Make More Money with Better Auction Titles
by Veronica Stone on August 6th, 2007
Are you losing money because you’re not choosing the right words to put in your auction titles? It’s possible you are if you are not putting enough thought into them. The good news is it’s not hard to take a few simple steps to ensure you’re maximizing the value you get from every critical letter of that title.
Here are the key things to do:
- Consider subscribing to a service such as Sellathon’s ViewTracker
(at sellathon.com). It tells you what words people search on to find your auctions and can help you fine-tune them. (It can give you other "get to know your customer" info as well, such as where people are physically located…for me, it’s always such fun to discover folks watching my auctions from foreign countries).
- If the item is a known brand, always include that brand name. If you have enough extra space and the item’s brand has a nickname or a popular alternate spelling, e.g. "VS" for "Victoria’s Secret," consider putting both in.
- This tactic has been very effective for me: Add numbers to your auction title.
(Huh?) I’m talking about the estimated retail price of your item. People love a bargain, and seeing the disparity between your starting auction price and that hefty retail price gets them motivated to buy!
- Of course you know to state if the item is new, or "new without tags." If the latter, most eBayers know the shorthand abbreviation of "NWOT"; for new with tags, you can simply say "NWT." If the item is in excellent condition, consider saying "like new," "as new," or "never worn." You may alternately want to include those words in a subtitle; while eBay’s search engine does not search on the subtitle, buyers will see that phrase clearly in the search results and it may influence them to click into the auction.
- For some items which are beautiful but not a known brand, consider using alternate keywords that will convey the quality. An example that comes to mind is holiday children’s clothing. I used to buy some very expensive items from the "Wooden Soldier" catalog. Folks seem to know that catalog name as one of the nicest places to buy such clothes, so I would put the catalog name in the title, as others do. Another word that says "quality" is "boutique."
- Not everything on eBay is new. Of course, some of the most highly coveted stuff is very old and "antique." For these, be sure to state if the item is "rare," and if it is in fact an antique, of course use that word. Collectible specialties such as collectible books and stamps have their own selling jargon; get to know the shorthand and lingo the other top sellers are using and plunk words accordingly.
- Before listing a high-dollar item, take a moment to check out similar completed auctions on eBay
(or other auction site) to see what words the best-selling items use in the title. Something may jump out you hadn’t thought of.
- Finally, try not to make any typos!
Best of luck building those big-bucks titles!
Julia Wilkinson is the author of "The eBay Price Guide" (No Starch, 2006) and "eBay Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks" (Wiley, 2004-6), "What $ells on eBay for What" , and publisher of the free newsletter, Yard Salers, at http://www.yardsalers.net.
