I love technology, especially when it works, so tonight I sat down to make video work with a mobile phone, a 3G network and an eBay listing…. and it not only worked but it was easy!
I used my Skypephone to make a video, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised at the quality.
The next job was to upload the video to vzaar who would host it for me. That was easy, if you log into vzaar you can set a PIN number, then you simply open the browser on your Skypephone and navigate to m.vzaar.com. You’ll be asked for your user name and PIN and then you can upload your video. It’s so much easier than using a PC to get the video onto the Internet.
From then on I created a listing in TurboLister as per normal, but inserted a small piece of code that vzaar provide into my listing. What that code does is to tell vzaar exactly where I’d like the video to appear. Once the auction is created upload from TurboLister to eBay, alternatively you could use the eBay Sell Your Item form, or a third party listing tool.
The final step was to log onto the vzaar website, go to the video I’d sent vzaar from my Skypephone, and tell vzaar which auction I’d like it inserted into. vzaar then do the clever bit and insert the video and my listing is finished!
I guess I could have achieved the same with a normal camera or of course any mobile phone with a camera but it seems a shame not to make use of the Skypephone seeing as I have it. What will be really interesting is to see if anyone Skypes me from the listing. It would be rather neat for the listing to be partially created on the Skypephone and then close the sale with the same device.
14 Responses
still too time consuming and involved for sellers like me,
even the better videos are grainy blured or poorish quality ,
I think there is a danger of giving give a geeky anorak type flavour to an otherwise good listing, or at best over complicating the listing
with so much on ebay, I wonder how many bidders take the time to actually click the arrow,
it would be interesting to have a counter on the video alone to see how many actually bothered with it
Hey North…. there’s a counter for each video in “my vzaar”. You can see how many have viewed the video on eBay and how many directly on vzaar (and you’re right it’s generally less than the auction views, but it’s more than enough to justify it for many items)
not knocking it chris,
I think its a great idea, just a bit clunky and involved at the moment for high volume unique listings
I used vzaar for my 1st listing recently and like all new things there is a bit of a learning curve and a little bit of buggeration to start with. But after I managed to get my file size down (wont too high with quality setting again) get it uploaded (managed to pick an evening when they were having server problems) and managed to reposition the embedded code into my html (which is not a problem if you just just let them position it at the top of listing as then its automated) I was away, well have a looksie at my listing and see what you think. (I’m NOT trying to sell it to you) but it’s the kind of item that benefits GREATLY from being shown moving. Imobile one off items of course are probably not worth putting on video, but there ARE loads of things that are.
https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=330188160007&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
hmm sorry (wont too high with quality setting again) should have read (wont go too high with quality setting again)
Talking about videos, you have probably seen this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYokLWfqbaU it is still making me LOL after two weeks love-in-it! Sorry if you’ve already seen it (it does look old) “tell me why?” la la la la laaa
Ohhh I love those spice racks… I keep meaning to buy one! It’s a great video, and especially the music which suits the product. Well done!
bet ya get some pillock that says this musical spice rack has no sound
OMG! It’s taken a year but now someone’s posted Weird Al on TameBay 😯
It’s hilarious, but Jade, please don’t make me watch it again 😛
PMSL at North….. now that would be funny 😈
lol @ north – Hmm maybe I should have made it clear that it wasn’t musical! Oh well we sold three of these in the last 24 hours so maybe the video is working 😉
So you had seen the Wierd Al vid, darn and here was me thinking I was bringing something fresh to the table 🙂 thats the trouble with the net, something a year two old in net years is like 100 – 200 years old in human years 🙂
Wierd Al is famous, heck eBay used to (I don’t know if they still do) have it as their hold music on the telephone switchboard in Richmond 😀
Jade, that’s a great use of video. Love it. Really shows what you are getting.
Chris and Tamebay, we’re also going to work on some further mobile functionality that allows you to embed the listing from your mobile directly and later on even create the listing.
Obviously that’s not so much geared towards powersellers (per say) but we think it will be a great “time filler”. Shoot a whole lot of vids on your phone, and then when you are sitting on trains and buses or queueing, or otherwise bored, you can just do a few listings.
Be great to sit on a train and make more money on the journey than the train ticket.
We’re currently working on enhancements that will bring greater functionality and ease of use to powersellers, but if we have lots of interest in mobile will look to accelerate this next year.
Hoo! I’ve just put my first Vzaar video in a listing! The listing is for a musical jug, and I thought it would be good for the buyer to be able to hear the musical movement, and see the moving lever move… and I think it is great!
It comes live at 8.30 tonight, when you will be able to see it at item no. 230205672137.
Now I’ve just to try to work out how to use the bit of code that Chris did before…