Once in a while — and in your case, perhaps quite often — you’ll really want a video to demo the product you’re listing on eBay, and you’ve heard that you can’t do it.
It turns out that nobody knows.
Maybe you can, maybe you can’t, but it’s for damn sure that you can’t do it the traditional way — you supposedly have to use the HTML insert mode to get your video to show up on your eBay listing, but it may not work no matter what you do.
You were permitted by eBay to “embed” a YouTube video using the HTML text-editor IN THE DESCRIPTION box, but who knows what the deal is now??? Certainly not eBay.
You used to be able to go back & forth from the HTML text-editor to standard input simply by clicking from STANDARD FORM to HTML ENTRY FORM with the tabs you’ll see right there before your eyes, but it might not be true today.
Learn to look, to find out things — maybe there’s a new code???
FORBIDDEN?
You are NOT permitted to use the <lframe> tags that are supplied when you click on “Embed on Youtube”, which should be obvious, but then, you SHOULD be able to do the following:
- CREATE A YOUTUBE VIDEO — This can be a few seconds long up to at MOST 3 minutes. If I were selling a piece of land, I’d walk it and then speed up the video.
- UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO TO YOUTUBE — Sure, obvious to you, maybe, but not to everyone. Make sure it’s actually up there before you go any further. Farther. Skip it.
- GO TO VIDEO AND COPY URL — This is the target you want to put into the embed.
- COPY THE CODE BELOW:
<object height=“315” width=“420”><param name=“movie” value=“//www.youtube.com/v/QtvTE3m5jpM?version=3&amp;hl=en_US”><param
name=“allowFullScreen” value=“true”><param
name=“allowscriptaccess” value=“always”><embed src=“//www.youtube.com/v/QtvTE3m5jpM?version=3&amp;hl=en_US”
type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=“always”
allowfullscreen=“true” </object>
Wherever you see ITALIC TEXT, paste in the URL of your own YouTube video, then change the view back to “STANDARD” and you will see the video appear in the description box.
If you prefer, here’s an EMBED CODE GENERATOR from Tools4Noobs.com:
| HTML Code | How to Use It | What It Does |
| <b></b> | <b>cool collectible</b> | cool collectible (bold type) |
| <i></i> | <i>cool collectible</i> | cool collectible (italic type) |
| <b><i></i></b> | <b><i>cool collectible</b></i> | cool collectible (bold and italic type) |
| <font color=red></font> | <font color=red>cool collectible</font> | Selected text appears in red. |
| <font size=+1></font> | <font size=+3>cool</font> collectible | cool collectible (font size normal +1 through 4, increases size x times) |
| <br> | cool<br>collectible | cool collectible (inserts line break) |
| <p> | cool<p>collectible | cool collectible (inserts paragraph space) |
| <hr> | cool collectible<hr>cheap | cool collectible_____________cheap (inserts horizontal rule) |
| <h1><h1> | <h1>cool collectible</h1> | cool collectible (converts text to headline size) |
Easy to use, hard as heck to remember all of them. Just focus on the ones you really want to use, to make your eBay listing really work for you as a sales and promotional tool.
Yes, promotional.
Maybe you never sell what you’re advertising, but you get a lot of folks knowing about your services and products.
They might not buy the item, but they might be interested in the workshop you mentioned on the video, see?
How about a video that features actual customers expressing their happiness with your product?
Or maybe you’d prefer to show every last detail of the thing, and you want to zoom in on the subject and swing all around it and create a powerful statement with your video.
Well, you can. Just do it right. Use the HTML as I indicated, or the HTML Converter that they offer.
If you learn this little gimmick, you can create videos that actually get people to WANT what you’re selling.
You can add in the most valuable force in a sale — persuasion.
It’s what the Democrats lack in style, and what you as a merchandiser can’t do without, no matter what your politics.
Don’t make “dated” videos that are no good after the season. Keep your video to the point, don’t wander vaguely over unimportant points.
Make your case and show your goods. A non-offensive joke can only help things here, but don’t overdo it, unless it’s your natural style.
Show YOU on the video, so they feel that they’re getting information from their next-door neighbor — there’s nothing quite so compelling and persuasive as the tips you get over the backyard fence.
Make sure that your video is crisp, and in High Definition, on YouTube. If you’re in doubt how to do that, you can always sign up for one of my workshops and ask there, and I’ll go into it until you get the idea.
As a matter of fact, we’re having a workshop in only a few days — sort of a surprise rebirth celebration, with a virtual cake and ice cream, served in Second Life, of course and, yes, there will be a tree.
I haven’t put it up yet, but I will get around to it before the holidays actually hit, if indeed, they ever do, in this terrible year, 2020.
They told me to cheer up, that things COULD get worse, so I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.
If you want things to get better, you need some workshopping, to give you some ideas of how you can use this time well.
Ebay is always meddling with things, taking out the good stuff, replacing it with box-store friendly devices that we mere peons can’t possibly use or find out about.
If anybody actually finds out how to embed a video in an eBay listing, do let me know — there are dozens of us waiting to actually start selling again on eBay. Right now, sales are scarce for everyone.
It’s not what’s happening out there — it’s what’s happening in here.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby