Right. I asked the free market that is eBay what my frame was worth. Obviously, the market is correct and I'd rather have the money than the frame. Still, I'm a little saddened by the final outcome, which is about £100 down on where I was hoping it would be.

I put quite a lot of time and energy into the listing, which is here. It had 560 views and 88 watchers.

Can anyone suggest what (if anything) has gone wrong here?

My thoughts:

– auction closing Sunday night not very helpful if Sunday is glorious, hot and sunny and everyone's out having fun;
– wrong sort of naked lady;
– reputation of Pace RC305 simply too bad (Sceptical about this, as another one shifted on BIN at £290 earlier in the week).

Anything else? Or just bad luck for me, good luck for the winner?

Thanks chaps. 🙂

Photographs not overly clear (with regard to scuffing etc), description a bit 'pally'. Best to stick to the facts and be honest, not try to engage the reader in amusing chit-chat. Make the listing clear – yours went on a bit and the type size/colour a bit much – I lost interest trying to read it.

Sunday evening is a great time to end the listing. Most people will be back at their PCs by 9pm on a Sunday so no problem there, IMO.

You didn't make it an international listing, at least to the EU would have been good. The idea is to maximise the number of potential bidders (how many people were 'watching' the item?) as this drives the price up even if you don't end up selling it to someone overseas.

The description I thought was OK but I agree with Mastiles, it was hard to read because of the font and layout. Use a smaller font, increase para spacing and try to get all the facts in the first para.

How long did you list the item for? Something like that should be on for 10 days, again to maximise the number of watchers and therefore potential bidders.

yeah a bit long, but otherwise id say it was a good ad. just the luck of the draw im afaid. a google search would probably throw up a few threads off here that are less than favourable too!

But at the end of the day, 88 watchers meant it was getting good coverage – perhaps it was a simple case of a lucky winning bidder.

And of course the inevitable fact that other listings may have been shill-bidded.

And another thing – tell people why you are selling – otherwise they think you are selling a pup.

You may have just got unlucky. Once or twice it has happened to me. Sold an iPod Nano with loads of accessories and it went for £45. Several of the exact same models in worse condition and crapper listings/photos went for £65 just before and after mine ended. Just one of those things.

For the record, recently I have been doing alright with listings running as Buy It Nows but with Best Offer….You will get some derisory offers but you can have eBay auto-reject those.

Edit:….Just seen the pic with the tissues/boobies/beer cans …..what were you thinking? Surprised you did not get reported to be honest. Personally I found it amusing, but I can imagine many would not.

£155 for a Pace RC305 that really was "bargainous"

Nothing wrong with the ending time, nothing wrong with the frame Pace is well regarded (I have one too :D) But the text description was far too long. might have put people off, not sure the beer cans / naked lady picture would attract every type of buyer either

Did you try selling it on here / bike radar etc?

Although memorable I think the girl on the laptop picture does the ad no justice. It pigeon holes you and the buyer, and gives buyers a reason to look elsewhere…

gee that is cheap, I sold the same frame for £225 a short while back.

Listing looks fine to me. Guess no one wanted to pay more for a far east produced frame thats a bit harsh on the old posterior.
😉

I must admit I hadn't actually noticed the nakeed ladee – it would make me think twice about buying. I would think perhaps this is a bit of a lad, talks a bit of sh*te, likes a fight down the pub, might put up a misleading description.

Of course if it was a unique frame I might try to find out a bit more about you (to see if I wanted to risk bidding) but it isn't so I might just as likely move on to the next listing.

I sold a Spesh hardtail a few years ago. Only 14mths old so I wanted a good price so I started with highish price within £100 quid of what I wanted and I put on a 'buy-it-now' price of what I wanted. Loads of watchers and hits and it went at the buy-it-now price 1hour before the end of auction. It was never going to go until the last minutes and the person who bought it wasn't going to leave it to chance. I got what I wanted and ebay got the fees. I didn't want to risk a lower starting price.

BTW I haven't looked at your ebay listing, sorry.

Personally I found it amusing, but I can imagine many would not.

I would think perhaps this is a bit of a lad, talks a bit of sh*te, likes a fight down the pub, might put up a misleading description.

Just like that.

No idea about going rate but I'd agree re "matey" style not helping, too long a description.

For me, chainsuck marks like that would make it a no-bid, so maybe you did OK.

