Popular on you-tube. Wait until it struggles to breathe!
Friday, 30 March 2007
Revelation of the day: I’m an eBayer ahead of my time
One of the tricks on eBay is to repackage the item you’re selling. Be this through the description you give, or the freebies that you throw in to make it seem like there’s more of a bargain to be had in comparison to what else is up for grabs.
I thought that there might be another way to increase the value of what I was trying to sell; the feel good factor.
Ultimately this is why we like to laugh. It makes you feel good, better about things; it’s therapeutic for the soul. When I bought my CD, this is what I thought it would deliver. So I thought that the sort of people that might be interesting in buying the same CD from me might also be up for magnifying this feeling for themselves by donating to charity. I wanted to set up an auction whereby if you placed a bid but didn’t win, you could choose to donate the amount you’d ‘pledged’ to a charity – the Make a Wish foundation (a charity that tries to help kids with life-threatening diseases feel better about life for a short while by making a wish come true). As an added incentive to increase bids, I would promise that if I won the challenge we were set I’d donate my winnings to the same charity. This then got me thinking about the last challenge set and the idea of trust online, so I decided that I’d promise to email all bidders the outcome of the auction and provide proof of the charity donation.
In order to spread the word about what I was trying to do I thought about seeding my intentions in one of the eBay chat rooms and also contacting the original seller to see if he would be willing to direct people to my auction (as there’d be ‘free’ advertising involved for him as the sound of laughter CDs are his business). One of the most popular you-tube videos at the moment is a baby laughing so I thought that it could be worth contacting the person who posted it and seeing if I could ‘advertise’ with them (see you-tube link on this page for video).
Sounds interesting right?
Unfortunately it seems I’m an eBayer ahead of my time.
The functionality just isn’t in place to enable this sort of auction yet, although I think that eBay are missing a huge opportunity here. There is a way that you can donate to charity – there are charity auctions where the highest bid gets donated to charity, and options for the seller to donate part or all of his ‘winnings’ to charity. The appeal of what I was thinking was in its simplicity. The bidder wouldn’t have to go to a separate site to donate, or enter credit card details if they had paypal (the downside of directing them to another site such as justgive.com).
In the end I ran out of time to think of a way to make this work.
So on to plan B and the idea that key to an auction is getting your timing right. Now in a ‘traditional’ sense this is how long your auction should last, when people are online surfing etc. But I wanted to see if I could take this one step further and make the product itself time-sensitive. With April Fool’s Day fast approaching I thought that there was an opportunity to re-package the sounds of laughter CD as canned laughter that you could use to get back at a serial practical joker with (although I was a bit worried about repositioning someone’s livelihood as canned laughter so decided that I would have to think carefully about the image I’d use). I thought that I could encourage a fast sale using the ‘Buy it now’ option as if I sold my item before Friday at midday I’d worked out that I would be able to guarantee that they would get it delivered before April Fool’s day.
Again, the best laid plans….
In my eBay infancy I didn’t realize that you could only use ‘Buy it now’ if you had a certain number of ratings, or if your account was set up in a particular way.
So you’ll now find my item on eBay as a canned laughter CD with the incentive of a FREE loveable toy fish ((doesn’t everyone like a cuddly toy – just think back to the Generation Game cheer) to make you (or probably your kids) smile a bit more)). I decided to pay for an extra listing as I think people might search under jokes/pranks as well as CD (I didn’t find the eBay list suggestions particularly helpful – why anyone would search under ‘soft rock’ for this is a bit of a mystery).
Current status: No bids. Aution number 150107247044
Shame. I had such high hopes. And I could have been making eBay history.
I thought that there might be another way to increase the value of what I was trying to sell; the feel good factor.
Ultimately this is why we like to laugh. It makes you feel good, better about things; it’s therapeutic for the soul. When I bought my CD, this is what I thought it would deliver. So I thought that the sort of people that might be interesting in buying the same CD from me might also be up for magnifying this feeling for themselves by donating to charity. I wanted to set up an auction whereby if you placed a bid but didn’t win, you could choose to donate the amount you’d ‘pledged’ to a charity – the Make a Wish foundation (a charity that tries to help kids with life-threatening diseases feel better about life for a short while by making a wish come true). As an added incentive to increase bids, I would promise that if I won the challenge we were set I’d donate my winnings to the same charity. This then got me thinking about the last challenge set and the idea of trust online, so I decided that I’d promise to email all bidders the outcome of the auction and provide proof of the charity donation.
