Capital letter typing in title surely is not shouting, it's advertising.

[past-times]

Why is advice found on not typing your item title in capital letters. It should be bold and easy to read and capitals increase the font size

for a one line read.

It's just a title , i don't find that a seller is shouting at me in a title on an item , if it was a conversation such as an email etc then yes it would have that impact. I have my titles mainly in capitals , instead of insipid small letters! Whats your thoughts out there on it being in a title ? Do we really care , would you not click on the item because of the capitals?

[egglesdtp]

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@past-times wrote:

Why is advice found on not typing your item title in capital letters. It should be bold and easy to read and capitals increase the font size

for a one line read.

It's just a title , i don't find that a seller is shouting at me in a title on an item , if it was a conversation such as an email etc then yes it would have that impact. I have my titles mainly in capitals , instead of insipid small letters! Whats your thoughts out there on it being in a title ? Do we really care , would you not click on the item because of the capitals?

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Plenty of studies have shown that all caps is NOT easy to read.

From Wikipedia:

Studies have been conducted on the readability and legibility of all caps text. Scientific testing from the 20th-century onwards has generally indicated that all caps text is less legible and readable than lower-case text.  In addition, switching to all caps may make text appear hectoring and obnoxious for cultural reasons, since all-capitals is often used in transcribed speech to indicate that the speaker is shouting.

[thecatspjs · Accepted solution]

In my listing titles I put brand names in capitals, as it is the number one key information in the title.

I also use caps to promote particular deals - such as FREE xxxxxx   or FLAT RATE combined post.

It is currently the only way that a seller can really differentiate this key information from other text in the title without using more spaces. 

There are some sellers & buyers that think that it is unnecessary and a few nit pickers that would liken it to shouting.   

TBH if my limited use of caps in listings deters nit pickers from buying thats a good thing in my books.

As a buyer, I find titles with all text in CAPS a tad harder to read than the others - though not a deal breaker

Marketing campaigns and signs use caps more often than not to get a consumers attention - eBay titles are no different as far as I am concerned.

[egglesdtp]

Single words in all caps are far more effective than the whole title in all caps.

[digital*ghost]

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@past-times wrote:

Why is advice found on not typing your item title in capital letters.

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It's actually not generally considered as shouting in so far as titles are concerned (well, it can be by users at times), but it is considered gimmicky. Gimmicks can be effective, obviously, but they can also have the opposite effect on other people. 

eBay doesn't have any format requirements for titles as yet, but I say this because other sites do - you actually can't use that kind of fromatting on Google Shopping, for example. 

[curraone]

Everyone gives different advice

http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/ebaycenter/tp/ebay-search-tips.htm

3 Don't Worry About Capitalization

Lowercase, uppercase, mixed case... it doesn't matter in eBay search, so don't worry about it.

Sellers: This is a good tip to remember when creating listings. Use capitalization in the title and subtitle to draw attention to your listing, not to have proper grammar. The floor mats listing might be titled like so to maximize visibility:

FLOOR MATS complete set rubber VW BUG BEETLE vintage

The all-uppercase words immediately catch the reader's eye and tell ​them the most important information about the item for sale.

[black*poppy]

I remember a thread over a year ago - for the life of me I can't find it - but it was talking about what things Cassini skip over when reading titles like punctuation, symbols, etc.  I'm pretty sure some techie advised that Cassini also doesn't see words in caps and therefore can affect search results or they end up lower in searches or whatever.   Can anyone find that thread?  I could totally have the wrong end of the stick here.

[digital*ghost]

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@black*poppy wrote:

I remember a thread over a year ago - for the life of me I can't find it - but it was talking about what things Cassini skip over when reading titles like punctuation, symbols, etc.  I'm pretty sure some techie advised that Cassini also doesn't see words in caps and therefore can affect search results or they end up lower in searches or whatever.   Can anyone find that thread?  I could totally have the wrong end of the stick here.

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I don't recall a thread like that, but as far as search engines go, the case of letters shouldn't have any bearing on search results. I tried to google search to see if I could find any previous threads, but the ones I read were on eBay US and mostly appeared to be theories rather than known facts (eg in one thread it was suggested that it affects visibility on mobile apps, but there's nothing to say how, which I would be curious about and would like to know before believing the claim). 

Symbols and special characters may have an effect for a variety of reasons, most special characters are actually treated as blank spaces by eBay's search engine so that old L@@K will be treated as L K , but I know the ampersand (&) can sometimes mess with things (if you have & in a title or address, it often gets translated to a string of characters instead, though I will still use them in titles to save space). 

The arguments for upper vs lower case use is predominantly stylistic. All lower case and/or all upper case is generally not recommended (eBay's guidelines do actually state not to use all upper case, but it's not an imposed requirement), the universally recommended style is title case (as in, the first letter of most words, except ones like the, of, and etc, is capitalised), because it's easier to read, if not the most immediately attention-grabbing (the attention-grabbing aspect is why it's considered gimmicky).

Of course, it largely comes down to personal choice in most cases, and there would be some cases where using all-caps on selected words can avoid issues (eg by bringing an important attribute to the attention of the kind of buyer who pretty much skims titles and pictures before buying). 

[springyzone]

I don't think anyone I know would consider a title in an ad written in caps to be shouting.

That is normally a messageboard thing.

But I think the cat is right on this score. Use the caps to highlight the important bits.

The title of an ad has only one purporse surely, and that is to draw in customers.

So use words that are likely to be in people's searches and highlight things such as brand name or any other factor you want people to especially notice.

Same goes for the body of the text. I would usually put sentences such as Pick up only on a separate line and in caps.

Would I not click on an ad because of caps? Caps don't come into it for me. It is all about the words in the title and the photo and if it might be something I am interested in.

[chameleon54]

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@black*poppy wrote:

I remember a thread over a year ago - for the life of me I can't find it - but it was talking about what things Cassini skip over when reading titles like punctuation, symbols, etc.  I'm pretty sure some techie advised that Cassini also doesn't see words in caps and therefore can affect search results or they end up lower in searches or whatever.   Can anyone find that thread?  I could totally have the wrong end of the stick here.

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Yes I remember this thread and the information in your post tallies with what the thread said. I remember because since reading the advice given I have toned down the use of capitals in my titles. I have no idea wether the advice was correct and to be honest, I dont think it has made a scrap of difference to my sales.

I have a couple of hundred old listings with key words in capitals and probably 150 newer listings of similar items where I have removed the capitals. So my experiment over perhaps 12 months shows no difference at all.