Marketing at its best or worst? Gmail sellers on eBay

Through some of my blog reading today i came across a post about the Gmail invites being auctioned on eBay. I’ve seen it before, when the whole idea was new and *one* invite went for about $200. I checked back a few days later to see how the prices develop (being a long time eBay seller i know all too well on what competition does to prices on eBay, and how quickly), and sure enough prices were down to a couple of dollars / account.

Today however, it’s a different sight again. If you look at the recently completed gmail auctions, you can see some pretty clever marketing tactics by a new breed of eBay/gmail marketers.

When invites lost their market value because the market was flooded by copycats, already set up gmail addresses appeared. There are current affairs ones, profiting from the high number of searches, and general public interest for political personalities like Michael Moore (notice the title too: RAREST Gmail address on Earth, Michael Moore), or Bill & Hillary, get.out.of.iraq@gmail, and plenty more. There are pop culture ones (Simpsons, Madonna), there are eBay industrial ones (eBaySales.com@gmail - weird isn’t it?, ebaydeals@gmail, SoldOnEbay@gmail, etc), and there are weird non-names ones (dumped@gmail, rebellion@gmail, doorway@gmail etc).

Apart from naming their product, these sellers know how to spice up their auction as well! There are bundles (10 gmail invites PLUS a free orkut invite! Hot deal!). There are even sellers of unrelated items on ebay who bundle their products with a gmail invite just to be able to put gmail in the auction title and profit from the huge attention and thousands of searched for these account (example). What a tactic!

There are those who want to rise above the rest by offering better service. Fast delivery, Guaranteed, Very Fast Activation, just a few examples. I came across one where the seller explained in the description that he is located in the Uk so he’ll be unable to reply to Buy It Nows between midnight and 8am GMT, unless he gets up earlier.

And there is even a whole running gmail business for sale. Profits almost $1000/month, and guess where that’s coming from? “The site earns around $600-$750 from Google Adsense ads and $100 from affiliate programs per month.” (quote from the auction description)

Just a little summer marketing fun.

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