Set of "Dragon Marine" accessories

Dragon Marine 1/6 lot #3


ended - Friday, June 13, 2008

Auction grade: F

Starting bid: $7.99

Final selling price: $7.99


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a small collection of apparent military gear or something similar to that. The seller calls this "Dragon Marine" lot #3.


The biggest problem with this auction is that the seller is not descriptive at all and doesn't even explain anything about "Dragon Marine". Was this a real military unit? Is this something from a past war such as World War 2? Is this a fictional / fantasy military such as GI Joe? What is "Dragon Marine"?

Depending on what this is will depend on the key words that need to be added to the auction's title. Right now, basic words such as "military", "weapons", and even "collectible" can go into the title, but more is still needed to attract even more potential buyers.

The auction's description is horrible. It's like this seller isn't even trying to sell this lot.

"you get all in picture....alot of neat stuff for diarama etc questions?"

Apart from misspelling "a lot" and "diorama", the seller completely failed in describing the item for sale and creating that "must have" desire that makes people want to place a bid. The seller makes the buyers figure out what's for sale and if they want to pursue it or not. It's hard to find an example of a lazier approach to selling on eBay.

So what can the seller do to improve the chances of this even selling on eBay?

The simplest approach is to describe "Dragon Marine" in the auction's description. If this was a real military unit, let us know a little bit about it. Copy some information from a website if needed. Remember that information in the auction's description is still searchable in the eBay search engine, but only if the user selects the "search title and description" box on the search results and advanced search pages. The search box on eBay's main page only searches through auction titles.

The auction's picture is clear, but the seller still needs to make a listing of the different pieces of military gear included in this lot. If the seller can look up basic information about "Dragon Marine", then the seller should also be able to research the weapons and other military gear for sale.

Remember, the less information that you include will lead to the fewer number of potential buyers that will find your auction. If the auction does sell, then it'll most likely be for the least amount of money you're willing to accept. The goal of any auction should be to attract the maximum number of buyers and increase the final selling price as high as possible.

1) Do your homework. Research the product and tell us about it in the description.

2) Let the buyers know exactly what is for sale.

3) Use as many relevant key words in the auction's title.

4) Keep the starting bid and shipping costs as low as possible to attract bidding.

GI Joe aircraft carrier - USS Saratoga

GI Joe USS Saratoga Air Craft Carrier Military MINT


ended - Thursday, April 10, 2008

Auction grade: B+

Starting bid: $25.00

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a vintage GI Joe USS Saratoga toy aircraft carrier from the 1980's.

The title isn't bad and the seller has the right idea of using relevant key words, but some changes still need to be made.

First, "Air Craft" needs to be together in one word. It's an "aircraft" carrier, and that's how most people are going to search for that item.

Second, this may be in excellent condition, but the seller shouldn't use that exclusive "mint" term for an item that has been used. It's not even mentioned if this comes with the original box.

The problem is that on eBay and other online stores, mint is used to describe the highest state of perfection with an item. Those are items that are still sealed in their original factory packages and haven't been touched or used by another person. This can still be used to describe items where it's absolutely necessary to remove the item from the box just to take a picture.

Since this auction is labeled as "used", the seller can use similar phrases such as "excellent", "perfect", and "like-mint", but not "mint" by itself. Save that term for unopened and unused items.

Again, throughout the auction's description the seller keeps mentioning that it's in mint condition. It may be in perfect working order and in excellent condition, but it's not mint. Sorry. Again, like in the title, the seller needs to refer to this as an "aircraft" carrier, not "air craft".

I like how the seller mentioned the manufacturer and the overall dimensions, but this description would look and read a lot easier if it wasn't a mass of sentence fragments. Use a little spacing and make this neater and easier to read.

"moving satellites" --- The seller is most likely referring to the various radar dishes and other antenna on top of the aircraft carrier. I doubt that this carrier has any orbiting objects out in space.

Overall, this auction looks pretty good, and a few minor changes will help bring in extra potential buyers and help with the overall accuracy.

Like every other boy back in the 80's, I used to play with GI Joe action figures, too. I had a few of the larger aircraft including the Cobra Night Raven , Tomahawk, Cobra Condor Z-25, and later the massive Mobile Command Center and Crusader Space Shuttle with Avenger Scout Craft (my personal favorite.) It was always hard to compete with that spoiled kid down the street with the USS Saratoga in his basement (forgot his name as it was 20 years ago and when we lived in a different state). My Mobile Command Center was pretty cool, but it wasn't added to my collection until later when we found it accidentally marked down too much in a store ($20 instead of the usual $80+). This makes me wonder how many of those toys and other 1980's action figure playsets are still sitting in various boxes in the attic at my parent's house.

