LOT of NASCAR items

Toy Car Nascar Racing Lot of 3 Petty Cards Book(#6)


ended - Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Auction grade: C-

Starting bid: $1.99

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a small collection of semi-vintage, assorted NASCAR memorabilia.

The auction's title looks a little bit weird because it doesn't make much sense reading it from left to right, but the seller did manage to hit the major key words. This auction should have enough exposure, but by rearranging the words more people will click on the link and take a look at what's for sale.

The auction's description is where the seller really dropped the ball. The text and flow of words is horrible, and the seller failed to describe the items for sale.

"Lot of Three Neat Nascar Racing Items"

This part isn't bad despite the seller capitalizing the first letter of each word. On a side note, all of the letters in NASCAR are supposed to be capitalized. After all, it is an acronym for "National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing".

"Included are one Nascar toy car
A set of Richard Petty Cards
and a Nascar Collectible Book"

If you're going to do the trouble and pay the money for listing an auction, don't you think you could have done a slightly better job with the description than this? Let's look at this one line at a time.

"Included are one Nascar toy car"

First of all, if you're going to make a listing, use a colon followed by bullet points to separate the items. Otherwise, you'll end up with a sloppy and unprofessional statement like this.

Aside from the grammar problems, the seller failed to mention anything about the "toy car". Many buyers and fans of racing would like to know that this is a recreation of Dale Earnhardt, Junior's #3 ACDelco Chevy Monte Carlo car that he used when he won the 1998 Busch Grand Nationals Series Championship. (It took me less than two minutes to find that information chock-full of excellent key words.)

"A set of Richard Petty Cards"

So are these playing cards you would use in games like poker and blackjack, or is this some type of a NASCAR collector card set featuring highlights of the driver? The picture doesn't show us anything useful about the cards.

"and a Nascar Collectible Book"

Looking closely at the enlarged picture, this is a March 1992 Speedway Limited Edition racing memorabilia pocket price guide. When most people describe a sporting book as being a collectible, that usually means that the book focuses on a player, team, or entire sport for a season and gives you all sorts of facts, pictures, and other pieces of information. What we have here is a guide telling you how much certain memorabilia is worth. Being an outdated pricing guide that is nowhere near correct with today's values and prices for certain items, the book itself isn't exactly a collector's item.

"Email me if you want names or details of each box."

Is this referring to this lot, or is there something else that the seller didn't mention?

How about just taking the few extra minutes and listing everything in the auction in the first place?


Luckily for us potential buyers, this seller provided a large enough picture for us to see enough details about the items (except for the Richard Petty cards). The problem (aside from the problems already addressed above) is that showing items in a picture does not equal actually writing about them in the auction. The eBay search engine cannot look at the picture to see if something that somebody is searching for is in your auction.

For example, if somebody had their heart set on finding that 1992 Speedway Limited Edition racing memorabilia guide, they're certainly not going to find it from this seller. I found one available from a different seller, and it's only $0.49 (auction ends in twelve hours).


This seller has a lifetime history of over 6,000 positive pieces of feedback. Many of this person's other non-NASCAR auctions look neat and professional, so, obviously, they know how to sell on eBay and they've been doing it for a while. The seller admits that they don't know anything about racing by saying "I am not sure about these cars or the drivers" in a previous auction for a couple of die cast NASCAR cars.

I cannot say this clear enough: By not doing simple research you are leaving money on the table!

Take the few extra minutes and do some quick Google and Wikipedia searches and see what you can find.

Dale Junior remote controlled go-kart

REMOTE CONTROL DALE JR CART CAR WORKS NEEDS BATTERIES


ended - Friday, March 21, 2008

Auction grade: D

Starting bid: $9.99

Final selling price: $9.99


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a used Dale Earnhardt, Junior radio controlled go-kart. The kart has Dale Junior behind the wheel and ready to race around a driveway or other smooth surface.

As you can probably expect, the title needs work. First, the entire title doesn't need to be capitalized like that. The part that says "WORKS NEEDS BATTERIES" isn't necessary as those are low ranking search terms. The seller is better off with relevant key words such as "#8", "NASCAR" and even "go-kart". It's easy to use words and phrases relating to both the popular NASCAR driver and the actual toy car.

Looking at the description, it's obvious that the seller knows nothing about racing and Dale Junior, and this person has the typing skills of somebody in elementary school. I know that a lot of both buyers and sellers don't care about presenting themselves in a professional manner, but if you can't type, people will laugh at you and turn away from the sale. You're only hurting yourself in the end.

This item's description is a prime area to throw out a little information about the driver. As most race fans know, this is the old version of Dale Junior with his old number, sponsor and color scheme. In essence this is a collector's item that people are willing to collect. The problem is that many collectors are going to miss this auction because the seller failed to market it properly. A simple blurb about NASCAR and the driver will do wonders to the search results. It would also help to SPELL THE DRIVER'S NAME CORRECTLY!!!

This particular remote controlled car is a little bit different than the traditional and far more popular stock cars that most people sell online. This one has Dale behind the wheel of a go-kart (note - it's not spelled "cart") like he's racing in the Endurance Karting or other similar go-kart racing league. With this being different and rather unconventional, this is a great chance to draw extra attention to the auction. A special reference to this in the title and description will help draw in a few more potential buyers.

As a used item with moving parts, the seller needs to mention the go-kart's condition and say if there are any driving or control problems. All we know is that it works and needs batteries. We also need to know the size of the go-kart. There's no indication of the size or scale of the car in the description or picture.

In addition to fixing the title and description, the picture needs to be changed, too. This is a poor resolution picture showing the car from a horrible angle. It's very hard to see any details. The seller may want to put the controller in the picture, too.

For a used remote controlled car, I feel that the pricing for this one is a little bit too high. Considering that you'll be paying at least $20 ($10.49 + $9.95 for shipping) for the toy, that could be put towards a new remote controlled stock car. Most people are selling brand new 1/32 scale remote controlled NASCAR stock cars for around $22-25.

Overall, many parts of this auction need work and adjusting to help draw in more bidders. If you're going to go through the hassle and effort to pay for and list an item, you might as well do some research and try to draw in as many bidders as possible. Use online tools such as Google and Wikipedia to your advantage. A few minutes of research can go a long way.

Jeff Gordon car panel

Jeff Gordon #24 Car Side NASCAR Bristol Sharpie 500


ended - Sunday, February 10, 2008

Auction grade: A-

Starting bid: $0.99

Final sale price: $440.00 (reserve not met)


Up for sale in this eBay auction is an actual piece of Jeff Gordon's car from the 2003 NASCAR Sharpie 500 race in Bristol, TN. The racing damage and tire marks show you how intense racing can get at that crowd favorite short track.

The seller states that there is no certificate of authenticity to accompany this item. Fortunately, most fans will instantly recognize that this is a real part of his stock car.

Overall, this is a pretty good auction. I would have used the term "car panel" instead of "car side", but otherwise the title looks pretty good. The main body text isn't bad. I would have rearranged some thing and broken it up into a few paragraphs, but the right words, descriptions, and dimensions are listed there. The customer has enough important information about the item for sale.

The pictures look very good. Having many of them like the seller has is always a good idea for these rare and/or high priced items.