FAQ – How To Create A For Sale Classified Advert

Overview

Members of the Seahorse Dive Club are able to list and sell their new and used scuba diving equipment via this classified ads service. There is no cost whatsoever and the only caveat is that any transaction shall wholly be between the buyer and seller. The Seahorse Dive Club promotes this service “as is” and without any guarantee or warranty of any kind. The Seahorse Dive Club has no interest in any transaction between the buyer and seller and hence will not arbitrate or intervene in any dispute.

Public Domain

Your advert will be listed within the classified adverts section and in the public domain. It may be indexed by the search engines and will be visible on the Internet by anyone. Please be wary of advertising personal information and we recommend the use of private messaging where appropriate. Buyers and sellers should exercise their own due diligence and practice common sense selling, especially to anyone outside of the club. This selling service is only available to fully paid members of the Seahorse Dive Club, Swindon.

How It Works

You will need a user account on this website. If you do not have one, please contact the club. Once logged in, select ‘home’ from the top menu and find ‘Listing’ on your account menu. From there you have the options to add, manage, edit, mark sold or delete your advert. Your listing will remain live for 60 days, at which time it will expire. If your item is not sold after this time, you may re-list your item.

Hints And Tips For A Successful Listing

When creating an advert for sale, try to be as honest as you can. Include details of the item, how long you have used it and why you want to sell it. Rather than download stock product images from the manufacturer website, take photos yourself. Try and capture all aspects of the item from different angles. Include warts and all information in the description to manage your buyer’s expectations. Provide details of how you would like to get paid and of course whether you will send by post or whether the item is collection only.

Use Of Images

A common mistake is to take a photo and upload that into the advertisement without any editing. That file could be 4 to 5MB in size and will take ages to download to the visitor’s device. If you upload 6 photos into a gallery, that could be up to 30MB of files on one page. Not only will this take up storage space on this server, but the search engines may not publicise your indexed advert because it is too big and of course, your potential buyer may give up waiting for the photos to download and go elsewhere.

To overcome this problem, use an image optimisation tool such as “ShortPixel“.

First, take your photo in landscape mode. Then, using your favourite image tool, reduce the size to 1,024 pixels wide. Your photo will then be either 1,024×768 or 1,024×576 pixels wide with a screen resolution of 72 pixels per inch. Second, upload your photo(s) to ShortPixel and selecting “lossy” compression, download again to your desktop or handheld device and upload onto the form below.

This may seems a bit long winded, geeky or techie to some, but trust me, the more effort you put into using the correct size images, the faster your listing will load and the better chance you have in selling.