"what exactly do you mean when you say eliminating categories."
I mean there will likely be a memorabilia category, a poster category and maybe an "other" category.
Beyond that, there will be a drop-down list of "keywords" to choose to add on to each auction. The way the clods at eBay see it, this makes listing an item ten times easier, as all you have to do is answer a bunch of multiple choice questions, instead of fill in the blank questions. They also think it will make searches far more productive for the same reason (bidders can choose which keywords to choose from, instead of having to decide what to write in the search box).
Maybe in a perfect world, this system would have some shot of working. But first off, if the person who chooses the keywords doesn't do a good job, it is a disaster. Even if they are chosen perfectly, the sellers need to know what they mean and abide by them. The bidders need to know what they mean and how to search, and that is really unlikely.
So let's all think about what we will do when "Hurricane keywords" hits movie posters on eBay.
Bruce
At 12:30 PM 8/16/2004, Richard Halegua Comic Art wrote:
what exactly do you mean when you say eliminating categories.
do you mean posters will all upload into one category & you'll have to wade through 40,000 listings to see the pre-1940 posters??
the problem we have here with eBay is that "WE" have no say in anything they do. They don't ask us, they don't poll us. They undoubtedly just look at the numbers and make decisions based solely on that data which as we all know is making a "one size fits all" answer
the other problem is that like all American corporations, the need to make "bigger profits each quarter" and whether they must do that by:
Increasing listing fees increasing final sale fees reducing workforce decreasing advertising (I don't see any TV ads anymore and I haven't seen a print ad in forever and this is the one area where no matter how much of the other areas they reduce, most corporations don't reduce their advertising campaigns)
If you lay this on top of the fact that eBay has also "changed the landscape" where collecting is concerned and the large part of any hobby is now available 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year and at generally lower rates, the effect eBay has had is either negative or positive depending on what part of collecting you wish to talk about.
In other words, if you totally sell "rare" items, you are affected the least as that type of item will always be rare & sought after to some degree. But if you're selling lower tier items, your results just really keep going down & down and your sales percentages also keep going down and now we see tons of items that have been "tainted" by not selling on eBay as when you listed it, the whole world saw it and decided they didnt want it, again forcing the price down or making an item potentially un-saleable which is what happened when Sotheby's & Christies & everyone else stared auctioning comic art. Some segments were shown to be popular & went way high, many others - Flash Gordon sunday page art being the very best example - went way down in value due to the small # of collectors. we had been selling FG sunday for $20-50k, after the 2 auctions got involved, the prices went down dramatically and for some bad reasons.. for instance, one particular page went up for sale & of the 5 collectors at the time, one was getting divorced - the top buyer -, one was slowing down - the next top buyer - , and then the other three decided to make backroom deals on bidding for the others. The result was the pages went for 1/2 their true "value" and the rest of that market followed suit. This is exactly where eBay is headed on many items but in this case mostly due to the overload of items on eBay. Why pay the high price for that one item when you have so many other choices to spend that money on at what you perceive is a better value which is all now publicly seen and therefore pushes down the pricing in the large part of any hobby.
so eBay has "taken us over" because we have let them. We definitely have fewer options when it comes to selling today then we did 15 years ago when eBay did not exist, on the other side however for the buyer it is far easier to locate what you want without ever leaving your desk. So eBay has been a boon for buyers without question and sellers to a great degree, but the opposite side for sellers may be getting to the point where the balance between benefit & detriment is getting worse all the time.
