D.R.G.M. tin railroad watch tower

Antique Bing Tin Tinplate Railroad Watch Tower


Auction ended - Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Auction grade: C

Starting bid: $69.99

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is an antique tin railroad watch tower.

The title for this auction looks pretty good. The seller seems to have hit most of the major key words and search terms based on the item's description. However, some really good key words are missing, but that will be addressed in just a bit.

The item's description is also pretty good. The seller seemed to do a reasonable job telling us some details about the item for sale. The description isn't exciting and doesn't really create that "must have" feeling, but basic details about the watch tower are there.

I would like to know how the seller can back up this claim: "Very unique hard to find piece." A statement like that implies that the seller did research into the product, but if that was true, then the seller would have mentioned more information about the history and approximate age of this vintage item. The seller would have also discovered more key words for the title.

So far the auction looks pretty good. However, this is the part where the auction takes a turn for the worse and the seller drops the ball on doing some research.

Basic Internet research shows that "D.R.G.M." stands for "Deutsches Reich Gebrauchsmuster", known in English as "German Reich Registered Design". This abbreviation was used on items manufactured in Germany between 1890 and 1945. The seller would have to do a bit more digging to find exact information about this particular item, but knowing the year range is a good start.

The other problem with this auction deals with the pictures. It's good that the seller took multiple pictures of this item. But if the pictures are blurry, from bad angles, and obscured by reflections from the flash, does it do any good to even use pictures? No, it will only waste your own time and money. The best approach is to invest in a small tripod and learn to take longer exposure pictures that don't use the flash. Natural daylight will provide an ample amount of light, and using a tripod will greatly help keep your camera steady and the pictures in focus. This seller may also want to make a designated picture taking area complete with a neutral backdrop. In addition to looking bad and unprofessional, having other items not for sale in the background will confuse some of the potential buyers.

Overall, this isn't that bad of an auction. Additional work on the seller's part will help increase the value of this railroad watch tower and bring in buyers searching for different terms. The extra bit of research is definitely worth it for items with high starting bid prices like this one.

Model railroad dummy engine

N SCALE GP 38 DUMMY MINT NEW IN BOX SOUTHERN PACIFIC


ended - Saturday, April 5, 2008

Auction grade: B

Starting bid: $0.99

Final selling price: $0.99


Up for sale in this eBay auction is an N scale dummy train engine for use with model railroads. The seller claims that the engine is in mint condition and new in the box.

For model railroads, the N scale is the second smallest size of trains that people will build and have running around their home. The trains and scenery pieces are roughly 160th the size of their real life counterparts. This is ideal for people who have a limited amount of space but still want to enjoy this hobby, or those who want to build large and elaborate train sets without it completely taking over their home.

The auction's title needs some adjusting to help draw in more potential customers. Aside from not typing in all capital letters, the seller can also remove the "NEW IN BOX" part and just replace it with the common abbreviation NIB. Being in all caps with the rest of the title, "NEW IN BOX" isn't going to catch the person's eye, and most people won't search for that phrase when looking for more train parts. NIB or just "new" will work fine in its place.

In addition with that, the seller needs to find a way to add "train", "engine", and even "railroad" as key words in the auction's title. Remember that the default way of searching on eBay is just by looking at the titles, so you want to take advantage and have your listing exposed to as many relevant searches as possible. It doesn't cost you extra, and the more people that find your auction then the more likely you'll get a few bids.

The auction's description also needs to be rewritten. The bold print in all caps with unusual spacing needs to go. The seller did a good job listing information about the engine, but this looks very sloppy and unprofessional. Information about the engine itself should go in the first paragraph (or by using bullet points), and general information about model railroads should go into a second or even third paragraph, depending on your knowledge and experience on the subject matter.

Apart from fixing the title and description, the rest of the auction looks pretty good. The picture of the engine looks very good and I like how the seller added detailed information in the "item specifics" section of the auction.