Writing adds for Ebay

[Ghost]

Hello all,

Since I became a fan of computer games I have collected a large number of games over the years, for the PC and for the consoles, not always with the intention of playing them but because I wanted them for my collection.
But now that urge to collect some of these games has pretty much passed and I am stuck with a load of titles I can't play and don't really have room for, and I could really use some money for future purchases and other things.

I wish to make a couple of adds for Ebay, both for the Netherlands and International but I am a bit stuck with how to make a good one.
Some of you make designs for both online and printed, can some of you give me some advice in how to make a good add I can use for the various games I wish to sell?

[Harrison]

Sure.

The first thing is keep it simple. Anyone looking for an item on ebay wants to see the item and the important information as soon as they go to the page. Often if they cannot find the details within seconds they will give up and look at a different item instead.

ebay now makes things a bit easier as you have some input fields for games, including the condition of the item, if it is new or second hand, the platform it works with etc and so you can include this information easily.

For the actual advert don't go too mad with different text sizes and fonts. And don't use more than four colours within the advert, and this includes the background colour of the page. Just include some basic html to format the advert and make it look nicer than just plain text. Do not use underlining. It looks horrible and you will never see a designer doing it. Instead just make your heading bigger using bold and header tags, which are <b> </b> and <h2> </h2>, placing your text inside of these. Centring the contents of the page also works well normally.

Something else that sometimes looks nice for game sales is if you can include some logos within the page. The logo of the platform the game is for and the title logo for the game itself.

And most importantly make sure you include photographs of the actual item you are selling, not images for a similar item you found online. For games take a good photograph of the case or box, the manuals and the disc or cartridge itself. Also something that can be nice is to also include a picture of the game running to show it works ok.


Finally the price and cost of postage. Make sure you work out exactly what the postage is going to cost so you can include this within the auction to speed up the completion of the auction when it ends so you receive your money faster and can send the item quicker to guarantee positive feedback. As for the price of the item, be realistic. Just because you paid a certain amount for an item doesn't mean it is still worth the same amount. Do searches on ebay and other sites to see what similar items are currently selling for and try to sell your items at a similar price. If you discover something is worth a certain amount then make sure you place a reserve on the item so you don't let it go at a lose.

I hope some of that is useful.

[Ghost]

Hello Harrison

So the best thing would be to make the add in HTML format.
I haven't worked much with HTML lately so I will have to brush up on that again, also no Italic right?

Regarding pictures, I have made pictures of most of the times I plan to sell; boxes, manuals, the CD/DVD, and hope to have pictures oon of the others.

Well I don't have absurd ideas about prices but a couple will be a bit more expensive as I bought them expensive on Ebay and I would like to have back what I paid for it as it is still in good condition.

[v85rawdeal]

I created my ad designs in Dreamweaver, and then copied the design over to Turbo Lister. Once I did that I just added the relevant details in.

Turbo Lister is a great tool, in my opinion, as it allows you to add lots of auctions onto ebay in a short space of time, including pictures, borders and also lets you know beforehand how much your auction will cost to list.

If you do not have it already, it can be downloaded from eBay itself.

Hope this helps you.

[AlexJ]

If you're taking loads of pictures, I find it best to host them on my own webspace and include them in the advert than to use eBay's built in-hosting as they'll charge you an extra fee for each one (you get one free).

[v85rawdeal]

Good point, Alex, I forgot about that. Most of my ads have just the one pic.

[Ghost]

If you're taking loads of pictures, I find it best to host them on my own webspace and include them in the advert than to use eBay's built in-hosting as they'll charge you an extra fee for each one (you get one free).

I was actually worried about that one, I also discussed it with someone else.

Do you know of any free webspaces, I don't have a credit card.

[Stephen Coates]

I just made a simple layout in Notepad and then modify it with the descriptions, prices and pictures, then copy it into ebay.

I sometimes host the pictures on ImageShack, and sometimes I use other servers.

[AlexJ]

As Steve said, http://imageshack.us should be OK - you're limited to images under 1.5MB (which should be plenty) but you can link directly to them and upload as many as you like.

I wouldn't suggest using Notepad to do the HTML though, far easier to use Dreamweaver or, should you not have it, a free equivalent such as Nvu (http://www.nvu.com/)

[Stephen Coates]

As Steve said, http://imageshack.us should be OK - you're limited to images under 1.5MB (which should be plenty) but you can link directly to them and upload as many as you like.

