Entering the Gray Zone: Be Creative but Watch Your Step.

Do's and Don'ts of Off-line Sales

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The following article was written for GoTo Auctions (formerly known as AuctionRover). The rights have reverted to the author.

The fact that you have to correspond with your buyers to work out shipment and payment details opens an opportunity to get to know them and build relationships with them. Beyond the basic facts, ask friendly, chatty questions to find out what they really want and value -- what other items they are looking for, what size lots work best for them, etc. Also, if you have more of the same kind of item, probe to find out if they might like to buy a larger quantity now (because they need them for a special purpose, or because they are buying them as "trading stock"). If so, try to negotiate a deal immediately so you can send them all in the same package, saving on shipping cost and hassle.

Correspondence with customers is one of the most time-consuming, but also one of the most rewarding aspects of selling at person-to-person auctions. You want to minimize the time you spend on this task, while at the same time getting the maximum value from it -- in terms of information about your particular customers and the auction marketplace for your particular category of goods, as well as reputation. I have a few standard messages as word files, one for each kind of item that I sell. Those messages include questions geared to catch their attention and start them talking about themselves and their collections.

As you get creative in promotion of this kind, some tactics will occur to you that the auction sites prohibit. Be sure to read the community rules carefully.

For instance, eBay provides you with the email addresses of everyone who bids on any auction -- not just yours, you may be strongly tempted to build mailing lists of people interested in the kinds of things that you have to sell. For instance, you can click on "bid history" and get a list of the usernames or "handles" of all the bidders; then click on an individual handle and, after entering your own eBay username and password, see that person's email address.

The temptation may be very great, but don't go down that path. As a rule of thumb, never add anyone to an email list without their explicit permission. Otherwise, many recipients of your promotional messages are liable to consider them as "spam" -- unsolicited and unwanted advertising. Some will probably be mad enough to send you nasty messages in return, to remember you and not bid on your auctions in the future, perhaps to give you negative feedback, and perhaps to complain to auction site management, who frown on "misuse of bidder information." They don't want their members subjected to spam, and will take steps to prevent a recurrence.

In general, it is not a good idea to initiate contact with an unknown person who is a bidder at an auction for the sole purpose of selling something to them off-line. But there's a wide gray area, involving personal rather than mailing list messages, that you might want to explore.

For instance, if you have more than one copy of an item that you put up for auction, when the auction ends, you might want to contact the second highest bidder. This message could let them know that you are starting a new auction with the same kind of item. That kind of message would be probably be acceptable to auction management.

Or you might want to ask them if they would like to make a deal off-line for a similar item. Auction management would frown on that because they don't get posting and transaction fees for your off-line deals.

According to Internet auction site SaleHoo, what matters most is how the recipient of your message would take your suggestion. If the bidding was intense, and this person really wanted that item, your message may be very welcome.

On the other hand, if you were sending the same kind of message to someone who was the second highest bidder at someone else's auction for an item similar to what you have for sale, that would be taking a step out of the gray and into the dark side.

At the other end of the gray spectrum, when I conduct business at eBay, I build relationships with repeat bidders and buyers. People email me with questions while an auction is going on. They ask me if I have a certain related item and would be willing to sell it to them off-line. And when someone repeatedly bids on or buys items of mine, and we repeatedly correspond on the subject, I feel no qualms about letting them know about other related items of mine that they clearly would be interested in. The auction takes place within the community. But what I do in other ways with folks that I met there is really my own business.

But keep in mind that the acceptability and desirability of a given tactic depends on the kind of item that you are selling. Personal off-line communication is common and generally welcome with regard to collectibles, especially rare items. But if someone is selling brand name, mass manufactured merchandise, the temptations to over-promote and the reactions of potential buyers to their messages are likely to be quite different.

For instance, someone might watch other people's auctions and contact the bidders to offer the very same merchandise, off-line, at a lower price. While some people might welcome such a bargain offering, such behavior disrupts the auction environment and is a clear violation of community rules.

On the other hand, if you are a regular seller at eBay, with many items in the same general category, you can expect that people who have seen your auction listings will occasionally contact you and ask for an "off-auction" price for a similar item. As Ron Rothenberg noted in one of my weekly chat sessions, "Some people find the idea of auctions just awful and don't have the patience." Those kinds of people might use online auction sites as a way to identify sellers and then make their own separate deals, quickly and simply.

This article and hundreds of related items by Richard is available, in plain text, on CD ROM My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities (B&R Samizdat Express, 2002) for $29. That same CD also includes the full text of his books The Social Web, Take Charge of Your Web Site, Shop Online the Lazy Way, and The Way of the Web. It is available from Amazon and from our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat, where you can buy an entire library for the price of a book.

Other auction articles by Richard Seltzer

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