Jump to content

OT gripe: Why do people have such poor pictures on eBay?


ripe

Recommended Posts

  • Members

It seems like everyone on eBay must only have cellphone cameras with vaseline on the lens and live in a dark cave!

 

Then they state in the description "has a few scratches" or "normal wear".

 

Or they post a nice stock photo plus a 120x120 pixel thumbnail of "actual item", which is usually blurry, cropped or otherwise unusable.

 

This is such a pet peeve of mine. When I post auctions, I usually have 5 or 6 high resolution 1024x768 or greater pictures of the item, with even higher available on request.

 

What are all these 8MP cameras being used for?!

 

sorry, just venting

ripe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

It seems like everyone on eBay must only have cellphone cameras with vaseline on the lens and live in a dark cave!


Then they state in the description "has a few scratches" or "normal wear".


Or they post a nice stock photo plus a 120x120 pixel thumbnail of "actual item", which is usually blurry, cropped or otherwise unusable.


This is such a pet peeve of mine. When I post auctions, I usually have 5 or 6 high resolution 1024x768 or greater pictures of the item, with even higher available on request.


What are all these 8MP cameras being used for?!


sorry, just venting

ripe

 

 

One or both:

1) They are stupid

2) They are trying to hide something

 

I will never bid on an item unless there is a good clear picture and I get a relatively prompt (within a day or so) response from the seller answering a test question. Test questions I use might be "does it come with the original box and/or manual?" (if no mention of with/without box and/or manual is mentioned), "are you the original owner?", "do all the XLR jacks release properly?" (I have a dBX compressor that has a faulty jack release), etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Ok there is a good side to all of this.

Bad pictures will turn away a lot of prospective buyers. So if you know what you're looking at and the seller seems legit, chances are you will be getting the item for cheaper than you would if the pictures were good. I have bought a few things like that in the past going mostly by the seller's description rather than pictures (because they sucked) and haven't been disappointed yet. Got them cheap, too.

So take yer chances, count yer choices :cop:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

What are all these 8MP cameras being used for?!

 

 

More noise? 8MP doesn't mean crap. Plus, eBay scales the pictures down and only allows you to post the absolute minimum.

 

Blame the people who are still running Windows 98 on a 640x480 14" fishbowl CRT - you have to take the lowest common denominator into account.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

More noise? 8MP doesn't mean crap. Plus, eBay scales the pictures down and only allows you to post the absolute minimum.


Blame the people who are still running Windows 98 on a 640x480 14" fishbowl CRT - you have to take the lowest common denominator into account.

 

 

Actually I am of the opposite viewpoint, people with low res/dialup can suffer. If they really are interested in buying something people will take the time to download/scroll for big pictures.

 

And with a higher MP camera you can take a photo from further away and crop to get a more detailed close-up before downscaling, which helps if you don't have a proper lens, or can't focus/use a camera properly for a close-up.

 

There are free sites to upload hi-res pics, or you can register your own domain (as I did) to host your own pictures.

 

Barring all of that, at least take the photo in good lighting. Even outside if you have to. I don't need to see a candlelit dinner with the item I'm interested in.

 

as an example here is one of my old auctions: elektron sfx-6

Not that I'm some great photographer or anything.

 

cheers

ripe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

More noise? 8MP doesn't mean crap. Plus, eBay scales the pictures down and only allows you to post the absolute minimum.

 

 

Not always true - pictures can be hosted outside of eBay, which is what I've been doing for years.

 

Look at the bright side -- as buyers, we can sometimes get a good deal because of sellers poor photo skills!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
  • Members

When I sold my Prophet 10 a colleague of mine was generous enough to put together a multi media auction with at least 10 pictures, a yootoob demonstration, and a wav file of the thing. It was a hell of an effort...

 

The damn thing didn't sell.

 

6 months later some joe puts one up for $1K higher, tosses in one picture of about 30% of the synth, adds a description to the tune of: P10 synth, works; and the thing sold in 3 hours.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

I resurrected this thread just for this auction... bravo!