When I started selling on eBay i didn't list many valuable items as they didnt sell well at the value level we associated with them. However, the inexpensive items without a doubt were real "bread & butter" sales & did well, usually achieving something better that their actual value. So you could sell the items very well that you never brought to conventions, rarely listed on your lists, or usually just sat in boxes in the garage because it wasn' t worth dealing with. eBay made that material worth dealing with back then. But this stuff has become anathema due to the proliferation of sellers willing to take anything to move merch & pay their eBay billing which may be good for collectors in the short term, but is equally bad down the road as many sellers may no longer be able to afford the low sell through rate, or even want to bother to adapt as they see their income falling & their time having less value as a result. We are not all Bruce Hershensons whose sales result in huge sell throughs and have so many collectors to get consignments from which ameliorates his exposure.
the simple facts are that I have opened my gallery because I see this happening - at a fairly quick pace - and want to insulate myself from what I see as a downward trend in many ways on eBay and a far more cyclical sales rotation than had been evident in the past. Like right now.. eBay truly sux for sales and I know few people who can wait 5 times a year until the "good months" come along. Most of us need a fairly regular flow of cash in & out to run our businesses properly and eBay most certainly does not fulfill that anymore.
with the elimination of categories.. that spiral will only quicken
by the way Bruce, ...... Doug Dalton says hello!!
Rich====================================
At 06:32 AM 8/16/04, Bruce Hershenson wrote:All the higher-ups at eBay told me was that the elimination of poster categories was "on the schedule for early 2005". Those of you who think eBay is a disorganized mess now won't believe the confusion that will set in when this takes place. If posters are anything like books or records, then most dealers' sales will drop by 90% for a few months. No fooling.
Bruce
At 02:40 AM 8/16/2004, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Bruce,
You're right of course, there is a definite "style" to some descriptions that one can learn to recognize as a give-away to avoid clicking on them. I do have to sort-of apologize publicly to Jim Dietz, however. He pointed out to me privately that all of the listing of his which "triggered" my little rant were listed only in the appropriate Lobby Card section of eBay. I didn't realize that since I went to his listing pages directly by clicking on the link he had provided in his MoPo post. So, actually, he was being pretty straightforward in his Titles if they were only listed in the Lobby Card category and nowhere else.
But putting in an identifier is going to become critical for everyone, isn't it? I mean, what the heck else are people going to do when eBay eliminates all the of the poster sub-categories and lumps everything into one gigantic "Movie Poster" category? Are they still planning to do such a terrible thing -- and if so, when? I think you mentioned a target date a while back, but I've forgotten what it is.
-- JR note: replied all
----- Original Message ----- From: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Bruce Hershenson To: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 1:09 Subject: [MOPO] Incomplete Listings -- My Pet Peeve JR You just have to learn to read between the lines! If the listing doesn't say "one-sheet" then there is no chance that it is one, for everyone is proud to have a one-sheet. If it doesn't say anything about what it is, then it is almost surely a scene lobby card, or a herald, or a still. If it says "rare style" it is probably an Australian daybill. If it says "original" without a year then it is probably an "original" reissue. If it says "rare" it is virtually a certainty it ISN"T. Eventually you get where you can recognize some dealers just by the way they list, and you can then just ignore them without even clicking on a single auction! Bruce eMoviePoster.com JR wrote: Jim, Hey, I got a bone to pick with you -- and all the other sellers who neglect to put LC on a lobby card listing on eBay or MoPoBid (or to put OS or INS or HS for that matter). I'm not just addressing you here -- but I went to look at your noir listings and that set me off on this rant -- I'm talking to quite a few other sellers as well (you KNOW who you are) and this is what I want to say: Look, we're all busy people, right? You want us to look at your listing pages on a regular basis? You want us to pay attention to the FA posts you send to MoPo? Then how about helping us out and IDENTIFYING your stuff properly in the Title of the listing, huh? I don't have time to be looking at something I'm not going to buy, and I don't think very many other people do these days -- not with the huge amount of material to go through every week. You have to trust your customers to know if they want an LC an OS a HS or an INS or whatever. Don't try to "trick" them into looking at something by not properly identifying it. That may work once or twice until I notice what you're doing -- but what happens when I run across 4 or 5 pages of listings and I see that most of them are not correctly identified as to what type of poster they are in the title? Aw... you guessed! -- JR Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at <http://www.filmfan.com>www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
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