For the record, recently I have been doing alright with listings running as Buy It Nows but with Best Offer….You will get some derisory offers but you can have eBay auto-reject those.

Same here

The "buy it now" option seems to hook sellers who are keen to get stuff that does not appear that frequently on ebay & don't want to risk missing out on something.

Pictures make a hell of a difference I have found, making sire any marks of scuffs are clearly photographed.

Maybe better quality pictures might have swayed some of the watcher to put a bid in?

Did you spam post all the bike forums?

Thanks all. I'll cut down on the descriptions next time, and noted about the font.

As for the naked lady, I got no further than

personally I found it amusing

, but on balance perhaps best not. 🙂

I didn't try on here, because we've had so much discussion of the way these things snap and how much of a shower Pace are. 😉

Ho hum.

TBH if it was me looking for a Pace RC305 frame, I would immediately be put off by
"The graphics on the top-tube have been worn rather by scuffing from my pads and there’s the merest suggestion of a dent on the top-tube. You can’t really see this, it’s apparent when you run your finger along the tube. I think this is uplift-truck intimacy with another bike".
The problem is made worse by "up-lift truck intimacy" and the fact that you are wearing pads on an XC bike, so often that the graphics are wearing off, all suggestions of lots of hard use. I'd be thinking about possible hidden cracks.

B.A.Nana, I'm massively flattered by that. I am adopting my evident RADness as the reason for the low price immediately! 😀

In fairness, it's marketed as "all mountain".

I didn't try on here, because we've had so much discussion of the way these things snap and how much of a shower Pace are

Don't forget that about 60%* of the classified users never venture onto the main forums, so would not be aware of that.

In fairness, it's marketed as "all mountain".

Yeah, but its a Pace. They dissolve in water. 😉

*number may not be scientifically accurate and in fact was pulled out of my ass.

Whether or not it has been hammered, that is the impression you gave in those few words. £150+ will be alot of money to many people and what they really want is a new frame from "one careful lady owner", or the next best thing. It's right that you describe the frame correctly, but you also need to word it like it's been looked after and just used for normal xc rides. Or rather, don't be so forthcoming about how the scratches and dent occured.

Or maybe it's the fact that you drink 4% Stella and carlspiss that put people off.

The description seems OK, but the photos are a bit gash and the dings / scrapes would put me off an ally frame.

I suspect you might have made a bit more by taking really good photos – I suppose the ideal for a bike would be some well lit photos of the frame in a workstand / on a workbench in the shed of someone who obviously tinkers with great care – organised and tidy. Or even just laid out on a lawn with good light.

The bed photo would certainly have put me off too. It's not something you want to think about at all really.

I do think the price would have still been limited by the dings though.

Hmmm. I'm up against the limitations of my camera to some extent. I took a lot of pictures. 😕

Ah well. It is what it is.

Light is the problem. When I take Ebay photos, I have a 100W spot, a 60W lamp in the room and try and take them next to the window during the day. 500W cheapy halogen lamps work really well…

Cheers Tron. I'll experiment.

eBay have rather belatedly pulled the listing for corrupting young minds with its torrent of pornographic filth. So that's me told. 🙂

eBay have rather belatedly pulled the listing for corrupting young minds with its torrent of pornographic filth. So that's me told

It was probably the millions of hits from STW that alerted them.

The description was too long and not well spaced – I use a main heading with a sub heading describing what it is and main points – eg make, model, year, colour, size, overall condition. Then a description covering everything else with maybe bullet points to highlight things. But overall, I wouldn't have touched that listing with the lady and beer can picture.

Like GeeTee1972 says, longer listings make a big difference to sale prices.

The description reads like it was written by a particularly douchey intern at MBR. And there is way too much "I've never" in there. If you put "I definitely never stuck my winkie in the seat tube when I was lonesome", it immediately rouses suspicions.

The frap-nest picture made me laugh a lot, if you'd made that the main one then you might have got more interest.

Next time try writing "supper lite fram, hope shokks, hydrolicks, get a bargin" and maybe the STW eBay police will give you some free publicity? 😉

I thought the pics were pretty good, at least he thought about it a bit, white neutral background against a black frame, lots of angles iirc. The amusing one was def not a good idea tho.

The frap-nest picture made me laugh a lot

I'm taking away from this that while it may or may not be funny (according to taste) it definitely isn't good marketing. 🙂