Hosting ebay images on your store site

Since you can't put links to your store in ebay descriptions, but you can put links that lead to photos or more information, I have seen some people that have had links from their ebay site go to a photo on there store that shows just the photo, but the rest of the store layout around it. So like you would click a thumnail on ebay, and it will take you to a large picture on a page that has their store logo, and all links that navigate you around their store. What is a good way to do this, to have just a page with a photo or description, but with all your store layout around it?

Not sure what is allowed but a url to the product info page might do??

Or EZpages?

A link to the product info is not allowed because you are able to buy from that page, thus, circumventing the ebay fee's.

shirster's suggestion of ezpages would be allowed because there would be no "Buy" link on the page. You are allowed to include a link from that ezpage to the product description page.

eBay's enforcement of these rules is quite strict (and rightly so, they don't want you using them for free advertising) so I'd suggest reading their published policy before proceeding.

As stated as long as it is to a page that provides additional information not included in the listing or impossible to include in the listing you should be OK.

Another good idea is to watermark your images with your web address. Obviously not clickable but your url will be unmissable.

Sorry to bring up this old thread. Just wondering if someone has already implemented something like this.

I'm thinking of doing something similar. What I have in mind is first having ZC create the listing description including links to bigger images, then I can just copy and paste and create and submit my ebay listing.

When the user clicks on one of the images to view the larger image, this would open in a new page. It would show the bigger image, plus at the bottom or somewhere on that same page display a gallery of some of my other ebay listings, plus a search box to search my ebay listings. Sort of what auctiva does. It would also incorporate my eBay affiliate id, just like auctiva and other similar offerings work.

I know this is doable, though I really don't know what would be the best approach. I was experimenting with this yesterday using some of the pages ZC already has, but I think it might be to complicated that way.
I think it might be easier and better to create a new php script to do this instead of just modifying ZC's existing pages.

I'm thinking probably creating a script called something like generate_ebay_listing.php to do this.
Then to create the description for an ebay listing the script could be used with something like myzcstore.com/generate_ebay_listing.php?model=modelhere

What do you guys think?

When the user clicks on one of the images to view the larger image, this would open in a new page. It would show the bigger image, plus at the bottom or somewhere on that same page display a gallery of some of my other ebay listings,
I thought the idea of having your own cart system was to get away from the ebay fee structure???
Why not link to your site within the allowable ebay constraints and accept orders there apart from ebay and not the other way around??

I just require users to pay for items at eBay through my cart. http://stampcommune.com/store/ using their eBay username. I have to create the item at the end of the auction but it gets them to my store and vice versa.
GJW

This is what I ended up doing. This item has sold but you can still look at it to see what I did:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=360023684527&ssPageName=STRK:MESO:IT&ih=023

It took some because this item has 20 pictures, so what I did was make 20 ez pages and then came up with a template in HTML to post in ebay. I actually used auctiva to list it and it made it easier. When I want to put a new item in there, instead of redoing everything, I just name the pictures I want as the same filenames I have in the ezpages and on the template I made for ebay, then everything comes out with the new pictures and I don't have to make new ezpages or anything. I would imagine most people don't have 20 pages for an item so it would be much easier than this.

kobra:

I thought the idea of having your own cart system was to get away from the ebay fee structure???
Why not link to your site within the allowable ebay constraints and accept orders there apart from ebay and not the other way around??

Agree.

However, you can use eBay as an excellent tool to get more customers to your regular online store.
When I check the referral links in my site statistics, at least 50% are coming from eBay. You can't just ignore this.

Another thing, it's being my experience that eBay shoppers are not the brightest people. You'd be surprised to see how many times people bid on my auctions up to twice what I sell for with a 'buy it now' in my ebay store, and much more than I sell them for on my ZC shop.

I used to contact people like this and tell them they could use 'buy it now' and get it for half the price of what they were bidding or to go visit our regular website and they could pay even less. But almost no one listens. If they want to pay more, who am to argue with them, God bless them. :)

There are also ways to get reduced ebay fees.

stampsville, you might want to take a look at the Auction Lister Pro mod. I think it lets you have your eBay customers checkout through your ZC store without you having to create the items manually.

dman76, that looks nice, but that's a lot of work. Also, I think it goes against eBay rules since the navigation column contains links you can use to buy products, but who cares, screw eBay. :)

I think I read in Auction Lister Pro's description that it can create html descriptions including images, though I have not tried it yet or seen any listings created with it.

tj1

I looked at ALP, but there seems to be to many issues for me that I don't have time to deal with right now. I haven't seen or heard of anyone using it yet either. I actually tried yesterday again and now it required keys...from eBay and there are no install instructions anywhere, it's all within here and the ALP website. Very confusing trying to follow the trails.

Thanks for the insight
GJW

Yeah it was a lot of work the first time around but I have just beeing listing one item like that at a time on ebay so like I said its pretty easy just to rename all the pictures so they match the old one. Now you got me wondering if that is against ebays terms. I thought it was as long as it doesn't take you directly to a page where you can buy something (which it doesn't), then it is ok. Oh well, you're right, they are making their fees ridiculous now anyways. I used to have a ebay store and that was a joke. The way your items come up in search if you have them in a store is worthless.

tj1:

There are also ways to get reduced ebay fees.

Sure are. Quit and go somewhere they know they need sellers.