If a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand pictures, one would assume that by adding streaming video to your eBay listings, sales would naturally increase. Surely bidders would much rather see a 3-D video image of the items that they are bidding on instead of looking at a few photographs. Also, adding video will allow the seller to describe the item in detail, point out any flaws, and save the potential buyer time by not having to scroll through and read a page full of text.

I decided to do an experiment to see if my sales would increase by adding streaming video to my eBay listings. I purchased a webcam and found an inexpensive video email provider that would allow me to record video of my products to post on eBay. They host the videos on their server, and even convert the video into HTML format. I simply record and save the video, then copy and paste the generated HTML code into my eBay listing.

Since I've had pretty good success selling Pet Strollers, I checked the closing bids on some of my closed auctions that I had listed with regular photos and text. Then I recruited my 7 pound Maltese, Buster, to help me demonstrate the stroller using video. I was able to point out the many features of the stroller and show how easily it folds down for flat storage. I was even able to show Buster riding in the stroller so that potential bidders could get a feel of how big the stroller is, and they could tell if their pet would fit in it comfortably.

I was very pleased with the results. The closing bids from the auctions with video were at least 25% more than the ones without. I also noticed that more people were bidding on the items with video, and a lot of people were watching the auctions as well. Furthermore, the traffic on these auctions with video increased at least 35-40%! One excited winning bidder even told me that she had never seen video in an eBay listing before and was very impressed. Several others sent me emails to tell me that they had forwarded the listings to friends that owned dogs similar to mine, and I even got a photo of another Maltese that could have been Buster's twin!

In my opinion, adding streaming video to your eBay listings is a surefire way to increase sales and send more traffic to your listings. I have started to use video in more of my listings and I am experiencing similar results. You can really make your listings stand out from the rest, and have an advantage over regular listings by adding streaming video.