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 In my previous AuctionBytes column, I spoke in general terms about the most important features you should look for when choosing a good hosting service for your eBay photos (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y207/m12/abu0205/s03). Although a few free hosts can be found, money isn't the only consideration. At minimum, you need adequate storage space, a user-friendly way to conduct file transfers, and staff people who are available when you need them.
These kinds of qualities are easy to talk about in the abstract. But in order to make a smart choice about a hosting service, it pays to look at specific providers and compare what they have to offer. For this column, I'll focus on a single company that offers a full range of features: SmugMug (http://www.smugmug.com). I'm writing about SmugMug not because I'm endorsing it especially - I think you should decide that for yourself depending on your specific situation. But it's a highly popular service and one that has high-end features not offered by other photo hosting companies.
Even though you might never need some of the bells and whistles SmugMug offers, it's like taking a glance at a Lexus even though what would best fit your lifestyle is something like a Ford Focus. An educated consumer is the best customer, and the more you know about what's available, the better equipped you are to decide what you really need.
Not only that, there's some evidence that SmugMug is becoming popular with eBay sellers. Although SmugMug itself couldn't give me figures on how many customers host their eBay photos there, if you Google "eBay and SmugMug" you'll find several pages' worth of photo galleries created by SmugMug customers who also post their eBay photos on the site.
Virtually all photo-hosting services offer multiple levels of service for different fees. SmugMug, for its part, offers three levels of hosting, with no free option. The Standard Account costs $39.95 a year; a PowerUser Account costs $59.95 per year; the Professional Account runs $149.95 annually. Many of the features in the Standard version are for people who either take photos for a living or are avid amateur photographers who want to share their work with family and friends. These include:
- Communities, forums, and blogs where photographers can share their images and discuss photography in general.
- Galleries and slide shows that are especially good for professional photographers who need to share their work with their clients.
- A custom domain name that takes the form gallery.yourname.com and that makes galleries easy to find.
- The ability to upload individual image files that are as large as 12MB in size (though in practice, such files will take a long time to load in someone's browser window).
But while photo sharing is a nice feature, most eBay sellers just want to get a lot of images online as quickly as possible so they can focus on other tasks. What about the features they need? SmugMug, again, is at the high end of the scale. But for less than $3.50 a month, the Standard Account gives you:
- Storage. You get unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.
- Uploading: Any photo host lets you upload photos using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). If you don't use FTP, your host should give you an easier alternative. SmugMug gives you software you install called an uploader. You can also email your photos. And it supports the Mac: if you're a Mac user, make sure your photo host supports your operating system.
- Optimizing: If you sell dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of eBay items at a time, you don't want to have to load each file in an image editor to crop it or make it brighter. Many hosts, including SmugMug, include tools that let you edit your photos after they have been uploaded. SmugMug even lets you rotate or change colors of multiple images at the same time.
Most eBay users aren't into the technical aspects of printing, retouching, or even sharing photos because they're aesthetically beautiful or particularly interesting. They only want the basics. With that in mind, it's not likely that the average eBay user will choose the PowerUser or Professional Accounts. Nevertheless, the Professional version does include one feature eBay sellers will like: the ability to quickly add watermarks to images. (A watermark is an image placed atop a photo to identify its owner and discourage copying.) There's also the option to create custom watermarks, which is especially good if you want to "brand" an image with your company's name.
In addition, all SmugMug account levels include features that would help eBay sellers who want to maintain their privacy. "A "Hide owner" removes all mention of the owner of a photo gallery, and all links back to your homepage," says SmugMug's Markham Bennett. "We also offer a button to turn external links on or off. With external links turned on, someone can link to your iPod photo to add to their auction at eBay, generating a lot of views of your photo. If you don't want your photos to appear on forums, blogs, or other Web pages outside of SmugMug, you can turn external linking off."
While the privacy features definitely fall into the category of bells and whistles, another feature that's a "must-have" for eBay users is customer support. Jim Bolden, Sr., who has a photo gallery on SmugMug (http://www.graphyfotoz.smugmug.com) and also hosts his eBay auction photos there, says they have "excellent customer support. SmugMug is fully customizable; I can choose different size photos to post, for eBay or anywhere else on the Web. And they have a great photography forum."
eBay sellers are always looking for ways to save money. Using a free photo host or an existing ISP account for photo hosting will save a few bucks a month. But it's worth considering a full-featured photo host if you plan to sell regularly or for a living. That doesn't necessarily have to be SmugMug. But as Jim Bolden says of this host: "While it's not a free service you get what you pay for and then some."
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