In order to spread the word about what I was trying to do I thought about seeding my intentions in one of the eBay chat rooms and also contacting the original seller to see if he would be willing to direct people to my auction (as there’d be ‘free’ advertising involved for him as the sound of laughter CDs are his business). One of the most popular you-tube videos at the moment is a baby laughing so I thought that it could be worth contacting the person who posted it and seeing if I could ‘advertise’ with them (see you-tube link on this page for video).
Sounds interesting right?
Unfortunately it seems I’m an eBayer ahead of my time.
The functionality just isn’t in place to enable this sort of auction yet, although I think that eBay are missing a huge opportunity here. There is a way that you can donate to charity – there are charity auctions where the highest bid gets donated to charity, and options for the seller to donate part or all of his ‘winnings’ to charity. The appeal of what I was thinking was in its simplicity. The bidder wouldn’t have to go to a separate site to donate, or enter credit card details if they had paypal (the downside of directing them to another site such as justgive.com).
In the end I ran out of time to think of a way to make this work.
So on to plan B and the idea that key to an auction is getting your timing right. Now in a ‘traditional’ sense this is how long your auction should last, when people are online surfing etc. But I wanted to see if I could take this one step further and make the product itself time-sensitive. With April Fool’s Day fast approaching I thought that there was an opportunity to re-package the sounds of laughter CD as canned laughter that you could use to get back at a serial practical joker with (although I was a bit worried about repositioning someone’s livelihood as canned laughter so decided that I would have to think carefully about the image I’d use). I thought that I could encourage a fast sale using the ‘Buy it now’ option as if I sold my item before Friday at midday I’d worked out that I would be able to guarantee that they would get it delivered before April Fool’s day.
Again, the best laid plans….
In my eBay infancy I didn’t realize that you could only use ‘Buy it now’ if you had a certain number of ratings, or if your account was set up in a particular way.
So you’ll now find my item on eBay as a canned laughter CD with the incentive of a FREE loveable toy fish ((doesn’t everyone like a cuddly toy – just think back to the Generation Game cheer) to make you (or probably your kids) smile a bit more)). I decided to pay for an extra listing as I think people might search under jokes/pranks as well as CD (I didn’t find the eBay list suggestions particularly helpful – why anyone would search under ‘soft rock’ for this is a bit of a mystery).
Current status: No bids. Aution number 150107247044
Shame. I had such high hopes. And I could have been making eBay history.
Monday, 12 March 2007
Revelation of the day: I have trust issues
If things had gone differently, I’d now be the proud owner of a ghost in a wine bottle (I decided the ghost in the wine bottle would probably be more amicable than the one in the plain old jar). But perhaps it’s for the best that I’m not. I trusted I wouldn’t end up with an actual ghost, that what I was buying wasn’t quite what the seller would have me believe.
My ebay experience has highlighted that I have trust ‘issues’. I bid for something because I was certain it wasn’t what I would get. I ended up with what I did because I wanted to verify the claim the seller made about the product. I hated giving PayPal my bank details (companies are so inept in handling personal information). I passed on another opportunity because the seller didn’t have a 100% satisfaction rating from other buyers. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not going to become a compulsive ebayer any time soon (no Carpenter and Walrus type situation for me).
But may be I should persevere. May be ebay is a way to ‘cure’ myself. May be the site’s founder is right, ebay teaches you to trust people and its success is testimony to the fact that societies can be built on a single shared value.
But if this is the case, why is there such an emphasis on policing the site? Never having been on ebay before, I was surprised by the prominence of rating systems, feedback options, chat rooms and forums. Strangely rather than reassuring me, they made me more apprehensive about the whole shebang. Worry about who to trust. There seemed to be mini trials going on left, right and centre – buyers ganging up on sellers, sellers on sellers, buyers on buyers. For example...
