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Writing Ads for the Internet

What is appropriate to advertise, what isn't?

As an individual, you can advertise just about anything! Computers, houses, and cars are often seen; garage sale announcements, used railroad ties, and anything else you can think of would probably be appropriate.

It would be best if your item is shippable and of interest to the major Internet demographic groups. Anything wanted by college students, young professionals, and college professors is definitely fair game. The same goes for relatives of all of the above. You will find quantities of such people reading your ad.

You should not exclude the eclectic, however. Just keep in mind what audiences you need to reach. If you can't ship your house from California to Kentucky, try to use local newsgroups only. Also, some kinds of merchandise have specialized markets, like high-end bicycles, airplanes, Japanese animation movies, and so on. And finally, be prepared to answer whether you will ship to Outer Mongolia; the misc.forsale.* newsgroups have readers in even the most remote corners of the globe.

The one catch; don't try to make a profit by offering a high price. The misc.forsale.* newsgroups are a forum to facilitate one person getting rid of something she doesn't need, and another person acquiring something he wants. If you offer a price as high as the cheapest businesses, then your offering is not appropriate. Be especially cautious with computers; your purchase price at Sears or in Computer Shopper may be significantly higher than the going Internet commercial price. That, and computer equipment devalues very quickly. New hard disk drives, processor chips, and memory, for example, may only cost a quarter of what they cost a year ago.

When it comes to appropriate ways to offer your material, three sales methods are prevalent on the newsgroups:

Stating an asking price in the ad

If you have an approximate knowledge of what your item is worth, then we recommend this method as the most effective. Most people will pay attention to a stated asking price, whereas they will often ignore other means, because they do not want to waste the effort on an auction they might not win. One tip: make sure you mention whether your price is firm or negotiable.

Soliciting offers

Another method is to solicit offers without stating an asking price. This may be your best alternative if you don't know what your item is worth, but it is not nearly as effective as a stated price. "If you gotta ask, you don't wanna know," is an American adage that sums up the situation--many people who might otherwise be interested will not offer a price, and thus you miss a large number of potential buyers.

Conducting an auction

A final method is to offer items for sale through an on-line auction. This method is acceptable, but not recommended. Again, many people will ignore ads without stated prices. In addition, some readers object to auctions because of the bandwidth they consume. The best type of auction is a buy-or-bid auction, where you state a maximum price at which you are willing to sell the item outright. If you do decide to conduct an Internet auction, then you would be well-advised to follow a few guidelines which have been developed to minimize the problems caused by bad auctioneers in the past:

• Auctions should end within 2 weeks of the initial post.
• Auctions should be limited to 2 posted updates; updates sent by e-mail to bidders conserve network resources.
• Auctions should be conducted in an ethical manner; all items should be sold to the highest bidder unless a reserve (minimum bid) was stated in the initial post, and at no time should any bidder be solicited for a higher bid.

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