Buy For Less Online are an online retailer of toys based in the Midlands near Birmingham. Managing Director, Dan Aston, considers ChannelAdvisor to be one of his most reliable employees, stating the system easily does the work of three or four people. During peak times such as Christmas, Buy For Less Online process around 3,000 orders per day and state they would not be able to do this without ChannelAdvisor.

Createyourtemplate design the background, eBay shop/template and basic CA store.

March’s case study is already up!

eBay is still one of the greatest marketplaces going, for me a self confessed ebay addict – it is still part of my daily shopping routine. If I need something, I eBay for it.

I am not alone, by any means.

Where else would I be able to fuel my passion for vintage kimonos? Or find genuine geisha shiro-nuri (cosmetics) direct from Kyoto?

Being of the alternative persuasion, I get opportunities to dress up and eBay makes sure I have the right accessories and can find anything I can actually imagine.

But is my love misguided? eBay is just a vessel. Should I not love the sellers with the vision to supply me with such treats, that fight tooth and nail to make sure I can see them and buy from them wherever they might be based?

These are my favourite sellers:

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Hannari-Ya - Japanese love straight from Kyoto!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/viperlondon – All kinds of gothic/emo/alternative attire.

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/The-Hair-and-Beauty-People – where I get my Redken from!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Fatal-Impact – Manic panic at reasonable prices!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Schuh-Branded-Shoes-Online – An outlet I should really try to avoid – check out their shop display bargains!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/kimono-wholesale – Great to bid on vintage Obi.

So, love out to these sellers who help me spend my money in wonderful ways, and battle though eBay’s ever changing mind.

I would be richer without you, but would I be happier?

“My name is Liz, and I am an eBay addict – it has been over 10 years now…..”

Tell me about YOUR favourite eBay sellers! *Open for Comments*

http://www.kookiweb.co.uk/ – a few basic eBay design examples.

http://www.meanpixel.com/ebay-store-listing-design.htm – more ‘advanced’ look.

http://www.agenius-marketing.com/ebay-store-design.html for basic store/listing design.

eBay design seems to be the new thing to do…

eBay Shop frame

eBay Listing Template Design

The actual coding part will come, I am slicing it up and coding it as we speak so hopefully I will get the time to play with the new stores experience before catalyst. As you can see I am not the ‘best designer’ in the world, but I will do for my small projects and illustrations.

Edited to add: Apparently my early work in eBay design css inspired these guys and they are now fully compliant with NSE. I will review at a later date. http://smartzstores.co.uk/

http://kidsontalks.com/2008/06/29/ebay-design-the-copycats-rise-and-how-to-decide/

This post is open for fresh comments. I am getting emails asking for your contact details, post your contact number here and face the music.

http://www.createmystore.co.uk (so you analytics software will tell you of the new link…)

Frooition has suffered with redundancies in the last 18 months loosing approximately 7 of its members with Gren making 8.

If Frooition does go under then my 3 clients who use their design will loose it, just as they are about to pay up for the shops upgrade. I already have concerns over the stores working with the European eBay sites.

Worrying times. Looks like I am going to have to focus on creating a compliant store design (which will all be open source) that fits in the new eBay experience and re-work. Templates too.

I do wonder where I am going to get this time from. I suppose I have always known the danger of renting design, it just comes at a busy period when I am clocking up 13 hour days.

The section is currently:
/* -------- 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 we are going to replace it with:

td.gallery
{
width:360px;
height:130px;
background:url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybg.jpg) no-repeat !important;
}
/* making certain backgrounds transparent */
span.ebay table,
.pagecontainer table table table,
.pagecontainer table table tr,
.pagecontainer table td
{
background:transparent;
}

Notice that adding this section of code, the background to the promotion boxes/search box and the categories disappear (we shall deal with the promo boxes and search box in a later post) so to make sure you category background image stays in place replace:

td.category {
height:35px;
width:180px;
border-top:1px solid #FFCCFF;
background: url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybutton.jpg) no-repeat;
margin:5px;
}

with:

td.category {
height:35px;
width:180px;
border-top:1px solid #FFCCFF;
background: url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybutton.jpg) no-repeat !important;
margin:5px;
}

the !important tag tell eBay that your CSS change is WAY more important and should be obeyed at all costs.

I also added this nugget to add a nice border around my gallery:

table.ebItemlist
{
width:770px !important;
border-left:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-right:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-bottom:1px #FFCCFF solid;
}

Please as always read the disclaimer

Just to complete, the section now looks like:

/* -------- Control Gallery List -------- */
td.gallery
{
width:360px;
height:130px;
background:url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybg.jpg) no-repeat !important;
}
/* making certain backgrounds transparent */
span.ebay table,
.pagecontainer table table table,
.pagecontainer table table tr,
.pagecontainer table td
{
background:transparent;
}
/*Nice border around gallery*/
table.ebItemlist
{
width:770px !important;
border-left:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-right:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-bottom:1px #FFCCFF solid;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

You can see the full css file here: eBay Store Design with CSS and to see the changes to my eBay store as we go along visit : http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hairfreax

Even though their is a credit crunch in the UK it should not stop sensible investment in your eBay business. eBay design can provide various functions, from just aesthetics to brand new functionality which can be added.

On the net your design, usability and customer interactions are key. Now we are holding onto our purses this is the time to invest. A tight ecomony breeds tight spenders, are you a cut above the rest?

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

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