What a good first listing looks like

A listing is often the first thing a buyer sees of you. A good one answers their questions before they ask, so the messages you get come from people ready to go ahead. This is what to put in it. For where each field is, see Create a stock listing or List a group of young.

Photos

• Lead with your best photo. The first one is the cover in search and on your page: the animal itself, in focus, filling most of the picture, in daylight or bright, even light.
• Show the real animal. Use photos of the animals for sale, or of the parents while the young are on the way, and say which is which. Never use pictures from elsewhere.
• Add a few more views: from the side, the face, colours or markings, and where it lives now if that helps a buyer picture its care.
• A short video shows how an animal moves and behaves, if your plan includes videos.

Sizes and limits are in Photos and videos on listings.

Title

Say what it is, plainly, in the words buyers type into search: the species or breed, then what sets this one apart, such as a colour, a sex, an age or a pair. Search weighs how well a buyer's words match yours, so these words matter.

• Clear: "Hand-raised cockatiel, pied, ready in May" or "Red cherry shrimp, sold in groups".
• Less clear: "Beautiful baby!!" or "Must go".

Keep capital letters for names, and leave out the exclamation marks.

Price

Put the price you'll actually take in the price field, so buyers can compare listings and filter by it.

• Look at similar listings near you, for the same species and quality, and price within their range. A price well below the others makes careful buyers wonder why; one well above needs the description to say what makes it worth it, such as health testing, hand-raising, bloodlines or a rare colour.
• Say what the price includes: food to start with, a health check, papers, a carrier. If something buyers often expect isn't included, say that too.
• On a group of young, set Price from and Price up to, and say in the description what moves an animal up or down the range (sex, colour, quality).
• If you take a deposit, say that it counts toward the price and when the rest is due. Buyers read your refund terms before they pay: see Refund terms.
• On a stock listing, Bigger orders cost less rewards buyers who take several.

Description

Write it the way you'd answer a buyer on the phone. A few short paragraphs read better than one long one.

1. The animal: its age or birth or hatch date, its sex if you know it, its colour or variety, its temperament, and how it was raised (hand-fed, handled every day, parent-raised).
2. Its health: what it eats now, any vet check, tests or treatments, and your health commitment if you offer one. Anything a buyer should know, such as an illness it got over, belongs here too: saying it now avoids a disagreement later.
3. You: a line on your experience and why you raise these animals. Your profile tells the rest.

Keep the price in the price field rather than the text, and keep the conversation on PerfectPal: links to pay elsewhere and wording the rules for every listing don't allow have no place in a listing.

The details buyers ask about

Fill in the listing's own fields wherever it has them: they show as facts on the listing and work in search filters. Put the rest in the description.

• Age or birth or hatch date, sex (or "not sexed yet"), colour, variety or morph.
• How many there are, and whether pairs or groups go together.
• Health checks, tests and papers.
• The care it's used to: food, housing, and the temperature or water it needs, for animals that need them.
• How buyers reach you: Buy now, Inquiries or Applications. See Buy now, inquiry or application?.

How it goes home

Buyers want to know early how and when they'd get their animal.

• When: say when it can go home (on a group of young, Ready to go home on). Young animals never go home before the minimum age for their kind.
• How: pickup, shipping, delivery or meeting partway. Your town is enough for pickup until you've accepted a buyer. On a stock listing, tick Pickup, Shipping or both: see Shipping and pickup.
• What goes with it: the food it's used to, care notes, papers.
• Visits: if buyers can visit first or book a video call, say so. See Go-home plans, visits and pickups.

Before you publish

• Read it once as a buyer would: does it say what it is, how much, when and how?
• Check the cover photo is the one you want.
• Keep it current after it's live: mark animals reserved or gone home and update the quantity, so nobody asks about one that's gone. PerfectPal emails you about listings that haven't changed in a while: see "Still available?" emails and paused listings.