So I searched for something to soothe me, a fact that would put everything into perspective. Apparently just 0.01% of ebay transactions are fraudulent. And 10 million people in the UK alone make their living thanks to the site (don’t hold out much hope for the guy trying to off load 475 ‘quality’ Greek statues for £4,250 mind).
I’m glad my reservations do not seem to be wide spread. With the demise of car boot sales, ebay is a way of recycling what we no longer what. There is something wonderfully comforting in the thought that one person’s crap is another person’s treasure. Even if searching for those hidden gems mean you have to give up your day job.
My ebay experience
I started off looking for a rabbit hole…
Not really an every day sort of item I think you’d agree. The closest I got was the option of purchasing part of Tullock Farm in the Scottish highlands. Unfortunately my trust issues came into play again – in terms of what would happen after I bought it – how would I get access if I didn’t own the land around it, was it really legal, what if the rest of the farm was sold on…
…but ended up with a Cheshire cat
Apparently the laughter CD I bought is guaranteed to make me "grin like a Cheshire cat". I love the fact that laughter is contagious but I’ve always wondered if you have to see people to be infected by it. We’ll see. The idea of selling laughter on ebay really stood out amongst the more tangible items up for grabs. I was buying an emotion. For a bargain of £4.50 plus £1.49 P&P. If it works I will return and post feedback verifying the claim that when you listen, you can’t help but laugh. To minimise my trust palpitations, the seller had 100% positive reviews from 7,247 buyers. The item arrived when promised, the seller contacted me to know when to expect it. There was nothing white rabbit about it.
Ebay: the insanity of it all:
What the….?
My ebay experience has highlighted that I have trust ‘issues’. I bid for something because I was certain it wasn’t what I would get. I ended up with what I did because I wanted to verify the claim the seller made about the product. I hated giving PayPal my bank details (companies are so inept in handling personal information). I passed on another opportunity because the seller didn’t have a 100% satisfaction rating from other buyers. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not going to become a compulsive ebayer any time soon (no Carpenter and Walrus type situation for me).
But may be I should persevere. May be ebay is a way to ‘cure’ myself. May be the site’s founder is right, ebay teaches you to trust people and its success is testimony to the fact that societies can be built on a single shared value.
But if this is the case, why is there such an emphasis on policing the site? Never having been on ebay before, I was surprised by the prominence of rating systems, feedback options, chat rooms and forums. Strangely rather than reassuring me, they made me more apprehensive about the whole shebang. Worry about who to trust. There seemed to be mini trials going on left, right and centre – buyers ganging up on sellers, sellers on sellers, buyers on buyers. For example...
So I searched for something to soothe me, a fact that would put everything into perspective. Apparently just 0.01% of ebay transactions are fraudulent. And 10 million people in the UK alone make their living thanks to the site (don’t hold out much hope for the guy trying to off load 475 ‘quality’ Greek statues for £4,250 mind).
I’m glad my reservations do not seem to be wide spread. With the demise of car boot sales, ebay is a way of recycling what we no longer what. There is something wonderfully comforting in the thought that one person’s crap is another person’s treasure. Even if searching for those hidden gems mean you have to give up your day job.
My ebay experience
I started off looking for a rabbit hole…
Not really an every day sort of item I think you’d agree. The closest I got was the option of purchasing part of Tullock Farm in the Scottish highlands. Unfortunately my trust issues came into play again – in terms of what would happen after I bought it – how would I get access if I didn’t own the land around it, was it really legal, what if the rest of the farm was sold on…
…but ended up with a Cheshire cat
Apparently the laughter CD I bought is guaranteed to make me "grin like a Cheshire cat". I love the fact that laughter is contagious but I’ve always wondered if you have to see people to be infected by it. We’ll see. The idea of selling laughter on ebay really stood out amongst the more tangible items up for grabs. I was buying an emotion. For a bargain of £4.50 plus £1.49 P&P. If it works I will return and post feedback verifying the claim that when you listen, you can’t help but laugh. To minimise my trust palpitations, the seller had 100% positive reviews from 7,247 buyers. The item arrived when promised, the seller contacted me to know when to expect it. There was nothing white rabbit about it.
Ebay: the insanity of it all:
What the….?
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