I already knew this lesson but man, I came close to being bitten by it on ebay this week. I mentioned earlier that I’m selling my iriver mp3 player on ebay this month to pay for a sony PSP. I put the mp3 player up for auction on Sunday. I’d been watching them on ebay for the past 2 weeks to see what folks were getting for them and based on my feedback I figure on getting around $260 for mine. But three days into the auction I had no bids and only 2 people watching it. I was starting to get nervous – why no activity? All the other ones that had gone up had immediate activity. Granted the html I’m using for the auction sucks, but I have great feedback and the thing’s in great condition. What was up?

I had a brain fart is what was up. I listed it as an i-river mp3 player. It’s an iriver. No hyphen. People searching ebay for one weren’t finding mine. D’oh! A quick adjustment to the listing and 4 hours later I have 2 placeholder bids and 9 folks watching the auction. The lesson – dot your i’s and cross your t’s and double check them. I could have taken a loss on the auction if I hadn’t adjusted it.