How to Write a Resale Listing That Sells

A buyer finds your listing by typing words into a search box. If the words they typed are not in your title, your listing does not exist for that person, no matter how good the photographs are.

So the title is not a name for the item. It is the set of terms you want to be found under, arranged so a human can still read it.

What goes in the title, and in what order

Front-load in this order: brand, then model or style name, then what the object actually is, then the attribute a buyer filters on — size, color, capacity, quantity. Condition goes at the end, and only when it changes the search: new with tags, sealed, for parts.

Brand first because that is the word people start with. Model second because that is the word people add when they know what they want. The category noun third because a search for a brand alone returns everything that brand ever made, and your listing has to survive that pile.

Things that waste title space: adjectives about how nice it is, capitalized attention words, punctuation used as decoration, the word rare, and your own opinion of the price. None of those are typed by buyers, and every one of them pushes a real search term out of the visible part of the title.

If a model number exists, use it exactly as printed on the item. Numbers are how people find the specific generation of a thing that had four generations.

The words buyers type versus the words sellers like

Sellers write gorgeous vintage statement piece. Buyers type green wool coat size 12. The gap between those two sentences is most of the reason listings sit unseen.

Take your vocabulary from three places: the item's own label, the maker's own product page, and the titles of listings for the same item that have already sold. That third source is the most useful and the least used, because it shows you the phrasing that worked for somebody who is not you.

One caution. Adding words that do not describe your item, in the hope of appearing in more searches, brings you messages from people who wanted the other thing and reviews from people who feel misled. Include the terms that are true. Where a genuine second name exists for the same object — a regional word, a model name that changed between markets, the abbreviation people actually use — put both in.

The photographs sitting above all this do their own job, and doing it badly undoes the writing: photographing items you are reselling.

Describing condition in a way that survives a dispute

Write the flaws in plain physical language and show each one in a photo. A hole. A stain about the size of a coin. A scratch across the lid. Two buttons missing from the cuff. Vague words like loved, honest wear and some marks are the words that get quoted back at you when somebody opens a case.

Say what you did not test and be specific about it. If you cannot power something on because you do not have the cable, write that you could not power it on because you do not have the cable. Untested is a word buyers read as broken, and they are not wrong to.

List what is included and, separately, what is not. Original box, manual, charger, remote, spare buttons, the second controller. If the object came with something in its product photos and yours does not have it, say so before somebody asks.

This is also the section that decides how a disagreement about price plays out later, because a fully described item gives a haggler far less to work with: handling lowball offers on your listings.

Measurements and specifics that stop the same three questions

Every category has three questions that arrive again and again, and each one is a line you failed to write.

For clothing: chest measured flat from armpit to armpit, length from the shoulder seam down, sleeve from shoulder seam to cuff, waist flat, inseam. Say that garments are measured flat, and give the size on the label separately, because vintage sizing and modern sizing disagree.

For furniture: width, depth, height, and whether it comes apart for transport, and whether it fits through a standard doorway. For electronics: exact model number, what is in the box, whether it powers on, and any account or region lock. For anything shipped: rough weight and packed dimensions, because that determines whether a buyer thinks the postage is fair.

Spell out how you measured. A number with no method attached is a number somebody will argue with.

The closing lines about pickup, shipping and returns

End with the logistics, in short sentences. How the item can be collected or sent. Which payment methods you take. When you can hand over. Whether you can hold an item and for how long.

State your return position in a way that agrees with the rules of the platform you are on, and read those rules first rather than assuming — a line in your description saying no returns does not override a marketplace's own buyer protection, and finding that out during a dispute is an expensive way to learn it.

How much you charge for postage, how you pack, and which service you use are their own decisions with real money in them: shipping resale items without losing money. Whether the item belongs in a shipped listing at all, or a local one, is settled in choosing between selling online and selling locally.

The description habits that quietly repel buyers

Rules written in capitals. A wall of conditions before any description of the object. Hostility aimed at people who have not done anything yet: no lowballers, serious enquiries only, do not waste my time. All of that reads as a warning about you rather than about the item, and a buyer with two tabs open closes one of them.

Other quiet repellents. Manufacturer marketing copy pasted in place of a description, which tells a buyer about the product and nothing about your object. A description that is one long paragraph. Emoji instead of information. A price with no reasoning and no flexibility signaled either way, which is its own decision: pricing a resale item.

And the slowest one to notice — never editing. A listing that has been up a long time with no messages is telling you the title is wrong, the photos are wrong, or the price is wrong, and rewriting it is cheaper than relisting it forever. Where to start on that is what to do with a flip that will not sell.