Video is not only a fun way to capture memories with family and friends. It can also set your eBay listings and online items apart from the competition. If pictures speak a thousand words then, perhaps, video speaks a million. And as technology advances, being able to shoot and create a video has never been easier.

Whether you’ve got a nice new digital video camera, a digital camera with a video option, or just a phone that captures video, this short guide will help you put video to good use. Let’s look at some important video fundamentals that will make your films something your customers and potential buyers will enjoy.

Use a tripod: These come in several varieties and prices, ranging from $20 to $30 all the way up to $400 to $1,000. Even if you get a small tabletop tripod for your smart phone, having a steady camera will make a big difference in the quality of your video. You’ve probably seen handheld takes that bounce around and have the potential to give the viewer motion sickness. Steadying your camera on a tripod will help you avoid this mistake, commonly made by amateur videographers.

Get the right lighting: Lighting can be anything from sunlight to room lighting, to a simple desk or clip lamp. The thing to consider in regard to lighting is not the light source, but actually the shadows the light creates. Avoid outside lighting whenever possible as this is harsh, and stark light can wash out your subject and produce a lot of glare. But if you do shoot outdoors, make sure your subject is facing the sun. If the sun is behind your subject, their face will be covered in shadows, and poorly lit. The same concept applies inside. Light should be pointed at the subject, so shadows and darkness don’t cover the subject.

Control sound: Sound quality can boost a “decent” video to “good,” or even “great.” The quality and clarity of sound is just as important as what you’re seeing on the screen. If possible, get an external microphone for your camera. Even if the camera comes with a microphone attached, you can inexpensively add another to make dialogue or narration easier to hear. Another main consideration for sound is the environment you’re shooting in. If you’re indoors, eliminate all the background noise you can, be it a television, stereo, or people. The same principle applies outside. Avoid busy streets or crowded areas, where recording background or white noise is unavoidable.

Be concise: Try to make your video as short as possible, while covering everything you want to include. Be direct and clear. Organize your thoughts before you start filming. The shorter you can make your video, the more likely viewers are to sit through your entire film.

Close is better: When planning or executing the filming, remember that closer is better, as a general rule. Having a subject’s whole body in the shot is rarely the right approach. Come in close for either a waist-to-head shot or, better yet, just capture from the middle of the chest on up. Think of news broadcasts you watch. It would be much less engaging if the camera was farther back from the reporter. But don’t use zoom feature. Instead, bring the camera physically closer to the subject.

Now, when it comes to editing, this has gotten much easier and accessible. All newer Mac systems come with iMovie, which is ample for your editing needs. If you’re a PC user, no problem! If your Windows system didn’t come with Windows Movie Maker, you can download it free from Microsoft.

Publish it: Once your video is done, it’s time to share it. I recommend YouTube. After you upload a video to YouTube, you can either share links to your video, or embed it directly into your eBay or other e-commerce listings. On YouTube, click “Share,” then click the “Embed” button below the link that pops up. This will generate a string of html code that you can insert in your listings.

If you’re already making videos or thinking about it for your first time, check out Auctiva’s video contest, which runs through Sept. 30. With it, we’re inviting you to create your own Auctiva commercial for a chance to win free listing service, free shipping insurance and much more. See the contest details.

Ever since I started working here at Auctiva, I’ve had to create numerous eBay selling accounts for testing purposes. Recently, I used one of these accounts to try out a project we’ve been working on very hard, and created several listings in the test category on eBay.

As soon as those listings ended, I began receiving a rash of cheerleading e-mails, encouraging me to “try and sell my goods again on eBay!” Even though my listings were just for testing purposes, I almost wanted to relist them, because the e-mails were so positive and supportive. The e-mail also included a link to eBay’s “top 10 tips” for success. Curiosity got the best of me, so I clicked on the link to see what (in eBay’s eyes) would make me a successful seller.

I was hoping to see some new, innovative ideas on the list, but alas, I saw the basic tips most sellers already know. Of course, I’m far from being a newbie, so many of those tips might be useful for someone just starting out. My favorite tip on the list was “include photos.” Something tells me people know this one, so I decided to come up with a few other tips for newbies:

• Keep your blocked buyer list updated! I have a document about 13 pages long of blocked buyers, and I recommend you pay heed and add any IDs you’ve heard about causing issues to your own blocked buyer list. You can often find mention of these bad buyers on seller forums, or by doing a Google search for “bad eBay buyers.” It’ll save you a lot of hassle down the road.

