Reading a Product Listing Like an Appraiser

An appraiser reads a listing backwards: specification table first, photographs second, prose last — and the marketing copy never. The order matters because photos can be lit, styled and cropped into almost anything, while a spec table commits the brand to numbers someone can check on delivery. Most bad purchases start with reading the sections in the wrong order.

Fiber labels are the easy win

For most clothing sold in the United States, the FTC’s labeling guide under the Textile and Wool Acts requires three things on the label: fiber content, country of origin, and the manufacturer or dealer identity — often an RN number. The same guide sets the grammar for blends: generic fiber names and percentages by weight, listed in descending order of predominance. Fibers under 5% may be lumped as “other fiber,” with a carved-out exception — wool and recycled wool must be named and quantified at any percentage, and reclaimed wool must be labeled “recycled wool.”

That grammar is the appraisal tool. “100% wool” is an absolute claim made with no tolerance under the rule, so it means the fabric is entirely wool. “Wool blend” followed by a breakdown tells you the rank of every fiber in it — and a listing that says only “wool blend,” with no percentages, is either violating the labeling rules or hiding behind a bad photo of them. Both readings are useful. See how gauge and ply fit into the same audit for knits.

“Genuine leather” and what the phrase omits

Leather runs under different rules. The FTC’s leather guides — 16 CFR Part 24 — make it deceptive to use the unqualified term “leather” unless a product is composed “in all substantial parts” of leather, and they require disclosure when material that looks like leather is vinyl, plastic or reconstituted stock; products of ground or bonded leather that appear to be leather should carry a disclosure of leather percentage. But no US rule assigns “genuine leather” a position in any grade hierarchy. The phrase confirms the material is real — nothing about which hide, which layer, or how it will age. That hierarchy is craft, not law; leather grades without the marketing covers the tiers the phrase conveniently skips.

What the spec table should already answer

Before any leather claim earns belief, the listing should name components the way the FTC guides expect: lining material, handle material, and hardware. Brands that cut and stitch well name their zippers and their leather tannages; the habit of naming is itself evidence. See what hardware names are worth before trusting a photo of a zipper pull. For packs, the same discipline applies to dimensions — a listing that quotes capacity but no height, width and depth is borrowing authority it hasn’t earned, as the litre-number audit shows.

When a listing fails the audit

No percentages, no dimensions, no named components, and a description built from adjectives: that listing is marketing wearing a spec sheet’s clothes. An appraiser’s rule survives translation to shopping — what cannot be checked cannot be priced, and what cannot be priced should be scrolled past. The guides hub collects the per-category checks worth running before checkout.