On 15 April 2014 15:54, Marvin Johnston <marvin at west.net> wrote:
Okay, couple of comments from the perspective of a
long time (since 1997) US
buyer and seller. The UK may be different.
Take a look at completed listings for "Bernoulli" on the UK site for the
computers/tablets catagory. The only similar drive that did sell was sold
for 23.87 pounds with 10.68 pounds postage... and was sold as working from
the US.
I see 150 drive in the US sold for $1.00 with $9.99 standard shipping. the
brief description is "USED Bernoulli Transportable Mega 150 MultiDisk Tape
drive. Sold ASIS. Drive Powers up. Power cable included."
So first, can you give it a brief checkout, even if only to say the power
light does come on? From the listing checks I did, it is probably not worth
your time to do much more than that given the actual selling prices and the
few similar items sold in both the US and UK.
Second, re your description.
"I have not tested this - I used to use this type of media in the early
1990s but not since. This was my main external drive for some years, on a
486 notebook. I have no idea if it is still working or not!"
That is fine as it tells the potential buyer almost everything they need to
know. Since the cable is kind of important, you should mention specifically
if it is included or not.
The rest of the description could be shorted up a lot... only put in what is
important to the buyer.
On heavier items, I tend to like adding the total mailing/shipping weight.
Most people have a pretty good idea of what those costs are, and adding it
to the listing helps potential buyers to know if the postage is reasonable
or not (to them.)
In the seller notes about condition, take out the "Caveat emptor." It adds
nothing but does add the idea that chances are this is junk and conflicts
with your statement that it was working when you last used it.
Your description has postage at 30 pounds while it is shown at 50 pounds in
the search listings. Does the UK have an option for calculated shipping? And
is shipping really that expensive in the UK?
You have your visitor counter not showing publicly (not a problem) so I
couldn't tell how much, if any, interest there was.
Hope this helps!
Fascinating - thanks for this.
I have a little bit of standard text I reuse. I'll trim it.
I can include a cable if required but since typically shipping far
outweighs cost on this stuff, and cables are actually worth some
money, plus the plethora of types of SCSI cable, I don't by default,
only if asked and not if it sells for 1p.
Shipping - I ship worldwide. Postage to every different continent
costs different amounts. I had a buyer refuse to pay for an Apple
Bluetooth keyboard & might mouse recently as he expected me to ship to
the Cayman Islands for the same price as continental Europe. He lives
on a frikkin' /desert island/ in the middle of the ocean & didn't
realise this would cost twice as much as a continent with a billion
people in a dozen countries.
I can't list every combination of postage for everyone. The listing
would be pages, I'd have to calculate every time afresh as it's
dependent on weight, and I don't package before listing because people
ask for serial and part numbers, photos etc., or buy multiple items
and want combined shipping.
Some people want it fast & will happily pay for a courier; some just
want airmail; some want it cheap so I use surface mail. So one size
doesn't fit all and I can't list them all. So I name a high estimate
and say in the listing it's negotiable.
As for eBay showing 2, nothing I control there, I'm afraid.
As for the Bernoulli itself, there's a limit to how far I'll go to
give it away. Come on, I'm not a charity here - I'm a very poor guy
moving countries for work!
--
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