• Use insurance. If you sell something you can’t afford to self-insure when you ship, buy shipping insurance. It doesn’t matter who it’s through; the USPS, Auctiva Shipping Insurance, etc. If you have insurance, you’ll be more likely to get your money back if a buyer claims they didn’t receive their order or that it arrived broken.

• Be assertive. Unfortunately, some  buyers assume that because you’re new, you don’t know the ropes and they can manipulate a situation, and take advantage, so hold your ground. And if a manipulative buyer doesn’t leave you alone, add them to your BBL.

• Be aware that buyers do leave neutral and negative feedback—sometimes without reason. No matter how well you handle a transaction, don’t be surprised if buyers leave you a negative or neutral feedback, and/or ding your DSRs. It can happen whether you’re a new or a seasoned seller.

• Never leave feedback for a buyer as soon as they pay. Doing this opens the door for the buyer to use that as leverage against you. If the buyer turns out to be a scammer, would you feel right for giving them a positive feedback? Until the day eBay allows sellers to leave buyers neutral or negative feedback, I’m sticking to that policy. I’d feel better leaving no feedback and receiving no feedback in return than to mislead other sellers by immediately posting positive feedback for a buyer who doesn’t deserve it. Even if the buyer does leave me a neutral or negative, at least I’d have the option to not leave any for them.

• Lastly, diversify. There are other avenues to sell on. Few offer the amount of traffic eBay does, but sometimes it’s worth the extra time and effort making a sale that you can be proud of. We have many sellers successfully using our Auctiva Commerce storefronts, but it took them a lot of hard work to make it happen. Use your eBay sales to drive traffic to your other selling sites by inserting a flyer into your packages with your selling IDs for other sites, or your own e-commerce store address. Offer them a discount if they shop your other sites. What will it hurt? Actually, it’s free advertising!

We’ve got some good news for you: You can now enable the AliExpress-powered Sourcing tab on your Auctiva.com account.

A couple of months ago, we announced we’d be integrating AliExpress, an online wholesale marketplace, designed to help our customers tap into many great sources of inventory for imported goods that offer great profit opportunities. As we work to refine this integration, we’ve been rolling out this feature to our customers in phases, but some of you have asked us to hurry.

Up to now, we have manually enabled the Sourcing tab for those of you who contacted our Customer Support team with this request. But so you don’t have to wait on us, now you can take the matter into your own hands by enabling the Sourcing tab when you want it.

If you don’t see “Sourcing” among your navigation tabs when you log into your Auctiva account, follow these simple instructions to add this new feature:

1. Log into your Auctiva account.

2. Click this link to enable your Sourcing tab.

3. Congratulations, the Sourcing tab is now enabled, but you need to create your free AliExpress account before you can take full advantage of this new feature. You should be on the Sourcing tab, so just click on the sign up button and follow the instructions to create your AliExpress account.

When you sign up for AliExpress through our Sourcing tab, it will ensure that you qualify for all promos, special offers and discounts that are exclusive for Auctiva users. We hope you enjoy product sourcing! Happy selling!

I recently made a purchase on eBay from a seller in Hong Kong, who reminded me of the very first lesson I learned in my college marketing class.

On the first day of the semester (and before introducing himself, taking roll or passing out the course syllabus), the professor asked what was the single most important thing a marketer could do to get people to act.

“Offer an incentive,” someone said.

“Make a strong value proposition,” another shouted, once it became clear the professor was looking for another answer.

“How about, tell them what you want them to do?” the professor asked. “Or better yet, how about, ask them?” he continued as he began a slideshow of poorly designed advertisements that, he pointed out, forgot to inform the audience what to do.

It seems simple: Just ask buyers to do what you want them to do. But don’t let the simplicity of the idea fool you. Making a clear and overt request can yield significantly better results than leaving it up to your buyers’ intuition or relying on an implied call to action.

What to ask for

As online sellers, it’s easy for us to get hung up on just one thing we want people to do: buy! But once your auction has ended, or a buyer has committed to buy your fixed-price listing, there are still several things you’d like from the buyer. Here are a few things you’d like them to do:

• Leave you positive feedback
• Give you 5-star Detailed Seller Ratings
• Recommend you to their friends and family
• Subscribe to your e-mail newsletter
• Remember your brand
• Contact you with any concerns before leaving negative feedback
• Visit your eBay (or off-eBay) Store
• Browse your other products
• Buy from you again

How to ask

When I received the package from my seller in Hong Kong, my expectations weren’t very high. I had bought a couple of car chargers for my new Palm Pre smartphone. The reason for my cautious skepticism? The total purchase price was less than $3. Even though they were off-brand, it was hard to imagine that my $3 would even cover the seller’s shipping costs. Nevertheless, my package arrived in less than a week, with two perfectly functioning chargers, and something else…

