Asian bowl & spoon

Japanese Or Chinese Bowl with Spoon ????


ended - Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Auction grade: D+

Starting bid: $9.99

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is an antique Asian bowl and spoon. The exact type of material isn't mentioned, whether it's ceramic or something else. The seller claims that her father brought it back from Japan sometime well before the 1960's. This bowl and spoon combination has been displayed in a china cabinet for quite some time and is in a nearly perfect condition.

First, the auction's title definitely needs some work. It's obvious the seller has no clue as to the bowl's origins besides the fact that it's from Asia. Both "Japanese" and "Chinese" are good words, but I would also use "Asian" and "antique". If this is ceramic, then that fact should also be mentioned in the title.

The other main problem with the auction title is that the seller is admitting that she has no idea about the item. The buyers who have specific knowledge about items like this may take advantage of the seller, while other average buyers who are just shopping are going to stay away because the seller can't tell them anything specific. The auction's title needs to look both vague and specific at the same time. Make it look like you're fishing with key words and not just guessing to the item's history. If you honestly don't know anything about the item, make a mention of it in the description, not the title.

The item's description is in desperate need of an editor. After reading through the seller's rambling, it's known that her father was stationed in Japan while he was in the military (big fault on the seller for not knowing when her father was there!), and when he came home he brought back this bowl & spoon amongst other items. The seller also mentions how the bowl and spoon were displayed in a china cabinet for a very long time, and at this point in time they're still in excellent condition. It's free of chips and cracks and apparently is extremely clean.

That part of the description is great (besides the butchering of the English language and complete lack of family knowledge). As a buyer you know that it came from overseas and the owners took care of it. By being in a closed cabinet it remained relatively free of dirt, dust and human fingerprints. This would most likely look good in your own collection.

The last part of the auction's description is completely unnecessary. Nobody really wants to hear about how you have a bunch of kids running around somewhere near Denver and how you want to buy them new clothes and take them to the local amusement park. Lots of people have children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews and want to do lots of things with them, too. Trying to use sympathy like this is not the best way to make a sale on eBay. Perhaps a special "I-want-to-spend-lots-of-money-on-my-grandchildren-please-help-us-have-fun" locally advertised garage sale would produce better results.

Using sympathy is one of the oldest tricks used in marketing. I'm not saying this is the case here, but online scam artists commonly play the roles of an elderly lady or mother of really sick children to force people to donate. By not actually knowing the seller you really don't know if their pet dog needs a $5,000.00 operation or if that elderly lady's home is about to be taken away from her. It's human nature to want to help others in their time of need, but two statements come to mind each time these stories happen:
1) Not every person can be helped. Everybody has problems and most of them will be worked out in one way or another. It's not possible or practical to fix every single problem out there.
2) Not every problem is legitimate. Scam artists will beg and plead until you're out of money before they move on to the next person and repeat the process. Without actually meeting the customers in person or even on the phone, it's very easy to impersonate somebody else.

In this auction we honestly don't know the seller and her comments about the children. The typing style generally reflects an uneducated, older female. She chose to tell us about the grandchildren for a reason. Her story is no different than hundreds of other sellers out there.

If you're going to use sympathy as a selling strategy, make it as legitimate as possible. If you have a life threatening condition and desperately need money for an operation, try to get the story backed by the local media. In most cases they'll gladly cover a story like that. Have a link in the auction to the official story and let people see it for themselves. In addition to increased sales, you'll also receive donations from random people.

Save sympathy for those people that really need it.

Getting back to problems with the actual auction, the pictures are plenty but blurry. The seller gets extra credit for posting multiple pictures like this, but it doesn't do much good when they're blurry and it's hard to see the details.

The final part to point out is the shipping and handling cost. The actual auction doesn't have a fee listed, but the search results shows a charge of $9.80 to send the bowl from Denver to here in Atlanta. The seller mentions charging an 85 cent handling fee, but unless the bowl weighs about eight or nine pounds, it sounds like she's overcharging by more than that.

Overall, this auction needs to be completely rewritten. The seller had a couple of good points with the bowl's physical condition and the extra pictures, but all of the text needs to go through a grammar checker. It would be better if the seller just presented herself as just a kind grandmother instead of a grandmother looking for extra money to spend on the grandchildren. If she was creative enough to label the item's location as "Purple Mountains Majesty" instead of the actual town name (Idaho Springs? Colorado Springs?), then I'm sure she can find a more creative way to sell her items.