I make a bit of pocket money on eBay, but now the image hosting service I was using, honesty.com, was apparently sold to something called andale. It is too complicated for me. I only list 4-6 auctions a month. Can anyone recommend an easy to use, low-cost image hosting service so I can continue to list on eBay?

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 08, 2001

Answers

Ken, I do a bit of selling on ebay and I am not sure what an image hosting service is. Does this have to do with putting photos in the ad? Because if it does, I just use ebay's service. Seems to work well for me- what have I been missing?

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 08, 2001.

Why not just put the images on your web site. AOL has personal web sites for each user. Put it there.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), July 09, 2001.

homestead.com and spree.com still allow linking to pictures. Check out homestead. Allot of sites have quit letting people link to pictures anymore.

http://www.angelfire.com/or/iginall/relayskoolcontents.html

This site has a bunch of help about this subject.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), July 09, 2001.

No you don't need one. You just need one of the free web hosting sites. I use Geocities/Yahoo. You sign up for free to create your own web page. It is real real easy. You then just download your photos to your website in .jpg format (you don't have to actually "make" a web page...just add your photos to what will "be" your webpage). When you do your ebay ads there is a place for the address of your webpage and --- voile!! --- your photos are inserted into you Ebay ads. Email me if you need more info. It is very easy!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 09, 2001.

Ken, It's pretty easy, and I'll try to describe the process as best I can, though I am nearly computer illiterate so it may not make sense. But, on the listing form on ebay, there is a block for the title, below that is a block for the description. Just below the description is a section for pictures. I only use one picture for most items since they charge for additional photos. I mostly sell books anyway, so that is all I usually need. Next to the slot for the first picture is a button which says "browse". You click on the browse button- on my computer this opens a "choose file" box. I just scroll through the files till I get to where I have stored that photo. I select the photo and then click on "open". This loads the photo into the ebay ad. If this doesn't work for you look in the pictures box- there are instructions that you can read through- they are also a little confusing- it took me a couple of tries as I tend to follow the directions leterally and often find that the keystrokes, etc that they list don't always work exactly as described. FYI- ebay now has a free listing service called Mister Lister- I started using this a few weeks ago and it is enormously helpful, especially if I have 20 or so ads to place. Look on ebays home page for a link. Good luck. Email if you have trouble and I'll try to give a better description.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 09, 2001.

I just started selling on Ebay this last month but I've been using www.baypal.com for my image hosting. You can still use Andale (Honesty.com) for counters, I think.

-- Lisa in WI (lehman16@vbe.com), July 09, 2001.

Ken, Not sure if my earlier email was clear. I don't know all the correct terminology for this stuff, somehow I just manage to muddle through the process. I'll try to clarify here- When I save a digital picture on my computer, which I do using "Picture It Express", the program asks me which file to store the photo in. Then, when I am writing my ebay listing and get to the photo section, I hit "browse" and get the "choose file" box, as I said earlier. I can then scroll through all the files on my hard drive until I get to the one in which I have stored the photos.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 09, 2001.

Thanks folks! I've, at least temporarily, gone with baypal.com. Not terribly hard to use once I found the upload button at the very bottom of a screen. I thought eBay didn't store images on their networked, but went to a link each time an auction was called up. If so, how could they access my harddrive when my PC is not in use? Am I wrong and they do upload your images into eBay's network?

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 10, 2001.

Ken- Yes, the image is stored along with the text of your ad.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 10, 2001.