German / Soviet POW story

WWII booklet/book! PRISONER OF WAR! STORY! NEAT!


Auction ended: Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Auction grade: D-

Starting bid: $0.99

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a book about being a Soviet prisoner-of-war during World War 2. There's just one minor catch with this book - it's written entirely in German.

For starters, this auction's title is very childish and does very little to sell the product or even capture your imagination. "STORY!" and "NEAT!" is just plain dumb when talking about a person's ordeals through one of the world's largest and costliest conflicts. This technique is also insulting to those people who have an actual interest in this subject. "German", "Soviet", and "Russia" would have been much better words in the title.

The auction's description is also horrible. At no point does this seller even try to describe this book or make an attempt at selling it. According to this seller, this is "a REALLY NEAT WWII BOOK" about "A STORY ABOUT A PRISONER OF WAR!" that is "INTERESTING READING!!!" and "READY FOR YOUR COLLECTION!!!" (in there twice, so it must really be important).

This is complete crap when it comes to marketing the product. You can easily tell that this seller has not done any product research and, apart from looking at the barb wire on the cover, knows nothing about this book or the author. When it comes to selling a non-fiction book, it definitely helps to have at least a little bit of background information about the person who went through the experience and wrote the story.

Apart from the horrible title and description, the seller did a good job with the pictures and low starting bid.

So can this auction be salvaged and turned into a winner? I honestly don't know.

The main problem with this auction and item for sale deals with the book itself. This is a book written in German (no English translation as far as I know). That problem alone is going to vastly limit the target audience here in the U.S. There are many people interested in P.O.W. stories, but the language barrier is something very hard to overcome. This seller would probably be best off marketing this book to high school and college foreign language departments, though it's probably too advanced or difficult for most of those students.

If I were to pursue this auction, I would just include it in a lot of other German or World War 2 books and other small items. It's easy to find basic information about the seller and talk about that in the auction's description, but that alone won't make the sale. If you're not knowledgeable about this author or subject, it's not worth it to take the extra time to educate yourself. You could be marketing other items instead.

Toy WW2 era cannon

VINTAGE WW 11 ERA SMALL WOOD CANNON 8-1/2 IN LONG NR


Auction ended - Thursday, July 3, 2008

Auction grade: D-

Starting bid: $1.99

Final selling price: $0 - no bids


Up for sale in this eBay auction is a wooden toy cannon. The seller claims that this toy is from the 1940's though nothing in the statement backs up this claim.

For starters, if you want to market something as being from the Second World War era, do not type it as "WW11". That is flat out wrong! "WW2" is fine along with "WWII", but do not substitute the I's with 1's. In addition to severely limiting yourself in the search engine, this is also insulting to the veterans who served in the war. If you're going to use that time period to help market your item, you could at least learn how to use a proper acronym.

In addition to correcting "WW 11", "IN LONG NR" could also safely be removed and substituted for words such as "toy" and "collectible". Don't waste space in the title when there are still search engine relevant terms not being used.

The auction's title has two main goals:
1) Get the auction into as many different searches as possible to maximize its visibility.
2) Be attractive enough to capture a buyer's curiosity enough for them to click on the link.

The auction's description is a complete pile of unorganized mess. The first sentence briefly tells us about the item for sale, though there really isn't any new information. It's just a repeat of what is already mentioned in the title. The only new thing is that we now know this is from an estate sale.

The rest of the description is the seller rambling on how he goes to auctions and estate sales for the purpose of reselling items. By doing so for apparently over thirty years he's accumulated a bunch of stuff, so now he's selling a bunch of it to make some room at his place.

Psychologically, this seller would have been better off not telling us his life story about buying items for dirt cheap and then reselling them to other people. By doing so the seller presents himself as one of those "shady salesmen" who just want to make a quick buck and move on to the next person. People are less inclined to buy from someone they see as a "middle man" versus a collector or a "regular" person selling some items from around the house.

In truth, there's nothing wrong with purchasing items for the sole purpose of reselling it. That's how many of the small retail stores operate throughout the country. Most people don't see any problems with this practice, and many of them support it without even realizing it.

Let's take a look at this seller's auction and how it shows off the "bad side" of reselling.
A) This seller types in all capital letters and cannot form complete sentences. This person also has problems using correct acronyms.
B) The picture sucks and the cannon looks like crap. It's really showing its age and needs to be refurbished.
C) This seller brags about buying items for wholesale, in auctions, and at estate sales.
D) This is a PowerSeller and many of his other auctions have this similar shoddy format.

So in other words, this person presents himself as only being out there to make a quick buck, likes to brag about how he can find deals, cannot type, and clearly doesn't take the time to take decent pictures or put together an even semi-professional auction. As a buyer, does that make you feel good about giving your hard-earned money to this person?

The best approach is for this seller to stop talking about the estate sales and other sources of cheap items. If that's your only way of acquiring items, then don't mention it at all. Focus instead on the actual item for sale first, and then our own policies after that.