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What kind of browser are you using for online
surfing? Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera??
Sure, all are good programs but I want to talk
about an excellent program called Netscape. If
you use Netscape, do you know that you also get
an amazing WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)
web design program called Netscape Composer for
free? Basically you don’t need expensive
HTML editors anymore. The list of commercially
available HTML editors software is endless –
and the price tags are enormous. Most people don’t
want to spend a lot of money to get started with
their eBay business. Fair enough, since the goal
is to make money and not to spend money. So it
makes perfect sense to use a program to design
auction listings which is available for free.
And such a program is Netscape Composer.
It has the same professional features like FrontPage
or any other similar program. To design stunning
and professional looking eBay auction sites with
Netscape Composer you need to download Netscape
first. If you start up the program, select File->New
Composer Page and basically you can start immediately
to design your auction listings. You can make
you letters in any colour, bold, italics, use
background colours (or even images) etc. The options
are endless. You can save this file on your local
hard drive as html file. I used to have one file
for every listing I generate. The best thing is
that once you have got a nice and professional
looking eBay auction listing, you can use it for
ever. Just open your last listing in Netscape
Composer and edit according to your new item.
Amazingly, this takes only a couple of minutes.
But how do you transfer your listing saved as
a html file on your local hard drive to eBay?
The answer is simple. Once you have logged in
into your eBay account and selected your category
and starting price you have to type in your
“item description”. Did you see that
eBay allows HTML format? Have a look when you
launch your next listing. That’s the time
where you go back to your new listing you just
have created with Netscape Composer. Down the
bottom of your Netscape Composer page you’ll
see a button called: SOURCE - the source code
of your listing. Click on that and highlight
and copy the entire text. Select then the eBay
site and paste this text into the “Item
description box”. Make sure that all links
are working and that all photos are uploaded
to the Internet.
When you have finalised your listing you will
be surprised. A stunning and professional looking
“DIY-listing”. You can always use “ready-to-go”
auction templates and edit these according to
your item. You’ll see that with an professional
auction design you can easily attract more buyers
and get higher bids. It’s worth the effort.
Keep in mind that professional web design software
is highly expensive and does the same job. Alternatively,
you can choose from a huge variety of third party
auction services doing the job for you. But hey,
there are incredibly expensive too. Don’t
you think that the eBay fees are high enough and
you can easily do it yourself without spending
any additional dollars. It’s really simple!
About the author:
Thomas Haselhorst is webmaster of http://www.auction-design-for-free
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