Re: Crosspostings in "Classified Ads"
Message #5 Posted by glynn on 19 May 2002, 4:43 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Glen Kilpatrick
Hmm... seems you are not mad that the crossposting is taking place... but that people are using eBay.
To Matthias, who may or may not share your disappointment in eBay selling (after all, he seems to study the listings):
I think far worse is the MoHPC listing that does not SAY it is an (AUCTION). To hide that fact well into the body of the message is truly annoying.
If that alone were "enforced"-- meaning WE, not Dave, but US would send a "hey! don't you know how to use the classified listings?"... whenever we encountered an irritatingly misrepresented listing, THEN it would soon become a simple matter to scroll past all "auction" listings and only deal with the "meat" of the Classifieds, if that is your desire.
But obviously, there are folks interested in getting their message out to you collectors. To ban them doesn't really seem to be a service to collectors, now does it? "No, you can't see THAT, that's on that nasty eBay-- if you wanted one of those so badly, you'd have been poring over the listings-- no, this is the pristine "user-to-user" pool."
Or to segregate sellers into two groups provides only a NEW, less practical place to advertise. Now maybe IF you promise that, as a real collector, you will now fully research eBay, the MoHPC Classifieds AND the new MoHPC Auction Links page, I am sure they will dutifully keep to our lines of demarcation. LOL
In other words, Dave Hicks structured the MoHPC Classifieds section in a practical way-- but it has to be utilized in a manner consistent with its structure. Those that abuse it make us angry for wasting our time. I'm totally with ya on that.
Glen: each of us in our little community, consisting as it does of buyers, sellers, users, collectors and lord-knows-who-else, WANTS and NEEDS as many options as can be provided in coming together and being exposed and transacting to our mutual benefit-- and exclusivity, one-way streets and fences should only be considered in the case of a clear harm being done-- as I am sure you would agree. But eBay represents to you a danger.
Now I have had a few really disappointing experiences on eBay myself, and I have only ever BOUGHT there, but I would submit to you that if you refuse to deal with eBay as a collector, you are really missing a lot of good that comes with it. You may lament the sharks, and they are there. But you'd be surprised perhaps to find how many of our own good folk are there, too-- not sharks. I've bought stuff from people here VIA eBay as well as one-to-one via MoHPC. I'm even fairly sure I've bought stuff via MoHPC connection that the seller had once bought via eBay, maybe from a shark. My comfort level in dealing with the seller is higher when I know him/her. That is what makes me prone to look at the MoHPC classifieds... but if the seller is on eBay, and I know him/her, the merchandise and transaction are much the same. The ONLY difference is often the price-- and that's where I suspect much of eBay resentment and envy lies. But MOST of the people bidding against me on eBay are ALSO here... and those that aren't soon will be. And, ultimately, it is the price inflation of a world marketplace that increases the monetary value of any collector's collection. Would I deny my fellow collectors the use of any tool to buy and sell for the best profit?
Pretend I'm selling your average, run-of-the-mill red-dot. I want to get the maximum exposure I can to the community that appreciates it most. Ha, I betcha thought that line was about YOU!! (apologies to C.Simon)-- but in terms of potential return, a SPECULATIVE market offers potential returns far in excess of you people who already KNOW what the thing is worth to you.
So, if I am getting rid of my special toy, I have two choices: sell it for virtually certain moderate prices to a known "good home", a collector who will take good care of it; OR put it FIRST on a venue where "wild" and emotion-driven prices are known to abound, keep a reserve price just in case, and THEN alert MoHPC people--- so I can hopefully sell it for an Outrageous price to a known good home. Hey, isn't this, after all, the behavior you are observing, or what?
The eBay seller is not choosing a strategy to advertise his product ONLY to collectors. If he was, it would (possibly) make sense to use MoHPC as the sole venue. But he's listing on eBay, knowing you are both here and there, and trying to reach you both ways. He WANTS you, but not in the rarified air of a protected, insulated-from-the-rabble environment; he wants you to come out and play-- in the big seller's marketplace that is eBay.
Indeed, you collectors likely "shop" on eBay all the time. So what you are saying is that a "real" collector will never wish to be annoyed with the redundancy of seeing an auction listing posted here as well as on eBay. He will already KNOW of the listing, since he makes it his business to be informed of HP listings, so any "heads up" to our community is merely a waste of our time (heehee, UNLIKE the dozen or so semi-weekly searches you are doing on eBay's engine to find things worthy of your attention)... um, yeh, in the interests of personal efficiency you could make that case.
But advertising (and yes, that's what classifieds are) THRIVES on redundancy. The more "efficient" thing when advertising something is to reach the most people who would be interested, with the least expenditure or effort. If you happen to reach a target twice or more in that process, so be it.
As MoHPC's classified section is decent bang for zero buck, it makes perfect sense for a seller to want to provide a link from it, to his just-written auction page.
As long as the advertiser tells you in the first title line, (AUCTION), so you may scan past them in your search for (FSOBO)s, how is that different than (WTB)s or anything else in there that also competes for your eye?
|
Go back to the main exhibit hall