BladeRunner on Ebay

[Richard Martin]

There is a brand new BladeRunner available on Ebay today. You will probably notice that it is from our very own Capt Devo. The listing also answers the much asked but never answered question of how much they are going for. The bidding starts at $10,200.00 for the 60" mower with a 25 horse Robin engine. This is a "No Reserve" auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2008415894

[Shady Brook]

That is alot of jack for a mower that 99.5% of the world knows nothing about, and the of the ones who have heard of it, probably only 1% have actually seen it in person. Kind of a big risk, it could have a life time parts and labor warrentee, but who is going to service it? Even if there was a local who serviced the engine, I bet you will not be high priority if you did not buy it from him. I guess it is a way to get exposure, but I think until it gets into the dealer network, it would not be worth it to me even if it were $5,000. Just my thoughts.

Jay

[WREBELMACHINE]

Sounds high I paid $13300 for a 72" 32hp diesel BLADERUNNER.

[captdevo]

what better advertisement....

we are looking to establish a dealer base, i bet alot of other companies wish they had the power of 'www' when they started out.

yes, that is high retail, that unit sell "pro user" for $9,000

i listed this, as with many other things before, just for advertising purposes.

I guess it's working, you saw it.

i've had over 40 inquiries already.

[MIDSOUTH]

</b>Edited out... Come on now, you should know better than that.</b>

I'll stick with exmark.

[captdevo]

yes, for a small fee, you can get alot of exposure.

Again, this is high retail, they start around $6800


Dave

[bubble boy]

so your sole purpose on ebay is to advertise?

i think thats pretty good thinking.

[mowerconsultant]

Originally posted by captdevo
what better advertisement....

we are looking to establish a dealer base

Are you a distributor also ??? or better yet "THE" distributor ???
I am not trying to be a smarta$$ here but, this company trying to get there product to dealers by running auctions on e-bay does not sound like a solid business plan.....
Although it does get the product shown to the general public :) :)

Later
Pj

[captdevo]

and thats the exposure we're looking for, to get it known to the public.

this isn't part of any business plan, this is advertising.

you'd be amazed how many 'dealer and individual inquiries' i've had.

by no means are we trying to 'blow an go'....we're taking it slowly and have no plan to grow too big too fast.

we'll take it nice and slow and still build one machine at a time, and not just sell, to get them out there, but to sell with dealer service in mind.

Dave

[vipermanz]

is it supposed to be lambordini or is it lamborghini?:confused:

[SLS]

Your 'advertising' plan using ebay is solid, captdevo.

And economical too.

The wife and I have been selling collectibles and junk there for three years (about 2200 feedbacks) and we get emails all the time from people looking for the type of items we sell. LOTS of emails.

I see you have had 200 looks at that Bladerunner already. That's
what I like about eBay. How many people with 'brick and morter' shops wish that they had 200 people stop and look at just one of their items in 3 days?

Good move putting your website link there too, captdevo...that is
sure to generate some traffic to your site. If I may make a
suggestion....instead of (or in addition to) the "View My Website Link" add your RPM Sales banner to your auction page. Just insert the HTML for the .gif (and embedded hyperlink) at the bottom (or top!) of the 'description field' and it will help you to get "visual recognition" for your site as well as your business...like a billboard viewed by 100's a day. If you use 'center' tags in your HTML it will look like a 'header'. I have our 'banner' at the top of our eBay pages and will insert a link into it once I finish building our website. Here's an example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1081006457

Good luck, captdevo!

[rwleigh]

Good idea!
I like the pictures of the mower!

[captdevo]

thanks!

it is actually a Lambordini diesel.

these are smooth running OHV engines with roller rockers.

the Lambordini tractors are becoming more and more popular lately, they make for 27hp up to 850hp it big articulating tractors.

very nice equipment.

[roscioli]

Thats the best idea I have ever heard. I have heard of ebay being used for a lot of different things, but this is good. I like it. Good idea, and it looks like a great, solid mower.

[plow kid]

Dave, you forgot a important keyword in your auction title, "Commercial Mower" believe it or not most pros dont just type in Lawn Mower they want a "Commercial Mower". In 4 days I had 1100 page views of my auction for the John Deere just by adding that keyword, Just tryin to help. ~NaTe

[Guardian]

What to type in the "search" function on EBAY is a challenge when looking for the kind of mowers that WE are interested in. You can type "mower" and get 1000 items to weed thru. Of course if you make your search start with items over $100, it narrows it down to less than 200. BUT -what about these .01 opening bids? Guys like me will never see those mowers.
What frustrates me is people who don't spell right when they list a mower. -Like X-mark -how does anyone expect to get hits with spelling like that?
Type in "TORO" or "Bobcat" and get lots of crap to weed thru.

[Administrator]

eBay has turned many small internet companies into million dollar companies.

To use eBay as a tool is the only smart thing to do. eBay receives BILLIONS of monthly page views... the exposure you would NEVER get otherwise outweighs these small expenses.

Sure, sell your product via eBay, but promote your store in the ad. This way return customers & general eBay ad visitors can visit your online store and buy directly.... example, I bought my computer from InternetIshop via eBay, now I simply go directly to their site when I need new puter stuff.

As a matter of fact... just about anyone with a solid product and reliable wholesale sources can have an instantly established business within a week.

A little over a year ago I did something somewhat sneaky and misleading but it generated a LOT of revenue.

I started a "fake" auction ... Title was something like this... New Lamborghini, etc., etc... Of course I did not own a Lamborghini but I set the reserve price sooo high that if a bidder did reach the reserve I could buy a Lamborghini, sell it to him, and have about 50k left over. At the bottom of this ad description I put a little ad button with my referral # to the alladvantage.com site and a short description of what they offered and the benefits. (If your not familiar with the alladvantage company... well, I won't get into it but it was a solid marketing idea that got washed out when the ad market dried up.)
Anyhow I forked out the $99.95 featured fees, $29.95 category fees, bold fees, etc., etc. The bidding quickly reached over $10k so that placed it on the high ticketed items page (more views).... At the end, bidding did not even reach retail value for this type of car so nobody ever questioned my set reserve..... I listed this auction twice, all in all I received over 5,000 direct alladvantage signups and my pyramid was in the tens of thousands.... I was listed as one of their top referrers. I was receiving monthly checks in excess of $2,000+ ... then they went bankrupt.

After I did this people cought on and eBay was flooded with similar auctions.... not so much the "fake" or extreme auctions that would attract a lot of views or searches but just in their normal auction listings. eBay banned the insertion of alladvantage promotion in their ad descriptions.

Chuck

[roscioli]

A couple other tips.. One- I do agree that you should put Commercial Mower into the title, thats what I search most often... And Two- Have your website come up in a different window. I don't remember how to set the link that way, but it is very easy, and that way people won't get distracted by your website away from the auction they wanted to bid on... Good Luck, Mike

[MIDSOUTH]

My problem with this whole e-bay theory is that whoever buys this thing is not going to get the service that they will need on a product bought from an out of state company. I ran into this problem my second year in the lawn care business with a scag that I own, when you are cutting 70-80 accounts a week with that machine and it goes down what are you going to do? Call that place out of town and they will send you someone to fix it that day, not! I am a firm believer in supporting local dealers. I have dealer that will fix my equipment the minute it breaks, He is a dealer of redmax,snapper,exmark,billy goat and numerous other brands of equipment. I advise against anyone buying from a mailorder dealer, I still own that scag and it is assigned to do about 50 - 60 lawns a week and the exmark is assigned to 60-70 and when that scag goes down for the final count I will buy an exmark from my local dealer. Even if it was not an exmark I would buy it from a LOCAL dealer. You save maybe a couple of hundred, but it cost you in the long run.

P.S. - Please list authorized service centers for bladerunner mowers in the USA.

[MONTE]

The price does sound high I have one on order with a 29hp efi kawasaki and I am paying less than that!