How to kill a sale!

Fred,

The suggestions from everyone else do not strike me as much as a warning to stay away from people who can not put a decent ad together, but as a warning to such people that they would increase their odds of a sale greatly if they learned how to spell and write.

You are correct in your belief that there are plenty of crooks who can make a dandy looking ad, and that you shouldn't always base your descision on that. If you have been looking for a particular animal for a while and someone comes along with one you should look into it, no matter what the ad looks like. From a sellers standpoint however, if two animals that are essentially the same are each posted for sale, one ad is well written, without any spellling errors, etc, and the other looks the the one this thread was started over, I can gaurantee you the first one would get more responses (assuming buyers see both ads). Now, it just might be that the poster of the good ad is a con man and several people get ripped off and that the poster of the bad ad is honest and is wondering why no one is responding. In that case wouldn't it serve the honest person better to make sure his ad was a good one. Come to think of it maybe all the crooks know this so they make the good ads so maybe we SHOULD be looking for spelling errors and poor grammer

Steve Schindler

Based on the amount I write I make a lot of typos and spelling errors myself but...

There is a certain point when they are concentrated within a single paragraph where I do start to question the intelligence of the person writing... If there's an underlying problem, there are always spell checkers- not a perfect solution but a workable one to at least make an ad phonetically understandable. When people start misspelling the name of the animal they want to sell, or basic terms used to describe it multiple times in the same ad, I do have to wonder if they know what they're doing... How many times can you see something in print before you know how to spell it? How many times would they be likely to if they actually had this animal and it was what it was represented to be?

The ad listed for instance... that wasn't one or two errors where a finger slipped or a perpetual mis-use of a homonym, that was just a mutilated near indecipherable wad of "Internet English" where it doesn't matter how it's spelled or the order the words are placed in, as long as there are a lot of letters involved, it must be meaningful.

Personal dislike for just plain sloppy writing aside, there is a factor that comes into play strongly when looking at a possible deal with an individual who does not appear literate... The chances of a miscommunication rise quickly when they can't understand you and you can't understand them... Their misuse of words also affords them a possible legal defense if things do go sour... I can see it now, on People's Court...

"No ure onor i nevar sayd "captive bred" i sayd thu lizerd were "captib bread", witch clerely ain't da saem. hears thu e-male 2 prov it."

Seamus,

Is that even ENGLISH that you posted?

I'm not talking abot someone that cant even CONVEY clearly what they are trying to sell. I'd be leery of them too. And others have made observations that my animals did not sell, and correlated that with my ad typos, which is rubbish. Because , when I posted ads WITHOUT the typos, I got the same response.

I just typed this post out and realized there were 4 typos in it also. OMG...I went back and fixed it right away, so that I would be taken "SERIOUSLY". Reptile people, they can be such dicks sometimes.




Fred Albury

AZTEC REPTILES

As a buyer I do look at how the ad is presented. I also understand typos. When every other word is typed incorrectly it does make me wonder about how much this seller really knows.
What really gets me is the short cuts people have been using.
Example of this would be "u" instead of "you". If you are too lazy to type the whole word out are you too lazy to properly care for your pet?
This is for sellers only, not for everyday chit chat.

Is that even ENGLISH that you posted?

Nope.

I just typed this post out and realized there were 4 typos in it also. OMG

... But take that ad that was quoted on page one of this thread... there were forty words, eight were misspelled, ten if you count the lack of capitalization to begin a sentence. That's a 20-25% rate of mistakes, which is enough to get me wondering... I make a lot of typos myself, some of which I catch, some I don't, but there are times when it goes beyond an honest mistake or lack of typing ability (I use two fingers myself and the left index only operates the shift and space key.) and into a "What were they thinking posting that?!" situation.

There are times when phrases are similar enough so that, when misspelled, it can be tough to figure out which a person meant to use but the nuance can be important... There are times when people will constantly mistype the name of an animal or a morph that they supposedly own, which makes me question the care it's receiving if it even exists (There's a big difference between "amelanistic" and "melanistic" for instance, if I'm buying one, I don't want the other to show up).

There are legitimate examples of people who do not communicate quite as well due to learning disabilities, English not being a first language or problems typing, but out of all the people likely to post gibberish ads, I suspect that most of the individuals like those mentioned above are aware of the impression they might give and take additional time to ensure it's easy for their audience to understand.

