Bellamax released the results of a study conducted to determine the importance of photo quality on the final sale price of online auction items. The study revealed that on average, items with higher quality photos brought higher final sale prices.

Bellamax examined twenty Coca-Cola Picnic Barbie Dolls sold on eBay during the period April 4 - 9, 2002. Each photo or group of photos was evaluated for brightness, color, sharpness and size on a scale of 0 to 4, where "0" is the poorest quality and "4" the highest quality. The photos were evaluated without knowledge of the final sale price of the items to eliminate research bias.

The 10 items with the best photos, which together averaged a rating of 2.8, brought an average sale price of $8.45. The 10 items with the worst photos (average Photo Rating of .75), realized an average sale price of $2.17. The report noted that most of the items with poor image quality did not sell.

Bellamax Inc. offers digital photo enhancement service and was founded by two former Adobe executives. For more information about the study, contact Ed Klar, Bellamax Vice President of Marketing. http://www.bellamax.com?ab