Words guaranteed to devalue an auction

Strapped

"Vintage"...on a primark dress.

Rhymsta

Yes if it is a job lot then call it that but my point is that it does nothing to increase the value of the auction in the mind of the potential buyer...

Dictionary definition:

Job Lot -

1. a miscellaneous collection of articles sold as a lot
2. a collection of cheap or trivial items

building_with_lego

All words in a headache-inducing size and/or colour.

building_with_lego

AnD dOn'T gEt Me StArTeD oN tHiS sOrT oF tHiNg :mad:

Rhymsta

building_with_lego wrote: »

All words in a headache-inducing size and/or colour.

I've seen quite a bit of this recently.... and not for the description - that tends to be something like, "Table" or "Bike" (in Arial 10pt) with no dimensions, brand, condition or anything mentioned. The big type etc is reserved for a full page of the seller's conditions.

hermum

Moving, flashing, musical borders or whatever they use to do it.
It doesn't seem to be as popular as it once was.
Several years ago it seemed that every other listing had stupid things that either sang or such.
Guaranteed to get me closing it straight down.

Rhymsta

hermum wrote: »

Moving, flashing, musical borders or whatever they use to do it.
It doesn't seem to be as popular as it once was.
Several years ago it seemed that every other listing had stupid things that either sang or such.
Guaranteed to get me closing it straight down.

Yes definitely style over substance.

Liliya

hermum wrote: »

Moving, flashing, musical borders or whatever they use to do it.
It doesn't seem to be as popular as it once was.
Several years ago it seemed that every other listing had stupid things that either sang or such.
Guaranteed to get me closing it straight down.

Especially if you're working in an open plan office trying to look at ebay surreptitiously and have forgotten the sound on your computer is on. It's a bit of an attention drawer when 'jingle bells' or the suchlike starts playing across the office.

I can't stand people that call things rare when they are not (although, I often buy cosmetics where everything seems to be listed as rare, and in that case it can be great because the actual rare things get lost.) 1 thing I hate when buying cosmetics is something along the lines of 'This item is new, I only tested it on my hand once.'

Also, listing an item of clothing as used and not describing the condition I think is guaranteed to devalue an auction.

Crowqueen

hermum wrote: »

Moving, flashing, musical borders or whatever they use to do it.
It doesn't seem to be as popular as it once was.
Several years ago it seemed that every other listing had stupid things that either sang or such.
Guaranteed to get me closing it straight down.

eBay changed the scripts in their pages a while ago and restricted what people could put in the code on them. They've always banned javascript but only recently started trying to enforce it properly by changing what is possible to upload rather than leaving it to the conscience of the seller involved.

Anything garish or too colourful gives me a migraine. However, that said, bland listings with just the default font don't always grab the buyer either. The best colours to use, in my opinion, are gentle colours like beige or pale blue for a background and deep tones - maroon, dark blue, dark green - for text. That gives a professional feel but not too many headaches, and makes it look as if the seller has gone to the trouble of properly designing their listings. A lot of booksellers use a few standard templates giving information about what they are selling, plus their returns policies etc. and those work very well - again, it's a professional style, but not too hard on the eyes, which I like. The only problem with the big booklisters is they very rarely have a synopsis of the book built into the listing, which means that if I come across an unfamiliar title, I have to do a bit more research (usually by looking on Amazon) to see whether it's worth buying.

For a private seller like me, I just use bold text, plenty of additional embedded pictures, and I'm experimenting with whether it's better to centre text so it is right in front of the buyer's eyes when they open the listing, or left-justify it like I've been told tends to work better. I've used centred text for eight years successfully, so I'm not actually about to give it up, but I've done some new listings in the last week or so to see which sell better.

sharnad

No returns puts me off