Is It Ok To “Borrow” Another Seller’s Photo? ~Post From The Past

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I woke up on Monday morning to find that TWO of my Ming-Ming Duckling costumes sold for full price.

If you remember, I found these on clearance last year around this time and purchased as many of them as I could. After selling these, I have one left, so I thought I would search them on eBay to be sure my price is in line with the other Ming-Ming costumes for sale.

You can imagine my surprise when I saw not one, but TWO listings in the search results with this picture:

I clicked on the second one and sure enough, it wasn’t mine. It was an auction that a new seller was running.

There were two problems with this, #1, that’s my door, so I knew this was my picture, and #2, the seller’s item was pre-owned, mine is new with tags. Big difference.

I wasn’t mad, but I did email the seller to ask them if they had taken this picture themselves. After no response for a few hours, I reported the seller to eBay for using my photo without permission.

Photos, to me aren’t a huge deal, but really, no matter how long you’ve been selling on eBay, please take your own photos.

Some people (like Lizzie) put a lot of work into their photos, and just copying them and putting them into a listing isn’t right and it’s not fair.

In this case, by using my photo, the buyer would have assumed that this item is new with tags because of the photo. Their auction would have ended higher based on the photo with tags than by using the picture of the actual item.

eBay allows sellers to use “stock” photos of DVD’s, books, etc, but again, there’s a big difference in using a stock photo, and using another seller’s picture.

Plain and simple, using another seller’s picture isn’t considered “borrowing” because borrowing without asking is really stealing.

Sellers who are caught “borrowing” another seller’s picture can have their listing pulled by eBay and receive a listing violation, which results in your items coming up lower in the search.

Please, no matter how long you’ve been selling online, take your own pictures.

Selling Tip~What Size Is It?

Did you ever find a great piece of clothing to sell but the size tag is missing?

Here’s a great chart to help you figure out the approximate size.  All About Clothing Sizes

Of course if the tag is missing, make sure that you include the measurements in the listing.

Poll~Do You Offer Free Shipping?

Do You Offer Free Shipping?
	Yes on every item
	Yes on lightweight items
	Yes on another type of item
	No
pollcode.com free polls

Managing This Race Called Life

In the busy society we live in, most of us are running around like chickens with our heads cut off  trying to stay one step ahead of the game.

I’ve been there.  Raising an infant/toddler, working 40+ hours a week, teaching piano lessons, eBaying, and coordinating the special music at our church…….trying to keep my sanity.

One day it hit me, I need to simplify things.  What could I cut from my schedule?

Well the most obvious thing I wanted to cut that took up the majority of my time was my full time job, and I started working toward that.  Within a year of the realization that I needed to simplify, I  quit my job and became self- employed.

One of the best parts about being self-employed is setting your own schedule, and not having to ask for vacation time

Simplifying for me means being efficient, working smarter, not harder so I can enjoy my family and enjoy what I do for a living.

One thing that I like to do to help simplify things is to have homemade snacks, breakfast items, etc ready to go for the week so that we can grab something quick and not fill up on junk.

Here’s a great after school snack that is gluten free too!  We don’t have gluten allergies in our house, but I figure why make cookies with gluten in them if you don’t need to?

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

What you’ll need:  1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

12-15 unwrapped Hershey’s Kisses

Mix the peanut butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla together until it’s mixed well, spoon small spoonfuls of the mixture onto your ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes on 350* F

Pull them out of the oven and put an unwrapped Hershey’s Kiss in the middle of each cookie.  Let them sit until cool or place on wire cooling racks to cool.

Enjoy!

Great Link

I read this article this morning while perusing blogs.

Great tips for those running a creative business.

The Tools We Use on Whip Up

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