It's like they were taking a photo of the elusive sasquatch, it's a good thing they snapped that picture before it got away!




cheers

ripe

 

 

"item is like new bought on ebay and suddenly realized i couldnt play keys and have no interest in learning them so my loss is your gain comes with midi uno to connect to computer and instruction booklet and fantom editor software any questions please ask i will also cconsider offers"

 

Classy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I know, speaking for myself, that sometimes you don't reallly want to get rid of the synth, but figure if someone really wants to pay enough for it, youll let it go.....therefore.....little time and effort goes into it........

 

does anyone really want to get rid of their Jupiter 8 ???

 

but for $4500 ???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

When I sold my Prophet 10 a colleague of mine was generous enough to put together a multi media auction with at least 10 pictures, a yootoob demonstration, and a wav file of the thing. It was a hell of an effort...


The damn thing didn't sell.


6 months later some joe puts one up for $1K higher, tosses in one picture of about 30% of the synth, adds a description to the tune of: P10 synth, works; and the thing sold in 3 hours.

 

 

I have had similar experiences, I think there is a fine balancing act to getting the auction to look "not too professional" vs. "sketchy".

 

Maybe it's a psychological thing, the buyer wants that "got a deal at a garage sale" feeling, rather than the "The ad looks too nice, the seller must be ripping me off" feeling.

 

cheers

ripe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

It's all about the GAS of the buyer... people usually know what they want and if they want a Prophet 10 or Jup 8 or Rhodes Chroma, they already know what they want and why they want it. And most people don't even care if it looks 100% mint or if it has some small scratches, GAS doesn't care that much about that, at least for most people. So if you put 1 picture or 10 plus a video produced by George Lucas, if someone's got GAS at that time they'll get it, if nobody does, it's not gonna get sold.

That's the world of synths I guess... and other instruments too. Yesterday I got close to a thousand dollars worth of equipment for a bass that cost me 450 dollars and is very hard to sell, and the guy wouldn't stop throwing stuff at me because he had GAS and had to have my bass :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Anonymous

 

When I sold my Prophet 10 a colleague of mine was generous enough to put together a multi media auction with at least 10 pictures, a yootoob demonstration, and a wav file of the thing. It was a hell of an effort...


The damn thing didn't sell.


6 months later some joe puts one up for $1K higher, tosses in one picture of about 30% of the synth, adds a description to the tune of: P10 synth, works; and the thing sold in 3 hours.

 

 

eBay is funny that way.

 

Some times you just have to relist a couple of times to get a bite

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

It's all about the GAS of the buyer... people usually know what they want and if they want a Prophet 10 or Jup 8 or Rhodes Chroma, they already know what they want and why they want it. So if you put 1 picture or 10 plus a video produced by George Lucas, if someone's got GAS at that time they'll get it, if nobody does, it's not gonna get sold.

 

 

Yes indeed, I would agree with this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Three words:


Cell Phone Cameras
:mad:

...every picture looks like someone's "last known photograph".
:freak:

 

:lol:

 

I'm selling this for my late brother; I was fortunate enough to get this photo off his camera after the blimp crashed into the house. The Fantom was not injured in the crash and is in excellent condition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

eBay is funny that way.


Some times you just have to relist a couple of times to get a bite

 

 

so true. but alas, in the case of the prophet monster, I have to admit that a guy did bite on the auction privately a week after it ended.

 

But it seemed that there was a lesson to learned in that making an awesome display isn't always worth the time and effort, but I think CR's comment is definitely a thing to consider as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

"item is like new bought on ebay and suddenly realized i couldnt play keys and have no interest in learning them so my loss is your gain comes with midi uno to connect to computer and instruction booklet and fantom editor software any questions please ask i will also cconsider offers"


Classy.

 

 

It's pitiful isn't it. "I just bought a car but realized I can't drive". Well aren't you a total loser then, which brings me to my next question, why on earth would I want to buy something from you in that case?

 

As to the actual topic of this thread, I also really hate ads that have stock images. I think its deceptive and dishonest not to have an image of the actual thing you are trying to sell. I would never buy an item off ebay such as a synth unless I had at least 3-4 good images of what I was buying. I find it hard to believe that in this day and age a person selling a high priced synth doesn't have a digital camera with which to take a few decent images.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...