I wouldn't suggest using Notepad to do the HTML though, far easier to use Dreamweaver or, should you not have it, a free equivalent such as Nvu (http://www.nvu.com/)

I've always found dreamweaver quite complicated to use. And considering that the layout of my ebay pages is only very simple, notepad is quite sufficient for making a couple of bits of text bold, underlined, and different sizes, and for adding images at the bottom.

Also, if all you are doing is writing HTML, it is a bit pointless using any other software.

[Ghost]

Hello all,

Thank you for your help and suggestions, I will probably write the adds in Notepad as I don't have Dreamweaver or do I know how to use it (another thing I will have to ask on school).

[Harrison]

Also, if all you are doing is writing HTML, it is a bit pointless using any other software.

Yes and No.

It is perfectly easy to write and edit html using notepad, but only for very simple dicouments that are easy to navigate. The big advantage of any html supporting text editor or dreamweaver is that it colour codes the text and adds number lines, so you can instantly see where the tags are in the text, making it much easier to navigate and edit.

There are free html supporting text editors available that are just as good as dreamweaver if all you need to do is hard coding (direct entry and editing without any program assistance).

www.htmlkit.com (http://www.htmlkit.com) is a free editor I've sometimes used that is good for basic html editing. It also supports plugins to add extra features if needed.

As for Dreamweaver, it can seem complex to begin with but it isn't really. It just comtains a lot of features. It's line numbering and colour coding are again useful for direct hard coding and tt's auto tag completion is very useful as well as it's tag checking. And the built in refrenece manuals to looking up anything in html, css, javascript, php, asp etc is very useful if you need to do something but don't know that tag needed.

The other feature that is very useful is its direct support for many languages. If you are editing a dicument it is will automatically display dropdowns as you type to speed up code entry and so you can see the available options for the tag or command you are typing.

The other thing with Dreamweaver is that you don't have to use all of it's features if you don't need them. When editing a single file you don't need to setup a website or structure. That part of it can just be forgotten about. But if using css then the ability to add your style sheets as reference is very useful as you can instantly pull the css styles you have ceated while editing a site document.

[AlexJ]

You've misquoted me there ;)

from Harrison: Sorry, is now fixed.

[Ghost]

Hi guys,

Sorry for disappearing on you all, again!!!

I haven't been able to work on making adds yet because of other commitments but I am planning to change some things in the coming vacation in how I handle matters such as these, trying to get them as soon as possible finished instead of postponing them.

Would anyone be interested if I made a list of the stuff I plan to sell and post it here?

[Harrison]

Sure. Or maybe post it on the main site's marketplace and then post a link here saying you have added them.

[Ghost]

Hello guys,

I am putting together a list of the games I am planning to sell online, this is not all but the rest lies in storage, I will do them tomorrow.

* * * *

Doom 3
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil

Fable The Lost Chapters
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Area 51
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Deus Ex 2 (CD Rom edition)

Empire Earth
Empire Earth 2

The War of the Worlds

Crimson Skies

Unreal 1 (Replay Edition)
Unreal Expansion: Return to Na Pali

Star Trek Starfleet Command 1
Star Trek Starfleet Command 2
Star Trek Starfleet Command 2: Orion Pirates
Star Trek Starfleet Command 3
Star Trek Klingon Academy

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars

Star Trek TNG: Generations
Star Trek TNG: Honor Guard
Star Trek TNG: Birth of the Federation

Star Trek Armada
Star Trek Armada 2

[Harrison]

Some like the Star Trek games are getting harder to find these days so you might have some interest from buyers for those, but for others like Doom 3 or Deus Ex 2, don't be surprised if you don't get much for them.

Are you going to be selling each individually? Or in bundles? Such as all the Star Trek games together, or maybe in the groups you have them in above?

[Ghost]

Hello Harrison,

Somehow I managed to miss your post.
Actually I am not expecting much for Doom 3/Expansion and Deus Ex 2, but I simply want to get rid of these games as they take up space, plus if I can get five or ten Euros for that, that's okay.

I am not sure about selling some of those games in bundles, probably would be easier to sell games like Honor Guard, Generations and Dominion Wars as a bundle.
To bad that I don't really know what to ask for them :(

[Harrison]

Some of the games you have on offer are quite rare.

