Pokemon Mom is NOT a Success
Posted on 27 August 2007 by DeanHunt
I read an article last week that was on the Digg.com frontpage that told the story of a mother who was selling her children’s Pokemon cards on eBay.
Not the most interesting of stories is it?
Well, upon reading the story it is clear why this story has become a viral success.
The story tells of the mother in a supermarket whilst her children are behaving like…. well…. children. It turns out that one of the kids put some Pokemon cards into the basket whilst the mother wasn’t looking, and the mother accidentally bought them.
Anyway, the mother finds out, and as a punishment decides to sell them on eBay.
The story became huge and has been talked about all over the net.
Firstly, I don’t believe the story! They cost $2, what is the point of putting them on eBay? Seems a lot of time for an item that was likely to have sold for around $1.
But there are 2 options here:
1) It is genuine, and she simply has waaaay too much time on her hands. I don’t know of one person that has over an hour to write a mini-novel just to sell a $2 pack of cards. Maybe this explains why her kids are so badly behaved.
2) It is a viral stunt.
Let’s look at scenario 1 first: if this was genuine, then you may be thinking that she has been a great success. I would disagree. Don’t get me wrong, selling a $2 product for $142 is impressive, but it would have taken at least one hour to write/list that on e-bay, it would have taken 3-4 hours to respond to the huge amount of comments, check the listing, package and ship etc… so this is a total of 5 hours. So that is $28 per hour, not bad, but not life changing.
Scenario 2: Let’s presume this is a clever marketing stunt. Has it been a success? No! If she owns e-Bay then yes, it has been successful, but if not, then what has she gained from this?
Numerous bloggers have been very excited by this story: blog 1 blog 2
This blogger seems to be impressed with what is described as “viral” marketing: blog 3
I have to go against the grain on this one. All she has achieved is a bit of petty cash and perhaps a few more people who will check out her future eBay listings. Not great for something that has taken so much time.
August 27th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I agree that her tale is not a real success story but people are talking about it more as great example of how to write a compelling sales letter with that down home story telling style.
So even though she only made a little bit of money with this one auction, she does possess the skill set needed to make more in the future.
August 28th, 2007 at 1:53 am
Thanks Dean.
Actually - she did drove people to her blog through her ebay page. And from her blog, it does seem that she is legit - she has the 6 kids.
But her blog is on blogspot and I don’t think she earns money from it. So that doesn’t help much either.
She did get a lot of attention. It depends on how she capitalizes on it now. She could probably get a couple of book writing offers because of one ebay listing - a funny book on parenting would sell well - so I wouldn’t call it a total flop.
I think she did it more for fun than anything else. A creative outlet for her…
August 28th, 2007 at 5:09 am
Thanks for the comments.
I agree that she has the skills to make great sales letters.
I also DID notice that she mentioned her blog, but if I recall it was within the comments, so not many people would have seen it.
I am not sure she would get a book offer, but she certainly is a good writer… IF she wrote it.
If she did it for fun, then fair play to her. She has waaaay too much time on her hands though. Maybe that explains why the kids are so badly behaved. hehe, just joking.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:13 am
No matter what happens to this lady from here on out, she will always be known as “the lady who…..”… So, this will increase her sales tremendously on Ebay because of name recognition.
That is how “viral” works.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Do you *have* kids? If you don’t, you couldn’t possibly understand why so many people were so attracted to the listing and her blog. Every person I’ve met or heard of with more than 4 kids has a great sense of humor and I’m sure she simply wrote that story to amuse herself without expecting to make money off of the cards because of it.
Auctioning them off was mostly likely to make a point to the offending child. It has a more lasting impact than throwing the cards in the trash; the kid can watch the time tick slowly by and see who gets their beloved cards instead. The lesson is more memorable that way.
And just a side note. I have 2 kids and have about zero actual time. I write this at the peril of my living room and do every other task with the same risk. I do about 7 loads of laundry a week and my dishwasher runs at least every other day. So take two and cube it. That’d be 6 kids. So unless you have 6 kids, or at least 1 to whom you can apply an exponential projection, don’t dare to say whose kids are well behaved or not.