April 14, 2008

Writing A Description



Equally important, but less apparent, is the task of writing a good description. Here I’m going to have to sell the pair of shoes nicely, but not overdo it ( I don’t want to make it seem like they’re in mint condition in the box or anything)-and importantly not to spend too much time thinking about it. For instance, it’s not very productive to go into detail about a pair of socks. If the item is especially important, you can go to a lot more effort in adding details, perhaps extra photos, etcetera-but I have personally decided for this item it is just not necessary. Of course, it is also important to weigh what sort of details you should give-for instance, technology usually requires a much more lenghty description (if you don’t’t follow what I mean, in the example of a pair of headphones you would not only have to provide a visual description of the item, but the technical specifications like the frequency range they provide, power handling capacity and so on).


What should you include in your description? Well, the important elements are as follows:

  1. Repeat the name of the item.
  2. Details about the item. (This is your most important prerogative, make it the focus of your description).
  3. Any physical pros and consof the item. This includes general marks and scratches as well as accessories and extras.
  4. Finally, cover any other information that you feel needs to be mentioned. For example, if you feel that the photos don’t properly show a feature of the item, describe it.

Now that we’ve covered through the basic, so let’s go through putting up an item, step by step.

First, you give your auction a title. Simple enough. Next, you have the option of adding a ‘subtitle’ below your auction title. This can provide extra information-and while it’s useful, you probably won’t use it that much. In this instance, I haven’t. Here, I’m putting up a friend’s auction for a cocktail dress. It will customize the fields depending on what sort of itemyou are putting up-so in this instance you list the clothing style, size, colour, material-etcetera. Then, further down the page, you’ll add your description.


HTML code is your friend. If you don’t know anything about HTML code, you may want to learn. The description field allows you to type just regular text, but you can add HTML markup code to spruce up the description. I recommend it highly, as it makes your auction stand out and look more professional. If you can read HTML, you’ll notice that I have basically made the text look bolder, a reasonably simple task, even for beginners.


Here you name your price. On this item, I’ve started the bidding rather low. For a measly ten cents you can add a “buy it now” price. You also specify the length of the auction and the quantity of items (usually one). Scroll down further.


Now is the time to add your prize winning pictures. The first photo can be hosted on eBay for free, and each additional photo is 25 cents. When you’re putting up a large amount of items, it’s cheaper to host them on your personal webspace instead. You can add this by clicking’your web hosting’ and filling out the appropriate info. Scroll on, to the next area.


Customization is what this section is all about. Yes, you will get a lot of exposure by adding your item to the ‘featured item’ list, but is it really worth $29 to do this? Some of the cheaper but still fancy options that may be worth it are the ones that add ‘borders’ and such toyour item for three dollars. It might be worth it, it might not. Use your judgement, but still keep thinkin with your bank account in mind. After all, what if the item doesn’t sell? Finally, here you can add a ‘page counter’ to your page to tell you how many people have seen your item. It’s nice for your peace of mind, and it’s free-so why not? (after all, you can even customize it!)


Now we’re up to everybody’s favorite part-the part where you get paid. More specifically, the method of payment you choose. Choose your payment option and scroll on. I chose Bank Deposit, as there’s no fees attached to that perticular option.


Finally, we hit upon the shipping directions. This is all very self explanatory. You tick if you will delivery it only nationally or internationally, and then what countries you will send to IF internationally. Next up, you tell them how much your postage will cost (you should work this out with your local post office-you can get a rough estimate from their website as well (beware, it may not be perfectly accurate!), and what sort of shipping method this will use. You can add as many different ones as you like, like adding express shipping costs, and so on. After that, you have the option to add a returns policy-this is very rarely used on eBay unless the item you are selling in expensive. Finally, back to the payment instructions-you tell the bidder any extra information (or clear instructions on how to) on paying you. In this instance, I’ve added extra information pertaining to express shipping.


This is the end result. As you can see, it only takes a few moments to set up your auction item. Once you have done several, you will start to get into the routine of doing things on eBay, so the process won’t be as time-consuming or difficult.


Eventually, when you’ve set up many auctions, the process may become a little tedious. This is understandable, ad you’ll essentially be repeating the same actions over and over again-wouldn’t it be wonderful if youcould avoid most of that process altogether? Thankfully, this marvelous dream has come true with the help of Turbo Lister (see the Turbo Lister chapter, later). Unfortunately there’s no tool that will take good photos or write up descriptions in English, but many other functions can be straemlined and drieven by the computer.