Using HTML for eBay auction design.

When setting up an eBay auction what you are given is space on a web page and the opportunity to create your own web page design using HTML. This is a powerful tool to be given, so use it.

Here are some reasons why you should use this option;

• Set up and store auction in advance of start time.
• Preview auction in web browser.
• Use several images of any size for free.
• Create an auction template.

All that is needed is an HTML editor and an image hosting service. Both of these are free, see the links page for download details.

The HTML editor.

What does an HTML document look like? Click on the image and find out. This is a screen shot of the HTML editor with an auction template open. HTML-kit is a free HTML editor, download it from www.chami.com and use it to build your auction description.

The coding and text is colour coded, black text will appear as text in the design and various colours are used to denote the HTML coding. There are several editing functions available from the drop down menus at the top of the screen, the drop down menu under Actions enables various HTML codes to be selected.

There is also an auto complete function for creating attributes. Place the cursor before the > in a start tag and then press the space bar. Wait a second and a menu will appear which contains all the attribute options for that HTML tag, select and click will write the attribute code.

HTML templates

An HTML document, such as a web page or an auction template, is denoted by the extensions .htm or .html, for example; template.htm . These documents can be saved on a PC and will be opened by a web browser when clicked.

Here are six basic templates, right click on a button and select "save target/link as".

Open a template with the HTML editor, type in the description and paste the image link into the image area (see image hosting for details) then save. This can be previewed with the editor or any web browser.

When ready to configure your auction copy the template HTML text and paste into the eBay auction HTML area and continue with the configuration.

This is an example, ready to insert into an eBay listing, click to view.

Tip: www.htmldog.com has useful HTML tutorials and guides.

Image hosting.

Images for auction listings may be stored by image hosting services. There are several free image hosting services to choose from, the one I use is Photobucket. Very easy to use, upload the photograph and they will store the image and generate the HTML code. Several links are provided for a variety of uses, for Ebay use the Direct Link. Shown below is a Photobucket stored image and the provided links.

Below is a typical image link as provided by Photobucket. This may look complicated but it is simply a matter of copying the provided link and pasting it into the auction description.

An HTML image tag needs to be added to the link, as shown below.

It is possible to add several photographs to a listing. Each image code needs to be on a new line. If two image codes are placed together on the same line then some browsers may "stick" the photos together and stretch the web page horizontally.

If the photographs are small enough they will appear horizontally across the screen. To have the photo's appear vertically line breaks need to be inserted between the images, like so.

Web browsers

Web browsers can be used for viewing saved templates. Find the saved template and click on it and it will be opened with the default browser. There are many web browsers to choose from, Internet Explorer being popular as it normally included with the Windows operating system. Here is a brief list of popular browsers;

• Internet Explorer most used browser.
• Firefox Very capable browser.
• Safari This has a stylish look to it.
• Opera A browser that has been around for a long time.
• Chrome Newest and fast browser, bound to become popular.

It is possible to have several browsers installed on a PC and have them open at the same time. One browser is set as the default browser, this is the one that will automatically be used for browsing. To use other browsers, click on their program icon to open it then begin browsing. To open saved templates, right click on the template icon and select open with and then click the required browser's icon.

In theory all browsers should display web pages (and templates) identically however there are differences. For this reason it is good practice to view any templates/listing with different browsers and fix any such problems, using just Firefox and Internet Explorer should show the main discrepancies.