20 toy military aircraft

Die Cast U.S.A. Toy Fighter Planes New 20


ended - Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Auction grade: C

Starting bid: $14.99

Final selling price: $14.99


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a small collection of twenty toy military aircraft. These are die-cast metal and look to be about 1/64th of their original size. I know that because I used to collect those exact toys a long time ago. I'm an aviation & military history dork :)

The title looks pretty good, but the seller will benefit by finding ways to add words and phrases such as "military", "bomber", "metal", "American", and even something like "LOT of 20".

The auction's description definitely needs some work. Here's exactly what it says:

"Up for your bids is this Really Neat set of 20 Fighter Planes. These are New, Never been played with. Just taken out of box to take picture. No broken parts. Absolutely a Must Have for the Military collector."

The first problem is the almost random capitalization of certain words. It makes no sense and I can only assume that the seller doesn't know how to write correctly. The same is true for the sentence fragments in the description.

My next problem is the way that the seller uses the generic "fighter planes" description for all of the aircraft in the collection. That is certainly not true. I know that the description on the box says "20 PC FAMOUS FIGHTER SET" and most people don't know or care that it technically isn't correct. This is just a seller trying to pass on some merchandise to the next person.

The description is another excellent place to use more key words talking about the different aircraft in the collection. Comments about the military would be useful as well as aviation in general. I'm willing to bet that there are some people that would enjoy setting up a display case with such aircraft, but they're going to have a hard time finding this auction.

The last problem that I noticed in the auction's description is when the seller mentions "No broken parts." That's a lie. Looking at the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter on the right side of the picture, the rotors blades are bent and broken. Those blades are plastic and it's very easy to bend and brake them with improper packaging. The winning bidder is going to be very sad when they examine that chopper and see the damage. This picture is evidence that it's already broken while still in the seller's possession, yet nothing is mentioned.

Just for fun, here's a listing of all of the aircraft in the picture: F-15, F-18, F-4, F-16, F-111, B-1, F-117, A-6, E-2, A-4, AV-8B, F-14, UH-60, A-10, B-52, SR-71, X-29, F-22, A-26 (not positive about that one), and a C-5. Five of them don't even carry any offensive weapons, and four others are bombers. That leaves the rest of them as fighter and attack aircraft.

That's just me being technical. From a selling point-of-view, if you don't know anything about military aircraft, then you would have a very hard time trying to identify the different aircraft in the collection. For this being a small collection of toys, that really isn't necessary. It would be better to leave that blank rather than guessing and incorrectly identifying some of the airplanes.

A final note is that there isn't any mention of the shipping costs. The seller only says that the shipping amount is the total weight and distance to your zip code.

Overall, this isn't that bad of an auction for toy aircraft. I know that I'm overly picky about certain aspects of auctions and items. The title isn't bad and the picture is pretty good. I like the way the seller neatly spaced out the different aircraft and all of them are visible in the picture.

I do believe that the seller is turning away business by not accepting online payments through PayPal or even Google Checkout. By making people mail you their payment and waiting days (even over a week at times) before the item is even mailed out will discourage people from making a bid.

USAF Sabre Jet Motor Lodge sign

AIR FORCE SABRE JET MOTOR LODGE SIGN AGED METAL


ended - Sunday, March 9, 2008

Auction grade: B

Starting bid: $22.95

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for bid in this eBay auction is a vintage motor lodge sign featuring the USAF F-86 Sabre. The seller claims that this a current production sign with a 1950's theme to it.


I like this sign and the vintage look to it, but changes need to be made to increase traffic.

First, the title needs some adjusting. It needs to be written with regular sized characters, and certainly not all caps like it is now. Also, a few more keys words need to be added to the title. "USAF" and "military" will definitely help increase the number of viewers.

The other main part of the auction that needs adjusting is the item's description.

First, the seller needs to say directly whether or not this exact sign was made in the 1950's or if it was made today and designed to look like it was from that era. The title says "aged metal", but the description mentions "current production sign." Well, which one is it? Vintage items are popular these days, and some companies are producing modern day replicas of vintage signs, furniture, etc.

Second, the seller could easily have gone into a little detail about the F-86 Sabre. I know from my own independent military aviation studies that the F-86 was the primary fighter used by our forces during the Korean Conflict. It hunted and destroyed Soviet-made and Soviet/Chinese/Korean-piloted MiG-15 fighters in "MiG Alley" on the China-Korean border. Any facts and pieces of information like that are excellent add-ons for the item's description. By mentioning a little bit about the aircraft, USAF, military, and Korean War, all of a sudden you have a bunch of excellent key words. It will also help you look more professional as long as your facts are correct.

Third, the spacing and general format of the description needs to be fixed. A bunch of sentence fragments separated only by periods (no spacing) isn't the way to do it. Dimensions are best being listed separately so they stand out and are easier to read. Facts and observations should be listed first in one paragraph, and opinions and other pieces of information need to go in following paragraphs.

It's interesting to see that the sign has the aircraft spelled "SABER JET". The military spelled the aircraft as either "Sabre" or "Sabrejet" (no space). The seller even spelled it correctly in the title. Did the designer of the sign intentionally misspell the aircraft, or was it an accident?