How does this happen? Any advice? (eBay related)

[auctionjmm]

Last night myself and another seller both had a Brandon Nimmo purple autograph closing on eBay within about 35 minutes of each other. We are both Top Rated Sellers with 100% feedback and listed higher in search results.

Mine closes at $208 and had around 75 hits

His closes at $356 and has around 150 hits

Both titles are basically the same, and none of the top bidders have much activity with the seller so I don't suspect shilling. Also, his was up to $269 before mine even closed.

Can someone take a look at both auctions and see if I did something wrong? My auction was one of the lowest purples to close and for a player like that I know a lot of money was left on the table. Just trying to figure how to improve my auction closings. I've had several recently that closed well below market value.

My auction: BRANDON NIMMO 2011 Bowman Draft PURPLE REFRACTOR AUTOGRAPH 04/10 - Mets | eBay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRANDON-NIMMO-2011-Bowman-Draft-PURPLE-REFRACTOR-AUTOGRAPH-04-10-Mets-/300629653614?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item45feec786e)

Other auction: 2011 Bowman Draft Chrome Prospect Purple Refractor Auto Brandon Nimmo 05/10 Mets | eBay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/2011-Bowman-Draft-Chrome-Prospect-Purple-Refractor-Auto-Brandon-Nimmo-05-10-Mets-/120818372538?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item1c21560fba)

[alexlazarevich]

That's rough. Your auction doesn't look bad at all, in fact it's pretty darn good. The only things I can think of that might have cause some bidders to miss it is:

you use "autograph", not "auto", a bidder would have to search for "aut*" or "autograph" to find your aution. using just "auto" would not find yours.
you don't have the word "chrome" in your listing, maybe some bidders are searching for chrome auto's of this guy? does this guy even have a non-chrome auto though, one that bidders are trying to avoid in a search?
you don't have the word "prospect" in your listing, some are probably searching for "prospect"?

That's all I can think of. Otherwise your listing looks good. I wonder if the ALL CAPS has a negative affect? I doubt it, but you never know.

EDIT: that other seller has 12K+ feedback, and probably has a large following of bidders/buyers. Sometimes you just can't beat those sellers in auction. That's why a BIN/Bo is sometimes more effective. Remember the recent thread where bigboydsports was being accused of shilling, when most likely it looks like he just has a ton of bidders/buyers that routinely come back to his stuff just because he's got so much inventory. Buyers just don't even look for other stuff, they like to stick with their trusted source. That could have hurt you on this one as well. Sorry man, your auction was great, and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy from you. Good luck.

[endthecurse]

As has already been said, not having the terms 'chrome' and 'auto' likely hurt you. I've seen a lot of BDP sales with one (or both) missing fall short of market value. Sorry, man.

[JDK16]

As has already been said, not having the terms 'chrome' and 'auto' likely hurt you. I've seen a lot of BDP sales with one (or both) missing fall short of market value. Sorry, man.

bingo.id say someone is happy for their new nimmo card you should get paid quick lol

[jlzinck]

The word auto as has been said. People are lazy. They don't want to type in autograph.

A search of Nimmo purple auto lead me to his completed auction and not yours.


Also he started his on the 25th and you started yours on the 28th.

Some people tend to bid on the 1st one out.

Also maybe his came up higher in the "Best Match" search tool.

[VWBUS1978]

agree with above posts...

always have "auto" in the title, i only search for autographs when i am looking for older stuff for some reason.

however, i also just search for "2011 draft or chrome (insert player's last name here)"

the title gets people to see your auction in the first place so it has to be correct for people to find your item.

also, did his end after yours?

if so it could have been a competitive bid war at the last few minutes, two people may have lost out on yours and were not afraid to spend the extra $.

[ac-n-mike]

yep, as alrady has been stated the failure to use CHROME or AUTO hurt ....

but again... maybe just a friendly bidding war resulted in the 1st one going much higher... and once the 1 guy won it... then 2nd guy got yours for cheaper...

thats the way the cookie crumbles on ebay....

[cmnkb8]

Not having "auto" hurt search hits, but not having "Chrome" hurt even more.

