File size, slooow load times and big drop in sales

When I began to use Auctiva, and after I passed the stage of the 'learning curve' my auction bids INCREASED. I found that my auction pages were so much more professional and easy to view. No one has ever complained to me that my auctions took an overly long time to load.

I'm thinking that it may be my pictures that are loading slow. I was just checking the properties of some of them and they were pretty big. With the compression program I just installed today I can get any estimate of how long it will take the image to load at 56K speed and one of them said it would take over a minute. WOW I was able to shrink that to about 17 seconds without loosing to much of the picture quality. I think that the problem I am having is due to the fact the my last image host autmaticly optimized the files when I uploaded them so I didn't realize until now how important that was. Hopefully that is what the porblem is and sales will pick up now.
I've only been using auctiva for two weeks, maybe it's just a dry spell.

Thanks for your response, it's comforting to hear from someone who had more success using auctiva. I definately think my auction look much more professional.

thanks
Angie

quote:

My previous auction listing tool had an image compression feature

We automatically optimize your photos when you upload them. They are compressed to a very good size for display in your listings. The only reason to compress them before uploading is to speed up your uploads. Not compressing them before uploading them won't make them any slower for your buyers since we optimize them for you automatically once they are on our site.

I checked one of your listings and the photo you uploaded was 74k bytes. We optimized that for your listing to 13k bytes. That would load in about 3 seconds on a modem. Your original file was 74k bytes. That would take about 17 seconds if the buyer clicked the supersize link to view that photo. The photo we put into the listing though would only be 3 seconds.

The template you used that looks like electricity is about 42k bytes. The first time a buyer views your listing it would take about 10 seconds. After that their computer would have the images and any further listings wouldnt take any time.

Summer is typically a slow time on eBay. Also for the past 2-3 weeks eBay has been running discounted listing fee sales and the site gets flooded with items.

You could use this software to alter your pics before uploading also. It's a free download and I've used it for years.

http://www.irfanview.com/

My sales escalated when using Auctiva.

I will tell you that Jeff's tellin the truth..summer sales are always down. I retire 3 of my eBay IDs during the summer as to me, there's just no sense in selling items during that time and practically giving them away.
If I wait until late summer/early fall...I get lots more money for the same item.

Good Luck,
Donna

This all certianly makes sense. I never even thought of the fact that I started using auctiva right at the time eBay had all those sales. I'm sure that had a big effect, because there are several sellers under selling my prices. I'm still trying to figure out how they can afford to sell things cheaper than I can buy them at cost.
Anyway, it is good to know that summer is a down time. I just started selling on a full time basis in July. So far I am loosing money and I was getting discouraged. Just knowing summer is a down time will help me hang in there for a while before thinking about changing my product line.

thanks again
Angie

I always retire 3 out of 4 of my selling IDs from May through late August/early September. I've been selling almost 8 years and I learned along the way.

If you're ever puzzled about how long a page takes to load in..here's a nice site.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Good Luck,
Donna

Hi,

Just for the record, I was using Vendio before, paying about $40-$50 per month, and I have seen no decrease or increase in my sales, summer is always a little slower on eBay however.

Ricky

Thanks for the link, that is a useful tool. I will be able to use that for testing my website once I have it going. It has been comforting to hear everyone say summer is slow. I just started selling this summer so I had nothing to compare my sales to. I don't know if this is a trend or not, but my sales have picked up the closer it gets to the end of the month. I noticed the same thing last month. It just seems that I switched to Auctiva right in the middle of the down time. So far I love their service. There are so many companies out there looking to get rich off of ebay sellers and Auctiva is providing basicly the same thing for free. I don't know how they do it. My auctions look so much better now. My only gripe is the excessive number of logos and links Auctiva puts in listings. I understand their need to advertise, but I feel that one discrete link at the bottom of the auction is plenty.
Auctiva staff, if your listeing, I would even be willing to pay a SMALL monthly fee to have those links and logos go away completely.

Thanks again for all the input.
Angie

I'm a real 'newbie' all around. I've done a bit of buying on ebay and a small bit of open auction selling, but didn't open store until last week in July with great expectations. Listed too much stuff, caught up in ebay sales. Almost went for the last one just before raised prices and figured out -- remove from store inventory for 10 cents for seven days put you to a relist cycle back to store inventory going from about .08-.10 to a jump of .33 with nothing selling, (have not sold 1 item yet, thinking my merchandise line), caused me to stop moving out of store inventory when those items had another 15 days of listing time to go. Ebay was the only winner.
Lovetra ---- Hum! Lessons along the way!

I agree completely. I fell for the same thing. I was thinking wow what a great sale for moving things out of store and into auction. Non of the auctions sold and again the only winner was eBay. I wonder how many times they are going to stick it to sellers before sellers start taking their business elsewhere? Yahoo, Amazon, personal websites, ect.... They wrap all their investments in the buyer and pay no attention to the fact that without sellers there aren't any buyers.

I've branched out to Overstock, my own website, Bidville, Blujay, Ubid and several other forms.

I'm also be selling on eBay as the "hot" selling season is coming up.

I don't have any plans to stop spreading my wings..independence is the key.

Plus, summers are so frightfully slow. If it had been my first summer, I'd have been discouraged, too.

If there is ANYTHING I can do or answer questions or give you links...Lemme know.

(I have links a mile long, ha)

My Best,
Donna

resize your images to 800x600 with photoshop, there's no need to have bigger images then that, and nomatter where you upload your pics, they would load pretty quick & with bigger pics it loads slower.

p.s. how does the galary function on auctiva.com actually work? i know it costs money when u select it, but when u don't select it, in your standard ebay box of other items they have also no pictures? why is that? have i done something wrong? on the auctiva.com template of other listings no problem with the pictures, is this normall or have i done something wrong?

Hey guys, I'm a little new at auctiva too. I am still trying to get a feel for using all the folders, but I know that once everything is profiled and foldered it will be an amazing setup. I love the templates, and I love the ability to customize with Html. I am also new with html, and it seems to be a knowledge that is becoming outdated, but still highly capable of creating amazing looking listings. I also have to say auctiva's editor is great, and since using auctiva I've had more CUSTOMER RETENTION. It looks like a real store now!

welcome

be aware that around a certain time the image section of auctiva is down alot.

try custumizing your templates, and using tables, i don't know mutch about html as well, but with auctiva results turn out beautifull.

don't forget to use the sellers details profile, start building up profiles for everything, exactly as you said with catogorizing, making profiles etc. in the long run this will save alot off your time.

welcome aboard m8