Auction Listings: Four Reasons To NEVER Use Animations In Your Auction Listings

Auction listings on eBay can be a tricky business. Often newbie to intermediate sellers, or those who are worried that they don't know what they're doing, want to make their auctions more exciting and interesting. Usually this is because they don't have confidence in their offer. The dread a yawn from sellers, so they decide to spice up their auctions with animations.

Or perhaps, they are techies who are proud of their ability to add whirling, twirling, moving animations.

This isn't a wise idea. For example, look at our vampire below ...

Pretty tough to ignore, isn't it? Even though it's fun, it isn't a wise selling move and here are four reasons why not:

1. Rather than attracting attention to the merchandise in your auction, your potential customer may watch a spinning ball or follow Santa and his reindeer through the sky. We want the customer's total attention on that all-important question: "Do I want to buy this widget or not?" Distractions are not good for your wallet.

2. Animations can make the load time of your auction listing much longer. I have been using DSL four years and have forgotten (happily!) how horrible it is to use dialup. However, for many places on this planet, high-speed connections simply are not available. For these folks, loading your page might take forever, and you can be sure they won't wait. Experts tell us that the average user spends only 7 seconds at a webpage before departing for greener pastures. If your sales page is still loading, no sale for you.

3. It takes time for you to figure out how and whether to use animations.

This is time that would be better spent on writing more exciting and dynamic copy - copy that will turn a prospective customer into a real buyer. A smart business person will treat time as her most precious commodity and spend it on what is most likely to bring a sale.

4. Many of these animations are just downright annoying. I personally do not enjoy looking at screens that are twirling, whirling and blinking. Two particularly irritating animations are an inescapable message that follows up and down the left side of the page, regardless of where I'm looking, and "trails" that follow my mouse.

A huge majority of people feel the same, apparently. Sellers need to make it as easy as possible for people to buy, rather than throwing obstacles in the way.

Are there any occasions when animated pictures are of any value in an auction listing? Possibly. For example, if you are selling to graphic designers then animated elements might be appropriate. As always, testing, testing, testing is the only way to truly know.

But for the rest of us folks, make your auction listings solid and loaded with content, features and reasons why we should buy your products. Your wallet will thank you.

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