So, Moses,

Re: sholl marking gauge *LINK*

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>I expected it to go higher, but I did end up setting the reserve at the minimum that I would take for the item, therefore it sold. I noticed when I looked at the pics on a larger monitor at work that they are not as good a quality as I would like. I think there are a couple reasons why it didn't go for closer to the $150 I was hoping for; 1) the amount of wear it had and 2) there is not much past history of these things selling on the bay. I have a large number of tools and will be selling off a few at a time until I have enough money to pay for my backpacking gear for a trip to Isle Royal this year. Of course, I plan on using the gear for the rest of my life, so I am buying good quality items. I would apreciate any critiques you have and will put them into practice next Sunday afternoon. I just recieved payment for the gauge in the mail today.


sholl marking gague

Re: sholl marking gauge

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Our old selling buddy ToolShark, of Noogidagt (sp?)/Record close out fame, bought it; so I'd bet that it's actually worth much more. Be interesting to see if he tries to sell it.

Pam

Re: sholl marking gauge

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>Gee Moses, I see nothing wrong with that write up. Must of been the pics that hurt you, but than again, they looked pretty good to me. Must of been an off-week. I didn't look, but you did have this in the right catagory did you?

Todd O.

Re: sholl marking gauge/Isle Royale trip

George in Lowell Mich.

>Moses,

Take plenty of mosquito spray and be ready for a long boat ride to the island!!!!

I went in early July. I saw fireworks in Marquette, fantastic Northern Lights on Big Bay, then moose, wolvs, and HUGE ravens and mosquitoes on the island. I also found the state gemstone Chlorestrolite while on the island! There was a 4 hour trip to the island with 2 motors and an 8hour trip with 1 motor (the other was broke down) coming back. There were also 5-10 foot waves on the return trip which added to the 4 day experience.

All in all it was quite an adventure!!!!

It definitely is a trip you will remember! Don't forget a water purifyer also.

Work safe

George in snowy Lowell, Mich.

Re: sholl marking gauge

Moses Yoder

>there is no doubt that someone with a good customer base could sell it for more money at retail; I looked at his website and figure this is what he will do with it. Something I will have to work at I guess. But since I bought it for less than half what it sold for and took good care of it while it was in my possession I have no regrets about selling it.

Re: sholl marking gauge

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I didn't intend to criticize you in any way, glad you made some money on it; but thought it interesting to keep an eye on his listings to see whether he tries to resell it on ebay and, if so, how he does it. AFAIK, his base is interested in very cheap closeout tools, although lately he's been selling antique tools. In fact, I've had to filter out his stuff recently since he decided to put "Japanese" in every one of his western tools descriptions, very irritating to wade through such a large volume of non-Japanese tools.

Pam

Re: pet peeves

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>This is my favorite pet peeve on the 'bay; people including all sorts of names of what they are selling is "not" so that they will get more hits. Rod Peterson started a good peeve thread on the other side, which is what got me to thinking about them in the first place.

Re: pet peeves

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Yeah, and ToolShark made everything so visible that it was easy to filter him out ("ultimatum" was very handy), so I just modified my stored searches. It's probably a pretty good technique in the collectible tools area, not sure about other places; but he takes the risk of having people filter him out by userid forever.

Pam

Re: pet peeves

Dale Stansbery

>It's against Ebay rules to use "like" or "not" with another brand name in the title, but I guess someone has to turn the offender in to Ebay. They will pull the ads.

My .02, long !!

Doug Littlejohn

>Moses, I sell rather frequently and have generally had very good luck adhering as follows.

1. Always have many, good, clear, sharp pictures. I use a good digital camera, pay attention to my lighting and background, edit each picture for maximum content within the frame and adjust colors, brightness, etc. The user is buying what they see. More is better here.

2. I set the image size to 800x600. Almost everyone has larger monitors these days and that size is a good comprimise between image size (download speed) and good/accurate visual representation.

3. I usually include at least 5-6 images of every angle, close up and of the pieces separated, often more.

4. The write up - while what you wrote was good, it is alot of information in one LONG paragraph. Try using some Title, header, and multiple paragraph layouts. This helps to advertise the main points (rare, good condition, proper name) then the more mundane (but important) details such as precise condition, autction terms, shipping terms, etc.

5. Shipping charges - I hate sellers who charge an obscene amount to ship. I ship almost exclusively Priority Mail. It is very little more than parcel post for any weight over a pound or 2 and gets there much faster. It also allows me to estimate what the actual cost will be (I have a digital scale and weigh my item with it's packaging) so I can set a $$ amount. I usually add a buck or so to cover my packaging costs and then put that total in the auction. Now people know exactly what it will cost them and it is NOT overly high. Also, make use of Flat Rate boxes or envelopes. The cost is fixed no matter what the weight, as long as it fits in the package. Also very important to me, I can get the USPS Priority Mail boxes FREE !! Just go online to USPS.com and you can order all you want and they will send them to you for FREE !!

Lastly, I can take advantage of purchasing (PayPal, yes PayPal has it's minuses, but overall it saves time and $$) and printing my postage online so I only have to drop off the package at the PO.

7. Use a fee service - It saves you time and in the long run if you use a few times each month, money, gives you better looking auctions (templates and can use prior auctions as starting points), makes it easier to make them and most importantly, you can make them ahead of time and then schedule when they start. They only run $10 or less a month (I like InkFrog but there are many others).

8. Lastly - when you sell can make a large difference. I start (and thus end) Sunday evening, 6-7pm PST. This allows for folks to discover it during the week or when their more likely to have time, on the weekend, on BOTH coasts. Then, it also affords them the opportunity to place their final bids also when they are most likely to be home, on the weekend, early evening.

Sure, many will place max bids early, but the whole thing about auctions is that many buyers will get caught up in the moment and may well up their bids IF they are online and watching as it closes.

Now none of these techinques will guarentee you great prices, but my experience has proved them out. I consistenly get higher bids when I adhere to these principles.

Sorry to be so long winded, but I have found the above to really help (I also learned this from others) but you know how advice goes, it often ain't worth what you paid for it.

Sherwood