The Teacher becomes the Student
by acdickson
My good friend Nate Preston is the kind of man who needs hobbies. He needs projects. He needs to be engaged. Be it booking rock shows, attacking twee posts on the K record label chat room, or playing Dungeons and Dragons, he throws himself into the activity de jour with gusto.
No wonder then that after coming to the AC Dickson eBay PowerSeller show Nate's taken to eBay selling like a fish who has spent his life on dry land finding a body of water.
To say that Nate has been successful with eBay is to say George Hamilton has a nice tan.
Nate is living proof that with the inspiration of my seminar and a computer side copy of my PowerSelling guide, eBay glory can belong to anyone.
A few weeks ago I issued a challenge to come up with an auction that might attract the attention of all of eBay country and perhaps entice a heavyweight bid from Golden Palace Casino. It comes as no surprise that Nate came up with dozens of brilliant ideas. Last night, he posted his first such auction under my tutelage. Rather than tell you all about it, I'll simply ask that you click here and check it out yourself.
Now, in order to try and create a true eBay phenomenon, I need your help.
1) Please look at the auction and find the blue link to watch this item. Assuming you're an eBay member click there to watch it. Don't worry, you won't get extra emails or anything, it's just an easy way to track the auction on your 'my eBay' page.
2) Email the auction link to EVERYONE in your email list and explain that you're helping eBay pro AC Dickson to manufacture a global phenomenon. Ask them to officially watch the auction as well, then have them forward the link to EVERYONE in their email list.
Why is 'watching' an auction so important? The ten most watched eBay auctions are listed on the eBay pulse page which is linked to on the very front page of the entire eBay website. Depending on the week, it only takes a few hundred watchers to break the top ten. Once an auction does, the hits will multiply as many eBay users will check out anything that looks interesting on the list. This is of course where Golden Palace Casino looks for potential auctions to bid on.
3) Contact anyone that works in the media and ask them if they're heard about this crazy auction up on eBay right now. Act like you've stumbled upon it yourself and can't stop thinking about it. Perhaps suggest that you wish you had their job so you could report on it.
Let's see if we can do this folks. Can we make the eBay pulse top ten watched auctions? Can we get Golden Palace Casino to bid? Can we get this auction listed in US Today?
Together I think we can.
Posted on March 28, 2005 | Comments (5)
Teen auctions himself as prom date on eBay
by acdickson
Found this little dity and thought I'd pass it along in it's entirety, mostly just to show how eBay is transforming the very fabric of our nation. These two sound bite machines clearly have a future in public speaking, huh? Or make that as reality show contestants.
LA PORTE CITY, Iowa -— Stu Hemesath has earned $29.95 — as a prom date.
The high school senior from La Porte City auctioned himself off as a date on the Internet auction site eBay on Thursday. He will accompany Rachel Kay, 17, to her Cedar Falls prom.
The two say they have never met.
Hemesath said the idea just came to him as he was "thinking about proms and stuff.''
"I came to school with a thought in my head, and I told my friends,'' he said. "They thought it was the coolest thing in the world, so I decided to go for it.''
Hemesath posted pictures of himself and a description to secure some bids — which came from people as far away as Alaska.
"That's pretty far,'' he said. "She was really interested. She showed me her picture, but it was just too far away for it to be a possibility.''
Hemesath wasn't shy about his description, saying he's 5 feet 10 inches tall, 150 pounds, popular and a wrestler. He added: "I have a lot of girls telling me I'm pretty hot.''
Kay said she e-mailed Hemesath her phone number so that they could get to know each other before the big day. She said she made her bid in an attempt to make an ex-boyfriend jealous.
"I didn't think I'd actually win, I was just playing around,'' she said. "He looks like a pretty nice guy. I thought his write-up was pretty funny. He says he's a wrestler, so that's good.''
Posted on March 21, 2005 | Comments (6)
The Loins of eBay Are Fruitful
by acdickson
Years from now historians will look back on the winter and spring of 2005 as the glory days of eBay creativity. We have Golden Palace Casino largely to thank, I'd argue they're an NPR segment away from being a household word. But let's also not forget that for GPC to bid, there have to be auctions that capture the collective imagination and best raunchy jokes as the penultimate email topic to be forwarded to distant relatives and fellow office workers.
Let me walk you through a few.
While the "I'll put your corporate logo on your body" auction has been devalued from $37,000 for the first forehead, to $9000 for the first pregnant belly, to about $2 for a given body part today, two recent college grads came up with a very inspired logo infested bike ride from New Hampshire to Miami. They got a bid of $8000 plus dollars from GPC, shy of what I would suspect was a $10,000 reserve bid. Nice work gents, putting a new spin on an old auction is a sound way to go, but I wonder if you regret putting the reserve so high. $4000 apiece to go on a coastal bike ride seems like easy money to me.
