What's up with major auction houses using 3 letter abbreviations on EBAY?

[Shield]

Heritage Comics - uses "HCA"

 

Ex: - HCA AUCTION

 

Now, I see Metropolis doing the same thing:

 

Ex: MCI Auction

 

Sup wit dat?

[Bugaboo-migration]

They're probably doing it so that you can search for their auctions more easily without them having to waste valuable auction title description space by spelling out their whole names.

 

You can just do a title search for HCA or MCI

 

Plus....once everyone gets used to it.....their auctions will stick out to the regular collectors and will be easily recognizable as theirs from the title alone.

[fantastic_four]

Heritage Comics - uses "HCA"

 

Ex: - HCA AUCTION

 

Now, I see Metropolis doing the same thing:

 

Ex: MCI Auction

 

Sup wit dat?

 

Because it creates a mystery wrapped within a riddle embedded within a conundrum that requires a tiny little time investment that the people investing that time tend to retain.

 

The thinking as I understand it is that the first time you look at the acronym you go "what's that?" And if you're interested in the item enough, you look in and see it's Heritage or Metropolis and make a mental note of "oh, HCA is Heritage." And then Heritage has a little piece of your brain. It's similar to the reason supermarkets make you get those "member" cards to get cheaper prices and restaurants and retail outlets give you those little cards to punch so you get a free sandwich or a free widget once you get 10 punches. The idea behind the cards is that they occupy a small part of your physical world and remind you of the company whenever you come across that little physical object; acronyms do this by occupying a piece of your brain and making you recall the tiny little mental investment you have in the company who created the acronym.

 

So it's marketing.

[Shield]

I understand the "why"...I guess I hoped someone would notice Heritage did it WAY before Metropolis....and post a "tee hee" comment...