It really does come down to impression and professionalism, sure the bad guys can knock up something that looks decent, but that's not an excuse for the good guys to start posting badly worded ads. I compare it to swearing during a job interview, it just doesn't look good and it doesn't give the other individual a favorable impression... Sure you might have tourettes syndrome, but that (like the dyslexia/second language) is the minority not the norm.

I can't spell, and I'm the queen of typo's. I type 40 words a minuite......unless you want it typed correctly.....then I type 5 words a minuite because I have to have the spell check and a dictionary. I have to stop and think when I type the word "Because" cuz I spent so long spelling it as "Becuase" that my fingers naturally just type that u before the a (When I'm feeling lazy I go with "Cuz." Just the other day I made a post supporting a seller on the BOI and I said I wanted to ass my opinion. I meant ADD, but it looked good when I first typed it! LOL!

Still there is a definate difference between the lazy typist who can't spell (me) and the add that started this post:

"thes snakes are 2002 babays they were produse form salmon hypo to salmon hypo thes makes them f2s I have 10 here are some of the nice ones. 500 each thes is a codamanet trat.the 3 I posted are all females."

There are SO many blatant, outragous absolutly misspelled words in there that my first thought was a nine year old wrote that. (And he wasn't a very bright nine year old or he would have tried to make his add look less like a child wrote it)

Just my opinion. Please don't tear up my grammer too bad, I know it sucks! Believe it or not my degree claims I am an office specialist! Good thing I don't work in an office!

My correlations were to ads that contained animals that people are actually interested in purchasing. If they think the price is to high they will not respond no matter how the ad looks.

I've read some of your ads Fred and quite frankly I probably never noticed a few typos. I never responded because I thought the animals were too expensive. No doubt you have nice looking animals, and to the right person they may be worth every penny you are asking, and I would probably be very happy if I purchased one. Its just that many people (myself included) feel that buying on the internet is a crap shoot so you go with what makes you feel right, and pretty pictures and fancy descriptions don't always make me feel right. After reading a couple of your ads I no longer even look at them.

Please don't get upset. I am not bashing you or complaining about your prices. You have doubtlessly put a lot of time and effort into your collection and the results show it. I am certain that every one of your snakes is worth what you are asking, but being worth what you are asking and asking what people are willing to pay are two different things. This, alone will decrease the number of responses you will get. It has nothing to do with your ad.

Also, a few typos, or slips of the fingers are usually forgiven. The brunt of what I see here is focusing on people who can not put a coherent sentence together, consistantly misspell common words and other gross neglects of the english language. I realize that for some, English is not their primary language but those posts usually are easy to spot, and forgive. Many languages have grammer usages that, although are different from English, are used consistently throughout the ad.

I stand by my assertion that, all other things being equal the best presented ad will get the most responses, that is provided people want to buy your stuff.

I must admit I did spend more time than usuall proofreading this post. I may still have missed a few things but I do think that the majority of people will find it acceptable.

Steve Schindler

It's grammar.

Sorry, I couldn't pass up the irony of that word being misspelled so often in this particular thread. (Several have done it.)

On topic: I agree with the assessment of that ad. Presentation counts. Type-o's are one thing. I think most people will make some leeway when it comes to the content of an advertisement, and most people realize that language skills don't necessarily equate to husbandry skills. However, extremely poor presentation, to the point of an apparent total disregard toward putting any real effort into an advertisement, is going to reflect badly on the seller.

If a seller can't be bothered to learn the proper spelling of terminology related to his business (common names of animals, genetic terms, descriptive terms commonly used, latin names if given), then that does call into question the person's husbandry skill and knowledge. Poor grammar and spelling is one thing, but some effort should be put toward learning those things specific to the trade.

If the seller's language skills are so poor that they can't communicate what they have for sale (and you don't need complete sentences to do this, can't people even make a simple LIST?), then how are buyers going to know what is being offered?

Reminds me of a joke from basic training: Yesterday I couldn't spell soldier, today I is one.

Bottom line, if you want to sell, and you can't do better than that attempt in the first message of the thread, it's not a bad idea to ask for some help.

DISHONESTY
DECEPTION
these kill sales


animals too


Grammer....I have been a victim of the spelling guru [yall know who]
communication....still I struggle with that

respected yup

nuff said

John,

I agree with you that honesty and integrity are completely unrelated to spelling. For all I know this person might be the most honest herper in the planet! There is no need to write "the" perfect ad, but at least one should put some care. You owe it to the readers/customers. The reader has to be able to understand the message you are trying to convey. "thes is a codamanet trat." if the reader is not versed in genetics, he might actually think there is something wrong with those snakes!

Best regards.