Included in the package was a shipping slip that included purchase details, a courteous “thank you” message and a request in the form of a bulleted list asking me to:

• Leave positive feedback
• Leave 5-star DSRs
• Add the seller to my Favorite Sellers list

Here, by way of a $2.68 transcontinental purchase that I thought could hardly be worth the seller’s time, was a reminder of that lesson I learned so many years before—brought to me by an online seller some 7,000 miles away. Sure, the English was broken, but the message was clear and it provided me a little confidence and information about what kind of seller I was dealing with in the all too often anonymous world of online commerce.  All that from a brief message on a little 8.5-by-3-inch piece of paper that he probably printed up 1,000 at a time.

Crafting your message

What you ask your sellers to do, and in what form you do so, is up to you. Make it natural and befitting your own style. Make it concise, but polite; clear, but humble. Prioritize your list of requests and keep it short.

A simple packing slip is a great vehicle for your requests. Auctiva users have this functionality built into their accounts. Auctiva sellers can include transaction details and a custom message.

I also recently read a post on an eBay community board in which a seller used an offer from VistaPrint for 250 free business cards to ask for positive feedback, share her e-mail address and promote repeat business with a link to her Auctiva Commerce Store. Considering just the few dollars the seller had to pay for shipping on the cards, this investment will surely be well justified by its results.

The practice of including shipping slips with embedded calls to action has become popular enough that some companies offer these as stand-alone products for sale. I prefer the Auctiva feature for its ease of use and integration into the seller’s Auctiva account, which allows transaction details to be automatically included. That’s a time-saving solution for creating transaction-specific slips.

Alternatively, I like the use of the free business cards from VistaPrint for the added touch of professionalism and the increased likelihood that it might be passed along to another potential buyer.

Whatever your preference, just be sure to choose some solution. A few simple requests to your customers combined with a commitment to provide good products and good customer experiences in every transaction will be well worth your efforts. Remember, sometimes all you have to do is ask.

Enter Auctiva’s Twitter contest for your chance to win six months of service on our Premium Plan, or Auctiva swag.

To participate, simply:

1. follow us on Twitter
2. have an active Auctiva account (this includes the Free Tools account)
3. have at least five Twitter followers, and
4. tweet any message that includes “#Auctiva,” such as, “I’ve been using #Auctiva tools for 3 years.”

Click here for official contest rules. Entries may be submitted up to once a day.

Auctiva’s Premium Plan gives customers access all of our listing tools, 1 GB of image hosting, premium customer support, an Auctiva Commerce Store and much more. We’ll also give out at least four first-place prizes every Monday beginning March 22 until the contest ends April 12. These winners will get their choice of Auctiva-branded swag, including hats, mugs, tanks, T-shirts and tote bags. On the last day of the contest, we’ll announce the grand-prize winner via Twitter. It could be you!

If you aren’t already following Auctiva on Twitter, now is the time to start. We regularly post links to helpful news and feature articles about selling online, marketing your business, useful seller tools and other topics to help you take your business to the next level, and now, we’re giving you the chance to win six months of free service!

You can enter—and win—multiple times throughout our contest!

Don’t miss your chance to win six months of free Premium Service, and take a look below to see our first-place prizes.

Good luck!

To enter Auctiva’s Twitter contest:

• Step 1: Follow Auctiva on Twitter
• Step 2: Tweet any message including “#Auctiva”

Example: “I’ve been using #Auctiva for 3 years!”

• Step 3: Re-enter the contest as many times as you wish, limiting your contest tweets to once a day

* Entrants must have an Auctiva account (this includes our Free Tools account), be active followers of Auctiva.com on Twitter and have a minimum of 5 followers to participate.

Auctiva’s Twitter contest runs from March 15 through April 12.

At least four first-place prize winners will be selected at random every Monday of the contest, i.e., March 22, March 29, April 5 and April 12. All participants will be eligible for the grand prize (6 months of free service on our Premium Plan). This winner will be selected on April 12 by random drawing from among qualifying entries submitted over the entire duration of the contest. Winners will be announced at noon PST.

The fine print

First-place winners will have their choice of an Auctiva-branded hat, mug, tank, T-shirt or tote bag, subject to availability. If the desired prize is not in stock or unavailable in the desired size, entrants will have to select another item.

