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The following article was written for GoTo Auctions (formerly known as AuctionRover). The rights have reverted to the author.
Fans (cross-category or theme collectors) have their own unique way of looking at the world. For instance, they may want anything and everything having to do with zebras or Marilyn Monroe, or the 1936 Olympics. It doesn't matter if the item is a statuette, a drinking glass, a trading card, or a ticket stub. If it has to do with their passion, they want it.
Fans typically don't know the book values within particular categories and don't care. When the frenzy strikes them, they might bid very high, restrained only by their budget, not by any concept of supply and demand, for things that they really want. This is why fans are very important to people who have collectibles to sell -- this is the primary audience that you would like to reach if you possibly could.
Often the condition of an item is not as important for them as it is for the classic collector. While a collector or a dealer would almost never bid on anything in poor condition and probably not on fair either -- the fan would.
The fan might also want more than one of the same thing -- not for resale, and not as trading stock, but to keep them all.
For the fan, there is no such thing as a "complete" collection. What they want has no pre-set bounds. These are not numbered items in a set. They want anything and everything relating to their passion. They wouldn't know what eBay or Amazon category to look under. The next gem for their collection might be anything, anywhere. Rather than browse through the categories, they use search and are delighted by the totally unexpected occurrence.
Sometimes, too, through research they might determine that something that they want is included in something else -- for instance an Elvis Presley poster in a particular old issue of Playboy. In that case, they might use very specific queries, and find the right stuff even though it is not mentioned in the title or description of the item up for sale.
While collectors probably have friends who collect the same kind of thing, with whom to trade items and swap stories and share their glory as collectors, fans might not know of anyone else who collects just what they collect. They do this not to share a common activity with others of similar interest, but rather to define themselves as individuals.
Often the fan's buying activity is tied to interior decorating -- they are thinking of how these items would like on that wall or that shelf and visually in conjunction with these other items. Fans tend to value items not for their intrinsic or supply-demand value, but rather for what they do to improve the look and feel of their total collection.
You want fans to find you. And of the people who buy from you, you want to be able to identify the fans and what they are looking for, and keep files on them for future reference. You might also want to check any "wanted" lists on the off chance that a fan wants something that you have.
Fans are crown jewels to auction sellers.
If you were a fan-style collector or have acquired such a collection and want to liquidate it, do not just post those items as ordinary auctions, scattered across many categories. Rather, use consistent tag words in the title, so a single search (say for "Elvis 1") would get all of them as matches. Also, use search to identify fans with similar interests, so you can alert them that you are putting the whole collection up and that they should search for this particular tag to see them all. If it's a large collection, and you will be selling the pieces over an extended time, you should consider creating your own Web page to advertise that fact, with links from there to your active online auctions, and make sure your page is well indexed by general search engines like AltaVista. But that's another story...
Other auction articles by Richard Seltzer
Can we help you build an Internet business? Richard Seltzer is an independent Internet writer/speaker/consultant. Click here for details. or send email to seltzer@samizdat.com
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