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10/15/2005: "How to Make Money on Ebay and How to Lose Your Shirt . . . a Marketing Lesson."

I write a lot about my experiences buying and selling on ebay. The reason is that one gets lots of lessons in marketing on ebay. You can see what works and what doesn't, how to sell and how not to sell. But you have to watch for it.

I had an enlightening experience a week or so ago. I buy and sell fountain pens. I mostly stay with the major American pen makers such as Parker, Sheaffer and Esterbrook . . . all for different reasons. I also prefer pens made in the forties and fifties. But I won't go into my reasons for that now.

A few weeks ago there were two pens for sale that collectors are especially interested in. One was an Esterbrook Dollar pen that had been restored. These pens were made in the thirties and collectors love them. They're fine pens.

The ad had a nice heading:

"Esterbrook Vintage Dollar Pen Restored." It attracted lots of bids and went for around $31.00.

The other pen was actually a very hard-to-find rare and valuable pen . . . an Esterbrook Dollar pen with no band. They're much more valuable than the regular Dollar pen and they're getting terribly rare.

I got it for $14.95! No one else bid on the pen. Why?

Well, you tell me.

Here's the headline:

ESTERBROOK GREEN PEN WITH THE TWO HOLE CLIP

Here's the description, misspellings and all:

Nice clean Esterbrook pen No cracks but has the normal scratches for a pen made in the 1930s.Looks like a brand new 2668 nib .Blatter seems good but not tested .I think the vintage pen book called this the bandless model .It has Esterbrook on the top of the clip and R Esterbrook made in USA on the body .Relly a nice vintage Esterbrook.

I found it by doing a search for "esterbrook". Most people wouldn't pay any attention to this ad. The two hole clip wouldn't tell too many people this is a Dollar pen. And the real cincher was hidden in the poorly written description, "I think the vintage pen book called this the bandless model."

This pen could have gone for $50 to $75. But the person who wrote the ad lost his or her chance to get a high price by hiding this gem.

I would have written this ad much differently. This is an example of someone having something very valuable to sell but getting a few nickles for it because it wasn't presented right. It's all about copywriting. That's where the sale is make.