This page provides you with a step-by-step guide to using SitePal avatars on eBay. Whereas users of eBay.com can do a lot of this automatically, eBay.co.uk users need to do some manual cut-and-paste - hence this guide.
The Basics
Putting an avatar onto your eBay pages will help your auction to stand out from the crowd. Ebay users have reported that using avatars can increase sales by up to 25%, and that SitePal enabled sales close higher than other auctions. The avatar can greet every users who looks at your item page with an audible description of the item, information about you the seller, or even play some related sounds or music (copyright willing).
The SitePal Account
The first thing you need is a Sitepal account. Sitepal do 3 types of account, Bronze, Silver and Gold. The first decision is do you want to use recorded speech (for best quality) or text-to-speech (for greatest flexibility). We'd recommend the latter which mans you need a Silver Account ($199 pa). If you're happy to record a new message for each auction (or group of auctions) then you're OK with the Brozen account ($99 pa).
Set up your account by clicking here. Note: If you are using eBay.com and want to use Sitepal's automated set-up you'll need a Silver Account - for eBay.co.uk users Bronze is fine.
Planning Your Avatars
Before you design your avatar think about how you are going to use them. With your account you get a number of avatars (5 for Bronze, 10 for Silver). Each can look different, and each can have a different message. You might decide to give them all the same look, but different messages. You might decide to create a unique message for each item you sell (in which case you will be updating the avatar quite often), or use a more generic message (eg "this is a great book" rather than "The Da Vinci Code" is a great read"). Don't worry though, you can redesign avatars and change messages as much as you like for no extra cost.
Designing Your Avatar
Sitepal provides you with the tools to design each avatar, starting from a basic template, changing clothes, colours and backgrounds (you can upload your own images for this). If you are using recorded speech you can upload a separate recording for each one. If you are using text-to-speech then you can type in a separate message for each one.
To set a text to speech message click on the Audio tab top left and then on the Add Audio button.
Then select Text-to-speech from the pop-up dialogue, and then type in your text, choose a voice (visit our web page to hear the voices), and give the message a name. If you're using recorded speech then follow the instructions on the SitePal web site for that.
Make sure the message is selected (i.e. has an orange border around it) before you save the avatar.
Finish your design and save the avatar.
Manually Embedding In eBay - Step 1
OK, now for the tricky bit. From your avatar list click on the "Embed in HTML eBay" button (NOT the Publish to eBay button - that's for eBay.com only) for the avatar that you want to use for a particular auction.
From the next screen click on the HTML Only tab.
Then select all of the text in the main white box (the text usually starts <OBJECT...). You must make sure that every piece of text in the box is selected - ie. shows as white on a blue background. The simplest way of doing this is to just left click in the box and then press CONTROL-A on your keyboard.
Finally copy all this text to your clipboard (CONTROL-C or your preferred method). You can now click on CLOSE as you are finished with Sitepal.
Manually Embedding In eBay - Step 2
With all that text still on your clipboard, open up your eBay account and go to the item that you want to use the avatar on. Open it for editing, then go to the Add Description section and just paste (CONTROL-V) all the text from Sitepal into the section. That's it. Done. Preview your item and you should see the avatar and hear the speech after a few seconds delay. Finally test it "buyer side" and that should be that.
Note: If you are using an auction management system then the method should work just as well. Just paste the Sitepal text into wherever you normally put your description text. You can also put the Sitepal text into tables if you want the avatar say right justified and your description text left justified.
If things don't work
The Sitepal service is pretty reliable, so if you have problems they are more likely to be yours rather than Sitepal. The main things ot check are:
- did you copy every last character across from Sitepal?
- have you chosen the right message for the avatar you are displaying?
Counting Streams
With each Sitepal account you get a number of streams. A stream is basically your avatar reading out your message once. This means that if your item descriptions are typically viewed say 20 times in an auction, then you'll be using up 20 streams for every auction that you use Sitepal on. It doesn't matter how many avatars, how many items or how many times you've changed the message, every "hearing" of a message counts as one stream (even if a user re-loads the page!).
Bronze accounts get 12,000 streams a year, silver 30,000 streams and gold 102,000 streams a year. On the basis of 20 streams per auction that means that Bronze accounts will support 600 auctions a year, Silver 1500, and Gold 5000 auctions a year. If you find yourself reaching your stream limit you can always buy additional streams at $4.95 per 1000 streams - you don't need to upgrade the account. Overall we reckon that for a Silver account every view of your SitePal enabled eBay page will cost you less that half a penny!
So what are you waiting for? Set up your SitePal account and get better results on eBay now!
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