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The offending word was ‘collectibles’ which my friend thought was a word only Americans use and which they had distorted from the correct English version ‘collectables’.

She’s actually correct, it is mainly the Americans who use the word ‘collectibles’, on eBay at any rate, while on eBay UK this product category is referred to as ‘collectables’ which my friend considered the correct version of the word.

The ‘correct’ version is debatable, not just to eBay, mainly because words can and do become distorted over the years, and words we’d never use two or three years ago now have a permanent and well deserved place in the dictionary.  Words like ‘zookie’, for example, go look it up – its meaning will disgust you, also abdominoplasty, agroterrorism, mentee and ponzu.

But based on ‘correct’ English reported to me by an English professor at the university where I lectured just before leaving to sell collecti/ables full time, ‘collectible’ is the noun describing an item people collect and ‘collectable’ is the appropriate adjective.   So an antique book might be a ‘collectible’ or a ‘collectable item’, but it is not a ‘collectable’. Not officially anyway, although I know some of you will think otherwise.  No, please don’t email me, I am set in my ways, I’m sticking with what I was told nearly forty years ago. 

But wait, I’m not trying to get one over here, I’m not trying to sound superior, I am not even trying to prove my spelling is correct.  My main objective is to show how knowledge of different spellings for much the same item can greatly increase your eBay profits.

The point is, if you want to maximise your profits on eBay, you must use words in your listing title and description that match those used by people searching eBay for products such as you are selling.  So, if, for example, you sell ‘anti-ageing creams’, which some people key into eBay’s search engine as ‘anti-aging creams’, then your eBay listing will not respond to those latter searches and already you’ve lost a major part of your potential customer base. 

Aging / Ageing is just one example of a word people spell differently, not only between individual eBay country sites but also on the same country site.  Then there is: ‘Judgement / Judgment’, ‘Aeroplane / Airplane’, ‘Carburettor / Carburetor’, also ‘Collectibles / Collectables’!

The problem is worsened by lack of consistency, where in some cases the Australian or Canadian version of a word coincides with the English, or the Canadian version is different to the American but similar to the English, while the Australian version is sometimes ….. oh you know where I am going here, I’m sure, and you will find dozens of different combinations for which country does agree with how you spell the name of the product you are listing on eBay and others that don’t!

Let me say it again: to reach your maximum buying audience, words used in your eBay title and description should match those words the MAJORITY of your potential buyers key into eBay’s search engines, whether you sell purely to UK customers or you promote your products worldwide.

This doesn’t mean you must always use the ‘correct’ spelling of the word concerned, if there is such a thing as ‘correct’ spelling, but it does mean researching how the majority of potential buyers spell whatever you are selling. 

You don’t need a dictionary to do this, or a professor of English, all you need is Google, and we are not looking for correct spellings here, all we need to know is which version of a word used to describe our product will be used by the MAJORITY of people searching for that product on eBay. 

People using the Internet to blog or create web sites are good subjects to research for online spelling preferences on eBay, Amazon, and virtually anywhere you might seek to make money and I recommend you consult them each time you have a product with two or more spelling options.

So, key ‘collectables’ followed by ‘collectibles’ into Google’s search engine, for example, and you will find 34,900,000 webmasters worldwide use ‘collectables’ compared to 139,000,000 using ‘collectibles’.  Tick the box to search ‘UK only’ and those figures drop to 19,600,000 for ‘collectables’, compared to 4,430,000 using ‘collectibles’.  This tells us the majority of UK webmasters prefer ‘collectables’, but worldwide ‘collectibles’ is the preference.  (Note you must check this particular word in its plural format because singular words, ‘collectible’ and ‘collectable’ will be distorted by the fact the latter is used as both noun and adjective and it’s the noun we must research for the name of the product we are listing.)

Oh now I am more confused than ever and I’ll have to check those figures again to make sure the difference is quite so stark as it appears to be.

But those figures are correct, today, and they tell me I should do one or both of two things each time I’m confronted with two or more different spellings for the exact same product:

1.  For one country listings, solely on eBay UK or eBay Australia, for example, I’d use the version most commonly used in the country concerned.

2.  For worldwide listings I’d try to include all variations in my title and description, like this for example:

**  Anti-Ageing/Aging Cream  **

**  Make Money Selling Collectibles (Collectables) on eBay  **

And wait, yes, before you say it, I do personally use the version ‘collectibles’ which is not the preferred version in the UK despite the fact I’ve never left the UK even once in my entire life.  That’s because I write mainly for the American market and I sell my products mainly on eBay.com, and also because I believe ‘collectibles’ is the historically accurate noun for items that people collect. 

But then again, it doesn’t matter what I think does it, all that matters is what other people think, and that means potential buyers my products …. if I describe them using words those other people also use to search online!