Klingon Academy is very hard to find these days and is probably the rarest title there so I would definitely have that on its own. I remember it being hard to find even on release and finding myself a copy was hard enough a few years ago.

Your best bet is to do a search on ebay for each game to see the average prices they are currently selling for. Klingon Academy for example seems to be selling for about £14-20 so is fetching quite a good price. And Starfleet command 3 seems to be quite sort after with one current auction currently up to £17.99.

In contrast Doom 3 is fetching about £3! So that might look more attractive to buyers if bundled with the expansion pack.

I would offer international shipping so that you get more interest from US and other European buyers as many of those games will be of interest to buyers in other countries.

Also a good tip is to work out the shipping costs and include them in the auction page as buyers will then be able to see exactly that the total cost will be. Often people are put off because they are worried about hidden shipping costs at the end of an auction. Many have been stung in the past by high shipping costs.

[Ghost]

Hello all,

I broke my promise of posting the rest of the list yesterday, but here it is now.

* * * *

Half Life
Half Life: Opposing Force
Half Life: Blue Shift
Gunman Chronicles

Sim City (Dice re release)
Sim Town (Dice re release)
Sim Copter (Dice re release)
Sim Earth (Dice re release)
Sim Farm (Dice re release)
Sim Tower (Dice re release)
Sim Ant (Dice re release)

Battle Island Platinum (collection)
Battle Island: Shadow of the Emperor (classic re release)

X Gold

Descent 1 & 2 The Definite Collection

Shadow Watch

Virus 2000

Starsiege

Dark Colony

Mortyr

Syndicate Wars

Total Annihilation
Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency

Atomic Bomberman

Earthworm Jim 3D

Command and Conquer Renegade

Soldiers at War

Space Hulk (re release)
Ultrabots (re release)
Wing Commander 2 Deluxe Edition (re release)
Wing Commander Academy (re release)

US Navy Fighters

Montezuma’s Return

Galaga: Destination Earth

Dominant Species

Falcon 3.0

Gunlok

The Terminator 2029 Deluxe CD Edition

Ultimate Lemmings (replay re release)
Holiday Lemmings

Battle Cruiser 3000 AD (GT select re release)

Ripley’s Believe it or not (Kixx re release)

Rage of Mages

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division

Quake 2

Star Wars X Wing Alliance

Take No Prisoners

X Com Interceptor

Septerra Core

Warbreeds

Orion Burger

Heart of Darkness

Submarine Titans

Civnet
Civilization 2
Civilization 2 Scenarios: Conflicts in Civilization
Civilization 2: Fantastic Worlds
Civilization 2: Muli player
Civilization: Call to Power

Warlords 3: Darklords Rising
Prince Of Persia 3D

Deep Fighter

Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday
Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed

Elite 2: Frontier

Star Trek Borg

[Harrison]

That's quite a list of games you are selling.

But Elite 2: Frontier? Why would you want to sell that one! :o

[v85rawdeal]

I was surprised to see Frontier listed too, but I did have my heart set on seeing The Elder Scrolls: Arena (Big Box) listed.... Ah well...:no:

[Ghost]

Hello Harrison, hello v85rawdeal,

Right now I am looking at a shitload of games, I have gathered over the years, some I have played with and others for the sake of collecting.
After a while the fun of owning games that were special to you in some way passes, and you realise you have invested in quite a bunch.

I still do like some of the old games, and adventures such as Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, the Dig (several more Lucasarts), Star Trek 25th Anniversary, Judgement Rites and so on will not leave my collection, but for the rest, well I have enjoyed owning them, now I am over it.

Regarding Elite 2: Frontier, heh, I actually haven't been able to run that game because I had Windows already, these days it simply doesn't hold my interest anymore.

