Kidson Talks | The E-commerce Chemist

Well, after straying away from eBay as my main business as using it a to basically pimp a brand and e-commerce site, I have come full circle to building up an eBay presence again. It might be to do with the fees for core listings. They are lower, and you loose less to eBay:

You can see the full download here detailing fees to £200. I have taken out the paypal withdrawl fee on this sheet as I am going to assume that no one withdraws under £50. This sheet does not include media and technology categories.

ebay-fee-calculations-23062008
The price points are the same but I now pay less for core listings, which is were we get all the traffic from.

As my day job keeps me up to date in the world of software development and e-learning. I freelance as an eBay managed service consultant to keep up with the industry. With running my own e-commerce/eBay business time is tight but I now have space for another project to start August time.

So kicking it with adwords I am advertising Keirotech. Let me run your eBay business or website while you get down to the nitty gritty of running your business. I live and breathe this world, and have for the last 8 years, so if you need a hand then drop me an email.

I am familiar with eBay automation services, and can set your account running and on its way. Ideally looking for short term projects, but will consider more long standing arrangements.

I also do learning and development (HR) related projects, but that’s not something you see as on-line freelance very often! I don’t think I will try to be a freelance on-line organic chemist….

Reason I am pimping myself out a little, it that I am getting married this year, moving house and continuing my professional development with the Open University. It all takes money, and as I don’t pimp out my blog and endorse things I don’t believe in for cash….

Honest work will have to do the trick.

I hope to get back to blogging on the industry soon, but with my mind full of code it is squeezing out everything else.

One thing I will be blogging on soon is Skills for Life, Literacy and Numeracy in e-business and why it is important to develop the workforce to fill the skills gap. I am currently managing a project around skills for life initial assessment, in which an in house initial assessment has been devised with consultancy in the target business/sector. This also includes the design of supporting technologies with the aid of a recent graduate (I don’t do desktop development yet) to facilitate the skills for life strategy.

Technology to facilitate excellent people processes. Wonderful.

OK, I did promise ebay javascript, but I wanted to do a little more on eBay Shop CSS.

So I want to give my store categories a pink background:

table#StoreCategories {
background-color:#FFCCFF;
}

and say then, I want to have the links in a different pink:

table#StoreCategories a {
color:#FF00FF;
text-decoration:none;
}

then I want to space out the categories and give them a pink line spacing:

td.category {
height:35px;
border-top:1px solid #FF00FF;
}

then I feel silly about only having borders at the top and change it to:

td.category {
height:35px;
border:1px solid #FF00FF;
}

These eBay shop design series are just to illustrate what CSS elements you can manipulate in your eBay shop front. We will move onto adding graphics to replace your eBay shop categories soon enough.

Ok, ok…just slip this code in so the whole section looks like this:


/*Category Section*/
table#StoreCategories {
background-color:#FFCCFF;
}

table#StoreCategories a {
color:#FF00FF;
text-decoration:none;
}

td.category {
height:35px;
border-top:1px solid #FF00FF;
/*New Bit*/
background: url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybutton.jpg) no-repeat;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

Site Interference Policy Disclaimer

or even neutral for that matter. I know this is old news and I have held back comments, but it seems that sellers are suffering cheeky buyers, who can get them kicked off eBay with two sales, even if they leave a neutral. Strike that, there is no neutral, it is the same a negative.

I imagined that buyer would not really know this for a while, but as I came to leave feedback for some items eBay popped up and told me.

Sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers.
Buyers should leave honest Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings

and its is a permanent message at the top of my feedback page.

As a seller, I will just not leave feedback until positive is received, it has been something I have been doing since the beginning, not so I could leave a negative feedback, so I would not feel a fool by leaving positive feedback when a buyer plays up. It has not happened very often, but when they play up they really play up. I like the denial of receiving the item, even though it was tracked and the royal mail says so…which in turn prevents refund. So an angry buyer leaves a negative to ’serve me right’ for not giving in.

You can still file non paying bidders, which is fine, but they are not usually the biggest problem.

That is why I don’t rely on eBay for my business, really a lot any more and I encourage my clients to open up various other channels to market.

I still love eBay, but it makes it so hard….

I am busy with my Open University course at present, but the next eBay design lesson will be about Javascript in eBay.

Lesson 5: Using a custom shop header.