[messier2]

Wow, I never knew about the "auto" vs. "autograph" thing. When I search ebay, I use "Jordan auto*" with the "*"...I guess not a lot of people use the *?

[VWBUS1978]

i never even knew you could use an *.... now i have a new tactic... thanks guys!

[cmnkb8]

i never even knew you could use an *.... now i have a new tactic... thanks guys!

Yup, most don't know about the "*".

Just an FYI, for card listings, ebay allows an option within the description headers to select "Autograph", so if you list "Auto" in your title and check the "Autograph" box in the description header, both people searching "auto" and "autograph" will find your listing.

[auctionjmm]

Thanks for all the help here. Learn something new every day. I guess I didn't realize people narrowed down their searches so much. When I am looking for a specific player or type of card I type the player's last name, year and brand of the product, and the type I need. So if I was personally searching, my search would have been "2011 bowman draft nimmo purple". To me, that is even more simple than worrying about auto v.s. autograph, or adding the word chrome, but I guess not everyone thinks as I do lol. I will use these tips in other listings.

On the bright side, I also had the highest selling Bryce Harper auto relic by a long shot so I guess you win some, you lose some. Thanks again.

[cmnkb8]

Thanks for all the help here. Learn something new every day. I guess I didn't realize people narrowed down their searches so much. When I am looking for a specific player or type of card I type the player's last name, year and brand of the product, and the type I need. So if I was personally searching, my search would have been "2011 bowman draft nimmo purple". To me, that is even more simple than worrying about auto v.s. autograph, or adding the word chrome, but I guess not everyone thinks as I do lol. I will use these tips in other listings.

On the bright side, I also had the highest selling Bryce Harper auto relic by a long shot so I guess you win some, you lose some. Thanks again.

Most people would not use your search query since: 1) it would bring up plenty of non-auto cards they aren't looking for that will clutter the results; 2) Nimmo has a Chrome auto, and the card itself says "Bowman Chrome" on it not "Bowman Draft", so first instinct would be to search "Chrome" not Draft.

The only time I ever use "draft" in a search is if I'm looking for the base cards, never the Chrome version.

[hofmichael]

When listing on Ebay you want your title to be idiot friendly as possible.Many people on ebay are lazy when searching.As long you include a few keywords depending on the item you will be fine.

[dthimesch]

with the expanded characters available for the title I always put "Auto" AND "Autograph" I know this does not apply here but I also put "Ref" AND "Refractor" this way it will cover whatever way a buyer searchers for a card. The old way, before eBay expanded the number of characters allowed in the title it was pretty standard that sellers would use the phrases "Auto" and "Ref" and thats pretty much it. After eBay expanded the number of characters allowed in the title some sellers started typing out the whole words to use in the title. Not all buyers realize they can search "auto*" to search for both "Auto" AND "Autograph" so if you only use one or none you won't get the number of hits that you could have.

[Qwasian]

one thing also about auctions is, other sellers might have methods of advertising the auction, like a website, store or repeat buyers etc that you can't really account for........
they could have a shop that they advertise the ebay ID & listings from? never really know. ebay is definately not an exact science.

[endthecurse]

You can also leave 'AUTOGRAPH' and 'ROOKIE' out of the title of your auction by checking the appropriate boxes in the Card Attributes section. Most of my prospect auto auctions have 'AUTO' and 'RC' in the title, with the corresponding boxes checked.

This Nimmo refractor (http://www.ebay.com/itm/2011-Bowman-Chrome-Draft-BRANDON-NIMMO-1st-Prospect-Refractor-Auto-238-500-/390368514005?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item5ae3c6cfd5) doesn't have 'AUTOGRAPH' in the title, but came up in a search for 'brandon nimmo autograph'.

If you want to cancel the transaction and sell to me for $225 offline, let me know :)

[auctionjmm]

If you want to cancel the transaction and sell to me for $225 offline, let me know :)

Lol. Fortunately I am not a douche and I do honor all sales even when a bidder gets the best of me. If I did cancel, I would have relisted for $350 OBO :devil:

Thanks again for all the help guys. I've been doing this for over a year now and if my titles have been lacking this long, I'm glad I asked this question so I can fix things going forward.