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Weird. I sent this message to MOPO on Tuesday morning, August 1... but for
some reason it is only just now showing up on the list early Friday
morning, August 4... anyway, this thing was timely when it was written...
Toochis,
I was waiting for someone to ask. I had a great time on Movie Poster Bid
while the Special Event Auctions were closing this weekend. Turns out a
last-minute technical glitch kept the sniper program from being available, so
you had to bid at the last second the old-fashioned way and I enjoyed the
excitement of zipping around from auction to auction, trying to slip in that
last-second bid and snatch a nice item. And I managed to snag quite a few
quality sci-fi posters at good prices. But nobody was really stealing
anything, as there was a real fury of bidding all day on Sunday, and from what
Rich tells me, MPB realized about $30,000 in sales over the weekend! That's
easily the best single day... or week... or month... that MPB has ever had.
It's a testament to Rich's determination to bring the site up to the
next level. He's done a great job in just 5 months, to stage an auction of
this quality and pull in $30,000 worth of sales.
The final sales figure could have been maybe $20,000 higher, except for
there were a fair amount of items with reserves... not my favorite thing... but
those with reasonable reserves actually had them met and even bid up from there.
But some of those hidden reserves looked to me... based on the bids I saw and
reserves still not being met... well, some reserves seemed quite a bit too
high. I think doing that is self-defeating for sellers and only serves to
frustrate bidders when they bid a nice item up to a very reasonable price
and the page is still saying "reserve not met."
Once again I want to point out the obvious to the sellers who have read
this far: If you are going to set your reserve to high-retail, you shouldn't
even bother putting the item up for auction! Just leave it in your store or on
your website with the retail price tacked on for all of us to see. Don't put
it up for a so-called "auction" that isn't really an auction (because
you're not going to take less than high-retail for it, no matter how many bids
it gets). When you do this, you make us play this stupid guessing game which no
one wins because most people are NOT... repeat NOT going to pay high-retail for
most items at most auctions. What's the point? For all but the rarest items, if
you want to pay high-retail you don't have to screw around with bidding on a
auction -- you just go to someone's website or eBay store and pay the retail
price for the damn thing.
So, in line with this subject thread, I do wish some sellers
would STOP playing these frustrating high-hidden-reserve mind games with
the bidders. The purpose of a reserve is to protect yourself in a reasonable
fashion against having to sell something at a giveaway price -- it is not
meant to guarantee you a high-retail price at auction. They're called auctions,
you know, not retail sales events. If you don't want to hold out the possibility
to the bidders of getting something at a genuine buy or at least
low-retail price, then don't call it an auction... just put the
item up on your site with a For Sale sign on it -- and the price clearly
marked -- and stop wasting our time.
Whoopee... I can say stuff like that now that I'm not running MPB anymore!
C'mon, you sellers, keep on paying your rising eBay fees if you insist, but
commit at least some of your time and inventory to MPB and stop screwin' around!
Those sellers who did it right this weekend at MPB are dividing up the 30 grand
in sales among themselves even as you read this. You could have been one of
them.
JR
----- Original Message -----
From: Toochis Morin
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 19:12
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Fw: [MOPO] STOP Toochis Walter Reuben <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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- Re: [MOPO] STOP Ron Wisberg
- Re: [MOPO] STOP JR
- Re: [MOPO] STOP Phil Edwards Cinema Arts
