on eBay. I also felt that the type of person who would bid on a pair of selvedge denim cutoff shorts might share many of my qualities, the most prevalent of which (as many co-workers could attest) is a strange brand of sarcasm that probably goes unnoticed by most normal people.

This is what you might call, “knowing your audience.”

Here’s a breakdown of my thought process:

Q: Who wears tight cutoff jean shorts?
A: Hipsters.

Q: Besides cutoff jean shorts, what do hipsters like?
A: “Obscure” Brooklyn neighborhoods, mustaches, “vintage” technologies, handcrafted artisan consumables, alcohol, coffee, reading, irony, things you’ve never heard of, scoffing at things you have heard of…

The type of person who might be interested in this listing would basically be Lena Dunham from HBO’s “Girls”. Maybe even a really skinny boy version of Mr. Dunham.

So I set out with this in mind. I figured that, with a high-quality product and some targeted copy, I’d have a decent shot at getting a good bid on my cutoff shorts. I knew I wouldn’t make back every dime I spent, but I was happy to recoup even a portion of the cost.

Here’s what I wrote:

“So, this is a long story. About a year ago, I decided to pick up a pair of Barton slim fit jeans from Imogene and Willie. I sent them my custom sizes, and did it wrong. So when they sent them out to me, the jeans were way too tight throughout. (Seriously, the jeans were so tight from the knee down that I couldn’t even get them on past my knees.) I was able to get a second pair, and decided to try to salvage these by turning them into cutoff shorts.

Then I realized that I’m just not a cutoff jean shorts kind of guy. I’m not really even a “shorts” kind of guy, unless I’m swimming. And even then I’m still on the fence.

These are genuine I+W Bartons. Paid the full $250 price for them. The denim is in-cred-i-ble. Seriously awesome stuff. And the construction is unbeatable.

So instead of letting these bad boys languish in the dark, dank depths of my closet, I figured somebody could find some use for them.

Maybe you like super tight cutoff selvedge jean shorts.

Maybe you live in Williamsburg or Flatbush.

Maybe you starred as an extra on HBO’s Girls and have an unexplainable burning love for Lena Dunham.

Maybe you have a handlebar mustache and prefer a typewriter to a laptop, or a portable record player to an iPod.

Maybe you drink only artisan bourbon whiskeys and gins, and enjoy reading first edition copies of Sylvia Plath novels that you bought at your local used book store.

Maybe you drink only the finest cafe lattes crafted from organic fair trade elephant dung coffee beans.

Maybe these are the perfect cutoffs for your summer adventures.

Wear them in. Wear them out. Watch them fade to perfection. Just make sure to take photographs to post to your Instagram or Tumblr or blog or whatever.

Item specifics:

Waist: 29 (if you know anything about raw denim, these will stretch to fit more like a size 30)

Inseam: was 30, now closer to 12”

As you can see, that’s a pretty long item description. Using Auctiva made the process of writing this novel a lot easier. With everything on one page, I was able to revise (as I often do) multiple times as I completed my listing.

I chose to enhance my listing with a nice, simple template. I didn’t want to overwhelm my buyers with a lot of graphics, so I chose a plain black template. I thought it helped the listing stand out and really made the indigo pop!

I posted my listing using some valuable intel from my previous listing experience. I set the minimum bid to .99 cents, but placed a $40 reserve on the jeans, simply because I knew the quality of the denim was worth at least that much.

Within a couple hours of listing, I’d already received a fair number of views and a respectable number of watchers, and even a few bids.The cutoffs didn’t sell for much more than the reserve price, but I was happy with the result. Recouping some of the cost took the sting out of my expensive blunder.

Have you ever tried to add a backstory to an item you were selling on eBay? Did it increase the buyer attention you received? Tell us all about it in our comment section below!