2000-07-03
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eBay Blues
I'm having the eBay blues. What I'm not having is any luck at all selling my crocheted bag on eBay. Either this is not the correct market for my work, or all my prospective buyers are on vacation, or there will be a real run on it in the last 90 seconds of the bidding period. Whatever the case, I'm planning to try craft sales elsewhere next auction.
How this got started: several members of a crafters' group to which I belong have had such good luck selling their handmade items on eBay that I thought I'd try. So I got a picture all ready, wrote out my item description, and started merrily down the road to hell.
It was supposed to be SO easy! The freeware ad-making program was going to let me have a nifty colored background for my scintillating prose. And using the ad's template, I could place the picture where I thought it best (centered was my choice). All I had to do was upload the picture to my service provider's FTP space. Now I've done this another couple of times, and it's worked fine. Not last week! Nope, the FTP server apparently burped in mid-upload, and all that got to the space was part of the filename and an incorrect size. Of course, no error message popped up. When did I find out this picture wasn't there? When I tried to view the item AFTER the auction had started.
I made two attempts to fix it, then decided to take a break before trying again. I was almost ready to amend my ad text and offer to send the picture via e-mail attachment to anyone who wanted to see it. And I was beginning to be sorry I had ever learned how to crochet.
During the break time, I found another place to "park" the picture, though it didn't work exactly right with the ad-making program. Suddenly the ad text had moved over to the right side of the web page, with the picture's click-through to its left. Okay, though, mission accomplished and the picture was viewable. I could go to sleep and let the bidding begin. Which it hasn't, but you know that.
A couple of days later, in the course of answering e-mail regarding the FTP foulup, I decided on a lark to see if I could upload the picture to the ISP's space. Of course it worked this time.
It was too late at night to scream out loud without accidentally summoning the police.