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Sample Listing – Research from online

The sample listing section is a demonstration for putting everything mentioned in this web essay to use. The route taken for this particular example was buying and researching items through eBay. I’ve personally used all this information and did a buy/re-sell situation on eBay as an example.

First I had a need for a particular video game system cable. Rather than purchase a third party cable for roughly $5-$7, through research I found a seller who auctioned off three brand new first party cables for $9.95 (Researched Auction). First party brand items are those that are made by the original maker of the system whereas third party branded items are those that are made by companies outside of the original maker. I was the only one who bid on the auction and as a result I was able to win the auction without a fight.

Now I have the cable I needed as apart of a bundle for a separate future auction that I was planning, but I also have two additional cables that I have no need for. This is where the re-selling portion comes into play. I decided to use a five-day auction and sell each cable separately. For the first auction (1st eBay item), I earned $13.50 (shipping price included) and the second auction (2nd eBay item) I earned $11 (shipping price included). Both auctions included multiple bidders.

There are many reasons as to why my auctions were more successful than the auction I won. In analysis of the original auction, there were only 38 hits within five a five day period (This number is located right under the picture). Reasons for this could be the short description given as well as the lack of wording in the title (Ex. “Audio-video” instead of the more popular “AV”). Also, there’s a good chance many buyers searching for these cables may only need one rather than three.

For each of my auctions I received 79 hits and 98 hits respectively within five day periods. A reason for the higher number of hits on the second auction could be because a bidding war drove the price higher in the first auction sooner than in the second. Rather than auction them both at the same time which could compromise a higher priced auction, I spaced each out a week apart and had each end on a Sunday evening.

My description was also more thorough and also included a number of key words associated not only with the cable, but with different video games in general as well. The title included AV and RF (another form of the cable) to help assure more hits. The term audio/video was saved for the description. The picture of the item showed the front as well as the back of the item (as opposed to strictly the front in the previous auction). Although a little more time-consuming, this process helped me gain the cable I needed as well as make a small profit through using the information in this web essay.