Buy &  Sell 

Stamps on eBay

     A Powerseller's Guide

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Ebay Titles & Descriptions that Sell Stamps

Titles are really important. They are the first thing all your potential bidders see as a result of their browsing or searching. Like most selling situations, eBay is a numbers game. The more times your auction title comes up in front of bidders, the more bidders are going to click on it to see your auction details, picture and description. Keep it relevant with as many key descriptive words as possible. Ebay allows 55 characters in a title (a character includes any punctuation marks, spaces etc.). Try and use as many of these characters as possible, and always at least 40. We can’t emphasize this enough. Short titles do not attract bidders, nor do titles with lines of exclamation marks, asterisks, or the words ‘WOW’ or ‘MUST SEE’ included - nobody searches for those words.

Titles completely in upper case letters are considered rude, and are often avoided. However, do use upper case first letters for all the main words, but don’t do this for words such as ‘is’ and ‘of’. Don’t use punctuation unless essential, particularly commas. It just takes up space and is usually not needed.

Descriptions are the most challenging thing for most eBay sellers, but it’s worth taking time to get it right. The secret is to keep it factual. Don’t overdo things with a long, wordy, possibly sleep inducing description, unless it’s really necessary. It probably isn’t, except for some collections. Some sellers seem to think that the longer the description, the better they are at selling the item, but this is just not true. Bidders are always in a hurry, and a description that fills their screen is probably going to have them moving onto the next item quickly. A good description does the following:

1) Tells the bidder exactly what is being offered (describes the features of the item)

2) Gives the bidder a reason to buy (tells the benefits of buying the item)

We give extra help and information on descriptions, including examples, in: 

Do put shipping costs at the end of your description. Although eBay gives you the option of showing these later, we know that visitors to your auction will want to find the full cost of buying the item quickly and easily. We’ll talk about shipping charges again later, but you need to be aware that shipping is a very sensitive matter on eBay - far too many sellers ask for far too much shipping.

You get the picture. You don’t need to be an expert with words, or say your item is the best ever, but you do need to be honest and describe the stamp concisely and precisely, and put in some good reasons to buy.

Next important item is your eBay pictures, we'll discuss using a Scanner next.

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