One of the most legendary and heartwarming auctions in history was the haunted ghost cane. Some loving parents, attempting to quell the fears of their child, put grandpa's supposedly haunted walking stick on eBay. Grade A parenting, sort of how a children's book might suggest to deal with a child's fear, openly and publicly with a fun disposal strategy. Much to their surprise and no doubt delight, GPC bid that cane to over $70,000. Wow. Even though the cane sold months before the $37,000 forehead billboard, the haunted item copy cat auctions are in still in their relative infancy. This haunted Nintendo game system is up to $220 with (as I write this) 8 hours to go.
Cut from the same cloth as the original haunted walking stick comes another great auction found and forwarded to me by Urban Honking kingpin Mike Merrill, 10 children's drawings of robots. Now, with over 4000 hits already and 5 days to go this might very well be the auction of the week that GPC will surely buy. I'm curious if the auctioneers are genuinely selling this as an ego boost to their budding Picasso, or if they are preying on his emerging talent for their own hollow financial gain. If the latter, Macauley Culkin surely feels this youngsters pain.
Finally, there is the wink wink nudge nudge clever genre of auction. Is it art? Is it the work of a very bored office worker? Both? This time machine is a great piece of writing and was rewarded by over $600 from... who else? Golden Palace Casino.
Stay tuned eBay fans. I'm working on my own concept auction with the winner of my call to arms to grab GPC's attention and their wallet.
Posted on March 10, 2005 | Comments (0)
Golden Palace Casino Does It Again
by acdickson
If you're a regular reader of AC's you already know about Golden Palace casino. They're the online gambling website that is buying up every 15 minutes of fame available on eBay.
Their latest purchase? The mystery envelope. Some jackass (okay, genius) put up a package on eBay. Something was inside, they just wouldn't say. Thanks to bored office workers the world over, this auction got hundreds of thousands of glances and the seller was a guest on morning talk shows across the country.
It got bid up to $7500 on the last day. Real bids. For a mystery package. Then at the last second, the last 5 seconds (I know since I was watching) Golden Palace Casino upped the ante and extra $100. The crazy thing it I bet they would have paid $10,000. Maybe even $20,000. They knew that hundreds of thousands of people were going to be checking in to see how much the mystery package went for and who won it.
Again, think about how much it takes to produce a cheap TV commercial and play in on the WB during midnight Different Strokes re-run. To run Mr. Mattress commercials for a month between production costs and media time you're talking at least 25 grand. And how many people are going to see it? And in how big a geographic area.
Golden Palace Casino, once again you have blown me away. And I in return again inadvertently promote you to my readers.
Now, it's serious homework time folks. AC wants some of Golden Palace Casino's money. I figure they can't keep this up much longer.
Let's all put our thinking caps on and figure out what we can create an international eBay frenzy with.
Your soul, the ad space on your forehead and a mystery package were all good bets, but they've been done. We got to think of something new.
How's this for deal. If you can think of something good (and supply it if the situation calls for it) AC will go into business with you. I'll post it and get the word out and we'll split the money.
How's the sound?
Posted on March 7, 2005 | Comments (5)
Reed College annexed by eBay Nation
by acdickson
Well, last night you Portlanders had your last chance to see the infamous AC Dickson: eBay PowerSeller seminar. Reed College is now eBay country.
The show was fantastic. Good crowd, good energy. As usual, I had 5 auctions end during the climax of the show. Historic Jazz concert handbills from New York City shows from the 1960's. The last auction to end had a major pop off in the last 10 seconds. The Thelonius Monk handbill from the 1967 jumped from $15 to $99. If seeing that with your own eyes live doesn't inspire you start selling on eBay, nothing will.
But the most insane pop-off action took place earlier yesterday afternoon during work hours on the East Coast (where all 5 handbills were purchased from). The hottest poster was a little number from a Ella Fitzgerald Duke Ellington show at Carnegie Hall that ended up being turned into a classic album. Around 2 pm Eastern Standard Time it jumped from $20 to $621 in about two minutes, which is what it eventually sold for. The buyer? Why the Carnegie Hall. It's going straight into their museum. Now isn't that nice.
Is there anyway this amazing piece of Jazz history would have found it's way home without eBay? I don't think so. And that's why eBay is so great. Not only it is lining AC's pockets, and allowing me to make my buyers happy happy people. but it's furthering the cultural heritage of the human race.
Now for the Portland folks that missed the show. Well, maybe in another life. But you can get a little AC in your life before I scamper back off to Los Angeles. As we speak, I'm auctioning off a thrift store tour of Portland to take place this Sunday. Believe it. It's a quick 3 day auction that ends Saturday night so get ready to bid, bid, buy.
For those outside of PDX, sit tight. We're working here at AC HQ on lining up shows across the globe. We're confirmed for a string of seminars in the UK, Nottingham, Glasgow and hopefully Bristol. Looks like Pittsburgh is going to work out and we'll mount the show to Los Angeles as well. And we're just getting warm. If you want to bring AC to your fair city, get in touch and we'll see what we can do.
Live long, live strong, and eBay.
Posted on March 3, 2005 | Comments (2)