eBay title optimization for handmade sellers

eBay gives listings 80 characters for a title — and unlike some platforms, using most of that space genuinely helps. Titles using 65 or more characters are roughly 1.5× more likely to sell than short ones, and titles in the 15–18 word range tend to convert best.

Front-load the important words

eBay's search (Cassini) weighs the beginning of a title more heavily than the end, and on mobile, anything past roughly 50–60 characters gets truncated in the results list before a buyer even taps in. Put the most important identifying words — what the item actually is, its most distinctive feature — at the very start, not buried after generic filler.

Item specifics matter more than the description

Cassini leans on title keywords and item specifics — structured fields like Brand, Size, Colour, and Condition — for search matching far more than the free-text description. Each item specific value is capped at 65 characters. If a buyer filters by "Colour: Green" and a listing hasn't filled that field in, the listing simply won't appear for that search, regardless of how good the title or description is.

What the description is actually for

Because Cassini gives the description minimal weight in search ranking, its job is different: converting a buyer who already found the listing, not attracting one who hasn't. That means it's worth writing for trust and clarity — materials, condition detail, care notes — rather than trying to keyword-stuff it the way a title benefits from.

How Craftale handles this

Craftale generates eBay titles within the real 80-character limit, front-loaded with the item's most identifying keywords first, separately from what it writes for Etsy, Amazon, or any other platform — so the title does the search-matching work eBay's own system actually rewards.

eBay's search algorithm and best practices can shift over time — this reflects guidance verified live as of 2026-08-10.