Knowing how to write a complete and attractive For Sale Offer will empower you to sell your game account more quickly, and at more rewarding prices. An effective offer must do more than fully describe your game account. It must also:
PlayerAuctions has created a guide that will provide you tips and tricks on:
Your For Sale Offer title is the first impression and information a buyer receives about your game account. Your offer title is the elevator pitch of your game account, which means they only have a few moments to decide if they are interested in your account or not. If your offer title describes what a buyer wants, they will have a good reason to click it, read your offer description, and possibly make a purchase.
The most effective way to write a title is to imagine asking a player, “What game account do you want?”
That can be answered in one sentence, such as, “A fully epic Alliance rogue with at least three pieces of tier five raiding gear, and an epic flying mount.”
A sentence detailing the top qualities of your game account is a great foundation for a title. A good practice is to examine the titles of other compelling offers before writing your own.
Example title: LV 80 Orc mage, +1565 spell dmg, T6 gear, PVP xfer up, original owner /w CD keys!
Things to avoid in your title
Abbreviations such as dmg for “damage”, [A] for “alliance”, T6 for “tier six”, will allow you to put a lot of information into your title, however buyers often filter their search results by character class. (They rarely use abbreviations when doing so.) Your offer will be seen by more potential buyers if you avoid abbreviation of your character class eg. “lock” instead of “warlock”
Your game account has great intrinsic value because it is a product of your time and effort. However, successful sale prices are controlled by supply and demand. In order to sell successfully, the price you choose must be competitive with other game account offers. To determine an appropriate price range, view similar offers at PlayerAuctions.
Most buyers only want to play a main character. They will rarely value extra characters or pay more for them. Therefore, the main character on a game account generally determines the highest possible market price of that game account.
If you have a game account with extra characters, you may profit by moving those extra characters to new game accounts so that they can be sold separately.
Potential game account buyers want to quickly finish shopping and start playing. They will spend little or no time asking questions or waiting for answers from anyone who did not provide a fully detailed offer description. Your offer description is your game account’s sales pitch. You want to make sure you include all the details that will be attractive to your potential buyers:
Things to include in your description
Something to avoid in your description
General description tips
Character profiles instantly detail the worn equipment and important attributes about your game character. It is advisable to avoid revealing your character and guild names to others. For World of Warcraft, a popular safe character profile solution is mywowarmory.com
Creating a character profile takes less than a minute. You will be given a URL which you can put into your offer description such as: http://www.mywowarmory.com/profile.php?id=66004
When shopping for game characters, players often shop outside of their favorite game server. Most games support transfer of game characters to different servers. It is important to note if any of your characters have recently moved to different servers as game publishers usually require 30 days before allowing a new transfer to occur. If your character may not yet be transferred, provide the date when transfer will become available.
Mention what kind of server your character is on, such as Player vs Player (PVP) or Player vs Environment (PVE). Some games do not support transfers between servers of different types. Also mention any special transfer restrictions or opportunities which you are aware of. To learn more about paid character transfer services, log in to account management at the publisher’s official game account support website.
A potential buyer may ask questions about your game account by using the PlayerAuctions Onsite Messaging System. If they do, PlayerAuctions will immediately notify you via your registered email address. Ensure that your registered email address on PlayerAuctions is one which you check regularly so that you can respond quickly.
It is beneficial to set your hours of availability as this will automatically be displayed to potential buyers that may wish to ask questions if they see that you are available.
If someone places an order for your For Sale Offer, they may see other contact details which you have provided such as instant messenger account names. To update your information and trade settings, visit your My Account Center.
Use an equipment information database such as thottbot.com, or wowhead.com to link to detailed information of any important equipment, especially equipment which does not appear in your character profile. View the examples below
Offers which have images are empowered to sell more quickly and at higher prices than offers which do not. Images are particularly useful for displaying statistical qualities of game characters and gear which is worn, stored, or carried. By ‘showing’ information instead of ‘telling’ it, you will save yourself and your audience time while providing a better-looking and more convenient offer.
Tips for displaying game character attributes
Tips for character portraits
Change the viewing perspective of the camera from ‘over the head’ to one which is facing the character. Then use the scroll wheel or the – and + keys to zoom in.
Consider doing an emote command such as /cheer, /laugh, or /dance for your image.
How to Capture What Is On Your Screen
Before capturing what is on your screen, adjust the display settings of your computer to ensure high quality screen captures. (See steps below)
Learn to capture your screen using Windows without additional software
Visit: take-a-screenshot.org
To use your game client to capture the screen: Start the game, log in to a character, and press the “print screen” button on the keyboard (pictured below.)
If your game client takes pictures, you will see a message indicating that a picture has just been saved to the screenshots folder. Go to the location where your game client is installed and look for a folder called ‘screenshots’
Editing Image Files
These simple instructions apply to most image-editing programs, including Microsoft Paint, which comes free with Windows. Click on start > run > then type ‘mspaint’ for Microsoft Paint and click ‘OK’.
Inserting an Image in Your Offer Description
After you have created an image for your game account, you will need to put it on the internet.
Photobucket.com is a free, easy to use service for doing this and even has tools allowing you to edit your images online.
