CSS is great for eBay as It's always used for my gateway pages to dynamically link them together. I'm currently learning more advanced flash techniques and tweaks as I'm totally infatuated with all the new widgets out there. I also used a different form of CSS on myspace that took me about 10 pages of code to write and a day or so to learn/code called a DIV overlay. The more code you learn the more control you have over the net. It really can be difficult and boring but in the end it can save you thousands of dollars and also give you a huge advantage over your competitors. I'm actually working on a myspace blog/article site that will be a site resource not only to myspace but coding tricks as well.

CSS in a brief introduction can be defined by using a < div> tag and/or, < style> to define the style as "text/css" which can than lead to Table tags where you set the formatting and the grid per say for that section. Example is {TABLE="your custom attribute defines height in pxls, width in pxls, padding, boarder thickness, etc.)"} You may also use a simpler form by just implementing a div tag and align your area left and so forth {li},{ul},{du},etc. tags along with a few other tag customizations control your rows and your columns evenly without limiting the box dimensions. The trick to doing this and not messing up is to spread the tags out and always open and close tags before embedding the next tag inside another one, an example could be placing a li tag inside a lu tag by first opening out first so you don't forget to close the tag. I would do this with quotes as well as I always use to mess up by missing a comma or close quote. Basically the best way to learning this is to take a template and mess with it, you can do a lot of this faster with programs however knowing whats going on will keep you from getting stuck should there be a problem or limit with the editor.

Ebay and Myspace both have strict rules on what type of tags you can code with however you shouldn't run into too much trouble with html on either sites. CSS is pretty normal on eBay as well as long as no javascript is used. Myspace is really really weird and has like it's own version of css which I will explain later in my new blog site. Imaps do not work for the most part on myspace or eBay but a few workarounds have been discovered over the past few months that have been implemented by a few widget and program providers. Flash use to be the way to go on myspace until more restrictions were placed limited the ability to link outside of the flash applicant. I have not tried too much flash on eBay but was able to get the object/embed tag to work while trying to work with a widget on an eBay page.

When using coding on eBay be careful to stay within the "Grey" lines of their policies. eBay states you may only link to pages on the eBay site on a listing (most importantly your about me page). eBay than says you may link to your website but may not directly advertise your products. What I have done in the past is to place products/category links on the about me page without any direct advertising on the page itself. Its worked very well so far and does comply in my opinion with their outlined policies of course ebay can according to their agreement suspend you at any time for any reason. I would definitely encourage anyone to start working toward hosting their own webstore vs eBay's store, not only do you in most cases seem more professional but also once you are established on your domain your prices tend to sell much higher, 15-35% higher for me. Two years ago I only understood html and a bits and pieces of css, and C++! It wasn't until one of my friends allowed me to host my website for free on his server did I have to start slowly learning this stuff. It's a struggle at first but I promise it pays off! Always remember to use eBay as a tool and not a lifesource, and try to be open minded, thinking outside of the box! eCommerce is a growing industry and the only way to stay near the top is to think, analyze, and improve our overall business strategies.