Sometimes
it's the personal touch that makes a difference in your online
auction sales.eBay About Me page allows sellers to post their
own personal page on the site, offering information about
themselves and their auctions as well as quick and easy access
to their feedback and other auction listings, among other
things. (Heck, you even can post a picture of your cat, if
you're so inclined.) To follow is information on the benefits of
About Me pages, how to create one, and what other sites besides
eBay offer them.
The
Benefits
Although it's not a proven science, many sellers believe that
having About Me pages help sales and increase a wavering buyer's
likelihood of bidding. Why? Buyers like the intimacy and contact
that About Me pages provide; they put a face (figuratively, or
literally, if you choose to include a photo of yourself) to the
anonymous auction site username. About Me pages also indicate to
a buyer that you're a serious, stable seller and that you're in
the online auction game for the long haul. In other words, they
promote trust.
There's also the fact that About Me
pages are free--hey, it couldn't hurt. Think of it this way: If
you were a buyer and you came across two auctions for the same
item at the same price and one seller had an About Me page and
one didn't, on which auction would you bid? Wouldn't you feel
more secure with the seller who had the About Me page?
Lastly, if you want to see whether an
About Me page is indeed helping/not helping sales, you always
can add a counter and track the number of visits to see whether
there's a correlation between the new page and any increased
bidding activity on your auctions.
What
to Include
Once you decide to have your own personal page, the next step is
to determine what information and elements you want to include.
In general, it's best to include information about yourself that
relates to your online auctions (your specialties, how long
you've been selling at eBay, and so on), as well as some more
personal information. Try to strike a balance between the
professional and the personal. In addition, you can include
photographs and other visual elements, as well as links to other
Web sites. eBay's About Me pages also include your most recent
feedback and current items up for auction, which is convenient
for buyers.
How
It Works
Getting your About Me page up and running is very easy, even for
someone with little or no HTML skills. In essence, three steps are required:
Step 1: First, go to eBay's About
Me start page. Choose a layout type: two column, newspaper
(three column), or centered (all text will be spread out across
the entire page rather than placed in columns).
Step 2: Select and input the
information and elements that will be posted on your page. This
includes a page title ("Dan the Man's All About Me
Page") and a welcome message in which you can introduce
yourself and provide buyers with the aforementioned business and
personal information. You also can include a link to a
photograph, specify how much of your eBay activity (feedback,
items currently for auction) you want to list, submit links to
other Web sites, and indicate your favorite eBay items. When
you're done, click either the "Preview your page" (go
to step 3) or "Choose new layout" (return to step 1)
button.
Step 3: Now you're ready to
preview what your page is going to look like. While doing so,
don't forget to proofread the text and check for typographical
errors. At this point, you have several options that will amend
your page. There are buttons to do the following: "Edit
some more," "Edit using HTML," or "Start
Over." Or, if you're satisfied, click on the "Save my
page" button. Voilą. You now have an About Me page.
A "me" image, which links to your page, will appear
next to your username in your auctions.
Other
Venues
Of course, eBay is not the only auction site to offer this kind
of service. Here is a brief rundown of other sites that provide
users with an About Me-style page:
Yahoo Auctions: My Auction
Booth allows you to list your auctions as well as your feedback
and an "About Me" area. You can customize a logo at
the top of the page and create a page layout using Yahoo's
PageBuilder (no HTML knowledge or software required).
Amazon.com Auctions: The
auction site from Amazon.com offers a personal page also called
About Me. In terms of layout and what you can include, it's less
flexible than what you'll find at eBay and Yahoo Auctions.
Besides a logo and other personal information, you can input
text for "My Greeting" and "More About Me,"
both of which must be less than 200 characters. Auction users
and merchants also might consider opening a zShops Store.
FairMarket: Some sites
affiliated with the FairMarket Network have their own version of
the About Me page, called My AuctionPlace. As is the case with
Amazon.com Auctions' personal page, the layout is more limited
and rudimentary than what's offered by eBay and Yahoo, but
you'll be able to include a logo, images, text, and your auction
listings.
Finally, don't be intimated by the
idea of creating your own page. You don't need to be an HTML
guru or Webmaster to produce a functional, satisfying personal
page. And did we mention that they're free? Well yes, as a
matter of fact we did. But it bears repeating.
