real value versus percieved value

[tony marks]

i just sold a 54 cc poulan pro on ebay. it brought 112 dollars. the saw was equeal to any 50cc stock saw ive ever owned or seen ,for that matter. if it had been a stihl it would have brought 200.
the same if husquevarna were the name. this saw was in fact made like the husky counterpart to it.
now i dont mind what it brought ,because i knew that without those names it would be a low sale item.
my point is that i think sometimes percieved value is a bit different than real value. the fella who got this saw,
got one hell of a good firewood saw.
if anything bothers me its that it was not
valued at what i consider its real value.
guess i can blame the poor products
poulan has mass produced for lowes etc.im really not fussin here . just seems to be a distorted value system.now i dont do pictures so some mite think this had something to do with it. but i can paint a picture w words that tell a person what the saw is. like i say ,not complaining,as, if
i was selling one of three saws stihl 028, husky 350, or poulan pro,id sell the poulan pro first every time because of this percieved value.

 

[slowtorque1]

Ebay

Tony, I can almost guarantee you that not posting a picture with your item will significantly reduce the number of bidders willing to engage in the auction. Personally, I normally don't bother with pictureless auctions. With fewer bidders, the price will never reach what it otherwise would. I am sure you are an honest fellow and know what you have, but many people don't and can't know that. Just the way it is on ebay.

John

 

[Tony Snyder]

There is no Husky counterpart to that saw that I'm aware of. The 350 is a Swede built saw. I believe the Poulan Pros are Shrevesport built by the Frigidaire group.

If there is a public perception, it would be that the Poulan name has stood for poorly made products, or at least for the last 15 years or so.

I sincerly believe that the Swedes, the Germans, Virginia Beach/German,Italian, and the Japanese built saws are superior in design and quality.That is why they dominate the market.

 

[eyolf]

Ya gotta be careful about them P-pro's. Some were made in Sweden...former Partner, Jonsered models. Some seem to be about the same as the green ones, but I've been told that a few parts on them are spec'd tighter and that they all have lined bores (green ones don't).

I go through streaks watching Ebay a lot, then not, and I've seen the P=pros fetch good prices, esp the bigger ones. A 655 recently went over $400, and a 475 close to it, which isn't bad, considering that Bailey's is blowing brand new 505's (very similar to 475) out at 5 bills right now.

In that respect P-pro probably represented the best value out there. Too bad P=pro isn't marketing the real pro saws anymore.

As to the photo thing, I think it's sad but true. The real sad part is that it can be real tough to tell much of anything from the crappy photos some use. I have seen poor photos on some sales, then looked at a sellers other auctions to see much better ones and thought to myself "what are they hiding?" I bet lots of others think that way too.

There are a few bad apples out there ruining things for the rest of us, I guess.

 

[mikek711]

Tony,
Explaining you product in depth is great but a picture is worth a thousand words.If you are going to do e-bay even alittle bit,
a 150.00 dollar 2 megapixel camera will pay for it self within a few auctions with higher bids coming in.The picture below was taken with a Fuji 2 megapixel camera today.Right around 150 bux.

Just something I dragged out of the woods................

Mike.

 

[mikek711]

The picture didnt post...

 

[Stumper]

Tony, I agree completely about the percieved value/real value discrepancy. As you may have noticed I am one of the few around here that actually have good things to say about Poulan. Regarding the photo issue on ebay I have to tell you that I never am willing to go as high bidding on non photo auctions. Even a mediocre pic helps. I bought a cheap camera and have no doubt that it has paid for itself in the relatively few auctions I've had.

 

[larscout]

got to agree with the picture thing ,when i first started selling on ebay i was doing ok then got a digital camera for x-mas one year and started posting with pics and it really does make a differance.

 

[Ryan Willock]

i WON'T bid without pics!!!

 

[Onthehillintn]

I will not bid unless there is a picture. I also like Poulan Pros and McCullochs but dont tell Fish.

Onthehillintn

 

[paul hill]

Mikek717
Nice load of wood and saw but what caught my eye was the dog. What breed is it? I have some ideas but couldn't tell for sure because I can't see the whole dog.

 

[tony marks]

fact . u guys are rite about the picture pt.
thats an image of a saw ,for the customer to see. so i do agree that thats a factor. however if id said almost new looking excellent condition ,cutting fool of a saw. [i didnt] poulan pro 335.
the poulan pro name would have been the negative factor versus say stihl or husky. im not fussing at all about it as i
iunderstand what the difference is. also i got my moneys worth out o the saw ,usin it this past yr. picture point taken.
fella still got one heck of a 112 dollar saw.

 

[Bill G]

I fully agree that a pic is essentail but be careful to take the picture correctly. The picture posted by MikeK was a nice pic to send to someone but would never work on ebay. I do not know how many people here have a DSl or T1 connection but I can assure you that the vast majority of the people on ebay have a dial-up connection. The pictured posted took 2 minutes to come up. The primary problem is all the background. When you take the picture for ebay make sure the only think in the picture is what you are selling. The background should be all one solid color with nothing in it. A white piece of plywood or other solid colr works well. Those of you who watch ebay for chainsaws on a regular basis will see all the saws offered by the seller sawking. If you notice his pictures are of high quality and the load super fast. He always takes them with grass as the bakground. This really improves the speed. I can assure you that if a pic is slow to load I will pass it up. I have only bought one saw over ebay without a pic and it was far from the picture in my mind. I have sold many saws and other items on ebay and always had a pic. I had a $350 cam but always used it on the lowest setting so that the pic would load fast. I then lost the cam and bought a $50 Wal-Mart special. It does terrible indoors but is good outside. I would personally buy a better camera so that if a bidder wanted more detailed pics you could email them to them.

just my thoughts

Bill

 

[glens]

I'm going to get a reputation for being totally off topic if I don't watch out...

What Bill said; but you should also "follow up" by properly manipulating your image first.  Perhaps the best utility for that is freely available (in source code and in compiled executables for various platforms) from http://www.imagemagick.org/ and which can be used interactively or automated within scripts to do tons of stuff with images, like cropping, rotating, color-correcting, etc.

Compare a couple of renditions of a photo submitted earlier by JD Hotsaw:

(original, resized to 50% only)
<img src="http://old.link2000.net/JD_Hotsaw/372xp_and_skidder.jpg" alt="original image" title="372xp_and_skidder.jpg">

(same, but also hit with a gamma correction of 1.5)
<img src="http://old.link2000.net/JD_Hotsaw/372xp_and_skidder.mod.jpg" alt="gamma-modified image" title="372xp_and_skidder.mod.jpg">

Admittedly, the image might not be the best example, but note the much improved detail in the shadows.&nbsp; The camera's electronics made a nice 50% gray out of the average brightness in the image.&nbsp; Photos made with a predominance of snow should be slighly overexposed to correct for that tendency.&nbsp; With digital media it's simple to take care of things to some extent after the fact.

If it were something like a chainsaw image for use on ebay it could greatly benefit from such minor attention (think of it as equivalent to tickling your factory cutters with a file) and it could positively affect your sale.

I'll stop now with that almost-close-to-being-on-topic bit.