There are still a lot of games I wonder if I should get rid of them

System Shock 2

Homeworld
Homeworld Cataclysm
Homeworld 2

Giants Citizen Kabuto
Armed and Dangerous

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire

Hired guns

Sub Culture

Journeyman Project
Journeyman Project Pegasus Prime
Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time
Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time

D/Generation

Sim City (Dice re release)
Cyberia (Dice re release)
Castles 2: Siege and Conquest (Dice re release)
Battle Chess (Dice re release)
Blackhawk (Dice re release)

Descent 3
Descent 3 Mercenaries

Freespace: The Great War
Freespace Expansion
Freespace 2
Buldur's Gate + Expansion (small box)

MDK2 (without manual unfortunately)

Secret Weapons of the Luftwave
Secret Weapons over Normandy

Bad Blood
Wing Commander
Super Wing Commander
Wing Commander Deluxe Edition
Wing Commander 1 + Wing Commander 2 twin pack
Wing Commander Privateer
Wing Commander 3 (EA classics box)
Wing Commander 4 (EA classics box)
Wing Commander Prophecy (EA classics box)
BioForge (probably with strategy guide) (EA classics box)

Star Trek Elite Force
Star Trek Elite Force 2

Star Trek Starfleet Academy
Star Trek Starfleet Academy: Chekov's Lost Missions

Elite Plus

Epic
Epic 2: Inferno

Unnatural Selection

Wasteland (still in original wrapping) + Strategy Guide (not mint condition, got it like that)

Lost Vikings
Lost Vikings 2: Norse by Norsewest

Dark Force 2: Jedi Knight

Starcraft Brood Wars

Myst 5 End of Ages (deluxe)


I also have a selection of games that would be unsellable outside the Netherlands because the manuals are Dutch;

Dark Forces (jewel case)

Starcraft

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine

Planescape Torment


BTW, I forgot to add these to the earlier list

Star Trek TNG Hidden Evil

S.T.O.R.M.

Alien Earth

Fragile Alliance


And then I have a load of Amiga games such as;

Cannon Fodder

Mega Lo Mania

Walker

James Pond
James Pond 2
James Pond 3

Captive
Captive 2: Liberation (both disc and CD32 version)

Impossible Mission 2025 (both disc and CD32 version)

Zeewolf

Fantastic Voyage

Apocalypse (bad quality box :( )

Epic (Amiga)

Starflight

Dragon Wars


And a couple for the Atari ST:

Sundog (still in original wrapping)

Time Bandit


* * * *

Sorry v85rawdeal, I never bought any of the Elder Scroll games.

Anyway, I am not sure if I should get rid of these games, but I won't play them so quickly either anymore.

[v85rawdeal]

I had a thought about the Dutch versions.

It should be quite easy to track down English PDFs of the instructions. You could grab them, print them out and include them with the game (along with the original instruction book). As long as the game itself is not restricted to Dutch, then I don't imagine that people would mind too much, if they are definitely interested in getting the game.

The only Elder Scrolls games I need are the big box Arena and big box Redguard. I have all the others.

Oh well, must keep looking!!!

[Harrison]

So you have never played Frontier then Ghost? One of the greatest games of all time! You can run it via DOSBox so can play it in Windows. You also listed the Homeworld games. A series that is still as playable as the day it was releases. I will never get rid of my copies of those games.

[Ghost]

Hello Harrison,

Regarding the Homeworld games, well as I wrote down before, I am not sure if I should get rid of them.
I have many games now I no longer play and I wonder if I should continue being a collector or get rid of some of the older stuff.

[Harrison]

The other option is to make yourself a copy of the games you are going to sell. Then you still have them. ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

You spent quite a lot of money for games then? I saw you also have Septerra Core, I also have that one and played it through. One of the only true turned based japanese like RPGs for the PC.

[Harrison]

I've not played Septerra Core. Would it still be worth playing?

[Demon Cleaner]

I've not played Septerra Core. Would it still be worth playing?Yep, I liked it a lot. The world you play in is pretty cool, it has 7 different levels, the higher being for the more noble people, whereas the lower levels for vagabonds, tramps and that kind of people, as on upper levels the dirt is literally dropped, and falls down to the lower ones.

I liked the setting a lot, and also the game. But I have to say, I played this one at the time I also played FF7 and FF8, and I compared them. Its combat is also turn based like in the FF games, graphically looking like Fallout.

Here's (http://www.valkyriestudios.com/scgame.htm) a little link with some screens.

[Harrison]

Thanks for the link. I like that style of graphics and it doesn't look like it has dated too badly. I will definitely track down a copy of this one. :)

[Ghost]

Geeh, I wonder if anyone is planning to offer a copy for sale for a reasonable price. :D

I in general liked the game but I found it disappointing that it suffers from the Japanese RPG curse, re-use of enemies by giving them a different colour.