I'm just curious here as to how many of you hype the coin(s) you are selling as much as possible. I'm not talking about deception and fraud. I don't think the regulars that I've seen here would resort to that. I'm talking about putting such a shiny spin on that $3 coin that it sells for $20. After all, a legend in the industry I work in always says that "The art of selling is extracting as much money as possible from the buyer without resorting to fraud or physical violence." I just ask this, because I've seen some here who seem to have the attitude that you should be ashamed if you sell something for more than "book" value.
Fair enough. What about the person who has the same AU-58 coin as you who talks about the series, the rarity vs. other dates, etc., and gets a much higher premium?
Just from an eBay standpoint, I found there really isn't a difference price wise between, hyping up a coin, or just listing it. Especially in the case of higher priced coins, I really don't think there's any need to "hype up" the coin, because the buyers know what they're buying. So there's no need to tell them the mintage is only (x amount), and it's rare. Imo the biggest thing is to post large, high quality pics.
I agree about the pics. However, I have seen virtually the same coin(s) sell for disparate amounts, and it seems to be due to sellsmanship and hype.
It must be a difference in people, personally I would think that a dealer who gave pertinent information about a coin would impress me as being more knowledgable, I would not call knowing mintages, type and variety rarities as being hype. I would call hype saying things like, these are limited edition coins, no more of these will be minted, (they minted 169 million) layered in pure gold, a collectors edition, guarenteed to be a best seller, collected by millions.
I'm not sure what Sales reference manual your getting your information from. That approach to sales is nothing more than slicing your own throat, if you intend to be successful in any sales industry. Success is gained in promoting and maintaining repeat customers through developing a respected reputation for "Truth, Honesty and Integrity" , which are the keys to sales success. Success is being prepared to grasp the opportunity to inform a potential customer with accurate information , fair and reasonable pricing you build a base for well satisfied customers.
Speaking of integrity, I noticed one of the cointalk members website has a coin for sale, and he states that it was submitted to, but did not recieve a cac sticker. Now to me that screams integrity, he is giving pertinant information about his product, tho it could be considered a negative, to me the negative is outweighed by the positive of integrity.
When I sell, everything is written in regular font, with huge pictures. And i always mention that if they want the big, RAW files, I'm just an email away.
Despite the "hype" that is written, it does not change the value / condition of a coin. I would also hope that a buyer is smart enough to realize what he/she is buying and not overpay because of verbiage. If they do....maybe they are also paying for a lesson.IMHO
When I buy coins on ebay, I spend most of the time looking at the pics. I also spend some time reading the information on the coin and the general look of the webpage. It probably doesn't hurt to mention the history of the coin and the mintage. Presentation can't hurt. If I like the prices of a certain seller, I will also look at other coins he/she may be offering especially if they give a S&H discount for multiple coins purchased on the same day. I personally don't like hype but I do like a well organized webpage with pertinent information.
Chip, I'm unclear on the point you are trying to make. Are you suggesting that this CT member should not have stated that fact? If so, that is where the "honesty" factor comes into play. That submitter knows why they declined to give it a green label.
let me try to make my point a bit clearer. There are three kind of people, natural people, subnatural people, and people that rise above human nature. It would be subnatural to steal a picture of a different coin and then sell a worse example, it would be natural to tout your coin at the highest possible grade and to take pictures in such a way to hide the flaws as best as possible, it is rising above our nature to volunteer information that could concievably harm the value of the coin. My point was that the seller was going above and beyond, and it was I guess expressed in my typical lefthanded way.
Without actually seeing the sale information your submitting as an example of the op's topic, I'm simply going to have to refrain from any further comment on this except to say the CT seller your referring to informed the potential buyer's of the situation. They have a certain amount invested in the coin and realizes he/she is going to take a hit on the re-sale for this coin and should fairly negotiate with the buyers accordingly.
I think a lot of this "hype selling" is targetted towards the beginners and uneducated investors looking to make a few bucks down the road. It's wrong, and I think it may put a bad taste in some beginner's mouths. The only thing you can really do is to educate yourself, and do research before making that expensive purchase. If you are just starting out and are a little green, talk to other collectors to find a reputable dealer to avoid getting hosed.
