Every so often, we return to the subject of small to micro-sized businesses selling on eBay. Time now for an update on our on-going eBay selling experiment.
As regular users will recall yours truly researched the eBay phenomenon with some practical selling experience for an in-depth series of articles. Since then, evidently bitten by the bug, the selling experiment has continued on and off ever since.
Among the latest findings are:
• you really can’t sell a penny for a pound,
• things you collect on the moor may have hidden value.
Taking the penny for a pound finding first, this was a test of whether a bit of imagination coupled with cheek might be enough to generate a sale. It all began as I was hitting the chassis of my old Land Rover with a hammer and three old pennies dropped onto the garage floor. One was dated 1965 and the other two, 1921 and 1913 respectively.
After an overnight soak in flat cola, they cleaned up remarkably well. It then dawned on me that it might be possible to sell the 1965 coin in the classic Land Rover category of eBay as the ultimate accessory for a restoration project.
So, a few pics later, it was down to writing the sales text. The eye-catching title was easy – Penny for a 1965 era Land Rover. That would definitely be a honey-pot. The next bit was convincing people a 1965 pre-decimalisation penny was something they couldn’t live without. And letting them down gently after being hoodwinked into thinking I was selling a Land Rover for a penny!
Eventually, the final draft was, “You are bidding on an old pre-decimalisation UK penny dated 1965.
“This penny will make a fantastic period detail for your mid to late 1960s Series Land Rover. You can't buy these in the shops very readily, that's for sure. This is the ultimate accessory for your Land Rover restoration or for the 'difficult to buy for' Landy nut in your life who has all the usual goodies.
“This penny has had several previous owners and came into my possession recently when it was dislodged while carrying out some bulkhead repair work on my 2A. I presume it was trapped between the dash and the bulkhead.
“Anyway, it has cleaned up rather well all things considered. There is surprisingly little wear and tear. It is slightly tarnished on the 'tails' face, but this only adds to its character. [Not sure what it is, but it will probably shift with turpentine and/or elbow grease if it bothers you.]
“Try here for larger images of the two faces. For younger or non-UK users, the images are larger than life and not to scale.
“***Please, also be clear, I'm not selling a Land Rover. The auction is for a penny circa 1965 ***
Thanks for looking. Happy bidding.”
Interest was strong; within two days of the auction starting I had two watchers and one tongue-in-cheek question, “Does it have overdrive?”
By auction close, I’d had a record-breaking (for me) 252 views. But no bids. The auction watchers were presumably people interested to see if I was getting to get away with it or possessors of similar vintage coins wondering if this was a new emerging market.
I was 30p down and left wondering if I’d hit the eBay marketplace too early for Christmas shoppers. While contemplating this, I was cheered up when another of my auctions bagged me a fiver after expenses. It was a door handle I’d ‘rescued’ from a derelict Series Land Rover abandoned on the moor. (I’d later discovered the handle was surplus to requirements after stumbling across the original door handles whilst searching my garage for a completely different part. Not so long ago, I had a garage, a car trailer and a worn out horse box full of body parts and spares to keep track of.)
For small to micro-sized businesses thinking about using eBay as an extra sales channel, the message is clear: know your market – and stock - intimately but don’t necessarily discount a gimmick as a means of grabbing extra eyeballs and cross referencing them to other items you are selling.
