Writing Descriptions When You Hate Writing

A lot of sellers stall here, because writing feels like it needs to be good and nothing they write feels good. It does not need to be good. It needs to contain five facts.

The five lines

What the item is. How long it was or will be worn. Its condition. How it will be sent. How to order. That is a complete description and it will outperform most attempts at atmosphere, because it answers what the reader came to find out.

Write one template and reuse it forever

Do the five lines once in an order you like, then swap the details for every future listing. This removes the blank page problem entirely, and it has a second benefit, which is that your listings start to look consistent and therefore professional.

Be concrete rather than evocative

Worn for two days including a gym session is worth more than a paragraph of suggestion. Specifics do the persuading. Adjectives without facts read as filler and buyers skim straight past them looking for the numbers.

Put the important thing first

Most people read the first line and decide. If wear time is what your buyers care about most, it goes at the top, not buried at the end of a paragraph about how the day went.

Say what it is not

If something is commonly assumed and not included, say so plainly. This feels negative and it prevents the majority of disputes, which are almost always about an expectation nobody wrote down.

Read it as a buyer once

One pass asking whether you could order from this without needing to ask a question. If you would have to ask something, add that line. Every question you preempt is a sale that does not depend on you being at your phone.

Nobody is reading your listing for the prose. They are checking five things, and a plain description that covers them beats a beautiful one that does not.