You need to make sure you on on the ‘custom header only’ theme within eBay.
Go Back to wear you entered your style sheet information and place:

<img src="http://www.mysite.com/header.jpg" alt="eBay Header" />

You can put any kind of HTML in here to expand the header

Use of CSS to control your eBay shop might convene this policy, so always use with care. 

Interference or attempted interference with eBay’s web site and/or operations using any software programme, routine or activity is a serious offence and is not permitted.

Members using the eBay web site may only modify or add content in those areas specifically designated for member use. All content must also abide by all other eBay policies. Designated member areas are:

• the description area of the View Item page.
• the reply box on the eBay discussion, chat and help boards.
• the members’ About Me page.
• the feedback comments area of the Feedback Forum.
• the bid box.
• the eBay email forwarding system text box (e.g. Ask Seller a Question, Contact eBay Member).

In no case may a member block, obscure, overwrite or modify any eBay-generated content or pages. All other site locations or components of eBay pages are strictly for eBay use.

Breaches of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:

• Listing cancellation
• Limits on account privileges
• Account suspension
• Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings
• Loss of PowerSeller status

Lesson Four: Controlling page width

Slip into your CSS file this code:

.pagecontainer
{
width:900px;
margin:10px auto 10px auto;
}

The margin section makes sure the shop is centred.

So, bet you are wondering what the css file looks like now? I didn’t want a coloured background to my store so this is what I have so far:

/* How to style your eBay shop using CSS by http://www.kidsontalks.com. This code is
totally free, why not check out the guide on my blog. Steal away, you can even sell it on
as there are no graphics involved.*/

/* -------- Control Page Width -------- */
.pagecontainer
{
width:900px;
margin:10px auto 10px auto;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

/* -------- Control Border on Gallery List -------- */
td.gallery
{
border:1px #FF00FF solid;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

/* -------- Control Background on Gallery List -------- */
td.gallery table td
{
background:#FFCCFF;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

Now your eBay store is starting to take shape. The next element to look at are controlling the header. Everyone loves a nice header for their eBay shop!

Lesson Three: Changing the backgrounds for the nested tables 

Right now, let experiment to how many times we need to mention table, to get a coloured background in different sections! Try adding these snippets of code to your css file.


table
{
background:#C0C0C0;
}

Using table once just colours the entire background within your eBay shop, including outside your shop front. All the normal white background, all grey.


table table
{
background:#C0C0C0;
}

Using table twice, only fills the background of your eBay shop with colour, as well as the eBay header


table table table
{
background:#C0C0C0;
}

Ah! This now leaves out the eBay header, so just the shop elements are coloured. Nothing much happens for four ‘tables’ but with 5 mentions of table:


table table table table table
{
background:#C0C0C0;
}

the promotion boxes, shop page boxes and the background to the gallery is coloured.

Add a sixth table and only the promotion boxes are coloured.


table table table table table table
{
background:#C0C0C0;
}

Seven tables and only the top promotions boxes are coloured.


table table table table table table table
{
background:#C0C0C0;
}

That is as far as you can go!

The next post will be about centring your eBay shop and fixing the width to 800px.

Lesson Two: Changing the background colour of your gallery view.

eBay is designed using a series of nested tables, so in order to colour various bits of the design you need to make sure you have to mention the table or td definition the correct number of times to get the desired result. This is the snipet of CSS you can add to the previous file:

td.gallery table td
{
background:#FFCCFF;
}


This will generate the effect below:

Lesson three will look at more places to change the background colour in your ebay shop!

I am a beginner too, with basic CSS and HTML knowledge sorted I am going to provide you with eBay CSS manipulation nuggets to build up a more custom eBay shop.

Lesson one - Creating a border around your gallery display in your eBay shop.

Taking a look at how the ebay shop gallery display is controlled by looking at the source you an see that you have various CSS elements to play with.

To place a border around your gallery items you will need to manipulate the table gallery class td.gallery.

So, create a css file in notepad like this:

td.gallery
{
border:1px #FF00FF solid;
}

I have chosen hot pink for the hairfreax ebay shop.

Navigate to ‘Manage my shop’ > ‘Shop Design’ > ‘Display settings’ and change your shop header display.

Link to your css file like this:


<link href="http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebay.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

and include the additional information in your shop header.

Save the settings then see what has happened!

Lesson two will be changing the background of the gallery view, using CSS.