Inexperienced auction sellers, or those lacking in confidence, almost always want to make their auction listings more dramatic and exciting. They dread the possibility that buyers will be bored by their auction and turn away with indifference.

Therefore, they reason, they will spice up their auctions with some "animations" - graphics that blink, change colors, spin, travel around the web page.

Or the seller can be a tech person who loves toys and is proud of his ability to create unusual effects.

Regardless of their reasons, animated elements on an auction page are almost never a workable idea for the following four reasons:

1. Rather than attracting attention to the merchandise in your auction, your potential customer might watch a spinning ball or follow Santa and his reindeer through the sky. We want the customers total attention on that all-important question: "Do I want to buy this widget or not?" Distractions are not dazzling for your wallet.

2. Animations might make the load time of your auction listing much longer. I have been using DSL four decades and have forgotten (happily!) how horrible it is to use dialup. However, for many places on this planet, high-speed connections simply are not available. For these folks, loading your page might take forever, and you can be sure they wont wait. Experts tell us that the average user spends only 7 seconds at a webpage before departing for greener pastures. If your sales page is still loading, no sale for you.

3. It takes measure for you to figure out how and whether to use animations. This is time that would be better spent on writing more exciting and dynamic copy - copy that will turn a prospective customer into a real buyer. A smart business person will treat time as her most precious commodity and spend it on what is probably to bring a sale.

4. Many of these animations are just downright annoying. I personally do not enjoy looking at screens that are twirling, whirling and blinking. Two particularly irritating animations are an inescapable message that follows up and down the left side of the page, regardless of where I am looking, and "trails" that follow my mouse.

A huge majority of people feel the identical , apparently. Sellers absolutely need to make it as user friendly as possible for everybody to buy, rather than throwing obstacles in the way.

Are there any occasions when animated pictures are of any assessment of worth in an auction listing? Possibly. For example, if you are selling to graphic designers then animated elements might be appropriate. As always, testing, testing, testing is the only way to truly understand .

But for the rest of us folks - let the memory slip the glitter and focus on your merchandise. Thats what makes us buy.