The Monocle & Moustache

My first tip to anyone using Tophatter is to think of it as a living thing. It’s completely different from Etsy, Artfire, eBay, and the other sites you may know of. Why? Because it’s a live auction, which means that things move faster and, for the most part, people are going to only get a quick snapshot of what they’re bidding on. This doesn’t mean to stop writing a nice description of your items for the listing – there are people who read through it all. You just need to remember that you have a very short amount of time to suck people in and make them want your item.

How do you do that? Here are some tips:

1. Make sure you have a great description for your piece that tells what it is clearly. If it’s a bead woven cuff with a zebra pattern, say so. If it’s a custom piece, say so! Just remember to hit the highlights that you think someone would find interesting. And, please, spell check! Grammar check! Some people (me included) are spelling and punctuation snobs and may not even consider an item because it makes our brains hurt!
2. You can include 3 pictures for your pieces. Make sure the first picture is the best picture! I plan on hitting photography tips in a later post, but please make sure that the “ooh ahh” picture is #1 when you load them!
3. Don’t mislead your customers! If you are only selling 25 beads, don’t have 200 in the picture. Doing that may get you a sale today, but it could hurt you tomorrow.
4.  Be honest! Tell people exactly what they’re getting. A little dishonesty will go a long way to hurt your reputation.
5.  Include your e-mail address in the listing, if you have one that you don’t mind putting out there. That way, if someone is checking on your listing and has a question before the live auction, they can find you!
6.  Clearly state whether or not you ship internationally – especially Canada! We have many Canadian friends on this site, and they want to spend their “loonies” and “toonies” on our stuff! So, if you’ll ship to Canada, say so!
7. If you relist old items, just make sure the description is up-to-date and accurate.

If you do these things, you’ve already got a leg up. The only other seller tip to throw out at the moment is the following: Do your absolute best to be present at the auction. It’s the perfect opportunity to discuss your item and talk it up! Items do a lot better when the seller is there in the room, offering information and answering questions.

Here’s to more successful sales and great things!

By Katie Nelson