Polish Up Your Sales Pitch

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Shakespeare definitely wasn't selling items on eBay when he wrote these words. When it comes to listing an item successfully, the title (or name) really does matter. You need to think of a title that's provocative enough for a potential buyer to click your item in a list of similar items.

Which of these items sounds more saleable to you?

• Silver Nut Dish
• Vintage Gorham Sterling Silver Pierced NUT DISH.

The second one is a better choice because it gives more detailed information about the item and highlights four pluses of the item:

• The dish is vintage, which means if it's not an antique, at least it's somewhat old. For a collector, the age of the piece is an important part of the value.
• The dish was made by an important silver company (Gorham).
• The dish is sterling silver (not silver-plated).
• The silver is pierced, which means the lacelike design was made by punching holes in the silver to form a pleasing pattern. This is another bit of information that would interest a collector.

In addition to making the item sound more enticing, giving a detailed description makes it more likely that your item comes up when buyers use the eBay search function. With the strong title shown previously, searching on the terms Vintage, Sterling, Gorham, or pierced would show this nut dish in the list of items that meet the search criteria.