The grand-prize winner will receive 6 months of free service on Auctiva’s Premium Plan, a prize valued at $119.70. This plan gives the winner access to unlimited listings, 1 GB of image hosting, an Auctiva Commerce Store, Sellathon Analytics, premium customer support and more. Optional incidental charges such as Auctiva Shipping Insurance purchases or plan overages will be the responsibility of the winner. There are no substitutions on awards.

During the first drawing, first-place prize winners will be selected from the pool of tweets since March 15. After that date, winners will be chosen among the entries tweeted since the previous drawing. However, all participants are eligible to win the grand prize, which will be selected on April 12 by random drawing from among all qualifying entries submitted over the duration of the contest.

Prize winners will be announced via tweet and direct messaged on the day of the drawing. Participants are eligible to win multiple times.

Auctiva employees and their families are not eligible to participate.

Winners are responsible for claiming their prizes by direct messaging Auctiva no more than 3 days after they are announced. Winners who do not claim their prizes by this time relinquish their awards. By entering this contest, participants acknowledge they have read and accept Auctiva’s contest rules, and will not hold Auctiva responsible for any actions Twitter may take against them.

Winners!

Congratulations to our Twitter contest winners.

March 22 winners:

1. angel_leigh
2. BobRess
3. primetime_og
4. tickets4profits

March 29 winners:

1. crystena
2. JJGlawe
3. webstoreprodux
4. beckerbuns

April 5 winners:

1. WillieSuarez
2. Naptownkid
3. devonellery
4. Impure

April 12 winners:

1. socaldebbie
2. devonellery
3. CANDIGLAZE
4. aolbites

Grand-Prize winner:

1. sandrahbee

Search engines continue to be a top resource for online shoppers. In fact, a recent study by Compete Online Shopper, a Web analytics company, found that 61 percent of online buyers use search engines when shopping around for products. The second most popular tool cited among these shoppers was coupon sites, with 35 percent of buyers saying they visit these. Retailer marketing e-mails came in third, with 29 percent of consumers reading them when deciding what to buy.

Buyer behavior does vary from niche to niche, but there’s no denying one thing: Search engines are very important to online shoppers.

This comes as no surprise to Auctiva Commerce Product Lead Chris Eckland.

“People utilize search engines, and Google Product Search in particular, to find the best deal on an item that they’re planning to buy,” he says. ”Often, this activity may be just to confirm a deal that’s available locally is in line with other offers, but in many cases a quick online search can reveal online stores with better deals or specials not available elsewhere.”

Search engines are consistently one of the largest traffic sources for Auctiva Commerce, and a primary way for buyers find Auctiva Commerce sellers, he adds.

With this in mind, Eckland reminds Auctiva Commerce sellers to map their products to Google by setting up and automating their feeds to Google Merchant Center. This keeps sellers’ inventory current on Google and makes items easier to find online.

“Our users say they’ve experienced increased sales once they mapped their Auctiva Commerce inventory to Google’s product taxonomy,” he continues. “Intuitively, it makes sense that buyers will be more likely to find items if they’re logically categorized.”

Google’s dominance among search engines is undeniable, says Auctiva Vice President Kevin Kinell. And its role in e-commerce, and the importance of feeds to Google Merchant Center (formerly Google Base), isn’t likely to decrease any time soon.

“Probably the most important thing that any seller setting up an e-commerce store can do is to make sure they’re getting their products into Google,” he says. “I don’t see Google’s importance diminishing, I see it increasing.”

I know the benefits of blogging regularly. Blogs can help boost your items’ exposure in search engines. They’re a great marketing tool, plus blogging is free and easy to do. So why don’t more people (like me) use blogs to promote their items?

For me, it’s a time thing. Sure, it only takes a few minutes to do, but when you have a job, kids, housework—where do you fit in the time? I hardly have time to list on eBay, let alone blog about it.

So here I am blogging about a blog.

When eBay announced it will close its blog site, I was indifferent. I can’t remember ever thinking about going to the site to read the blogs, or even post a blog myself. It was hard enough for me to blog just a few times on my Auctiva Store blog in the past year, even though I know Auctiva submits new blog entries to Google Directory to drive traffic to my Store and give my items added exposure. I know it can be very beneficial.

But I’m sure eBay’s announcement is a disappointment for the folks who did work hard to blog on a regular basis. Luckily there’s no shortage of other places to blog (like Auctiva!).

So we’d like to know, do you blog? If so, where do you blog and what do you blog about?

How much time do you spend blogging?

Has blogging helped boost sales and/or traffic to your listings?

Did you use eBay Blogs, and if so, what do you think about the site being closed?

Any blogging tips?

Please give us your opinions. We’d love to hear from you.