Simplx Blog

Imagine that it’s your birthday, and someone special has given you an online gift card, good at any number of website shops. Do you buy something from the first website you come across? Do you do a little price or product comparison to makes sure you are getting the best bang for you buck? Do you read the descriptions of the products you are interested in? Do you look closely at the online images for the products? I would venture to say that as a prospecitve buyer, you do many if not all of these things.

You are not alone, whether you are a buyer on eBay, or a website store, you’re not just picking a product to buy randomly. You’re looking for a seller that looks trustworthy, a product description that feels compelling, and a product that has some pizzazz.

And let’s not forget about the competition! There is hardly ever just one place in which to buy a product. Usually, once a buyer has decided to buy a particular product, it comes down to a choice between two or three places that offer it for sale. When all is said and done, what tips the scales in favor of one seller rather than another?

Today’s article is going to discuss nine tips that every online seller needs to make a successful sale, whether it’s on eBay, or on a retail website. We’ll call these Tips For Irresistible Product Listings, and these tips have already helped thousands of sellers maximize their chances of selling and increase their selling prices.

Trait One: Clear Photographs with No Distractions

After many years of internet market research, we can confidently say that there are very few products out there that don’t sell better with at least one photograph. Photos play an important role in the online sales process because they tell a potential buyer far more about what they are buying than words alone ever could. Of course, photos can also go the other way as well: while clear, crisp, compelling photos can enhance your chances of selling and your selling price, poor images can significantly hurt the success of your auctions.

If you’re selling a product from a drop shipper or a wholesale supplier, you can often get images from their websites. This is an ideal solution and a snap to implement:

1.  Find the product on their website using their search tools.
2.  With your computer mouse, right-click on the image you want to use. A menu pops up.
3.  Select Save Image As from the pop-up menu. A save dialog opens.
4.  Browse for the location where you want to save the image on your own hard drive.

If you’re selling items that aren’t from a distributor, such as a lamp from a garage sale, an antique chair, or a collectible Coca-Cola® bottle, you’ll need to take pictures of your items yourself.Just make sure your pictures do your product justice. Would you buy the product below based on the picture?

Here are some tips:

• Be Careful with Light

Don’t use a flash with your camera. Instead, try setting up a few inexpensive lamps near the item. Place the lights so that they don’t created dramatic shadows or produce bright spots on a shiny object. The idea is to just create a general glow that illuminates the item you’re photographing.
If you’re taking pictures of smaller items, an inexpensive light tent will help you create just the right effect, and provide a clean background. You can find one on eBay with a keyword search for ‘light tent.’

• Take Care with the Background

When you take your pictures, make sure the background is tidy and non-distracting at the very least. If you want to go the extra mile with not much effort, try draping a solid, neutral-colored sheet behind the object you’re photographing. Remember, you’re objective is to make the object your photographing the focus. The person looking at the picture shouldn’t notice anything but the product.

• Make Sure the Exposure is Right

Take the time to make sure the exposure is right on your camera to avoid getting pictures that lack detail or look washed out. If you don’t get it right the first time, don’t be afraid to go back and take more pictures until you do. The wrong exposure can make a picture look faded and old—which will make the product look faded and old too.

• Show the Important Details

Make sure you take more than one picture and pick the ones that give the best idea of what you are selling. Remember, this is the only way your buyer is going to get a “feel” for your item since they can’t pick it up themselves and look it over. They want more than just evidence that the item exists.
The first picture you include should show a good representation of the overall object. Other pictures should provide close-ups and angles that highlight important details. Remember to think about it from your customer’s point of view; what would you want to see if you were them?

Trait Two: Searchable Title with Great Keywords

Buyers are going to find your product listings by performing a search.

eBay makes it easy by offering two search options: a category search and through search words (keywords). Buyers use keywords more often, which means you need to pay close attention to how easy your item is to find using them. When a buyer enters search words, eBay’s search engines look through all the words in the auction titles to find a match.

For your title auction title, you get 56 characters. That’s it. Among those 56 characters, you have to include all the words you think your potential buyers will use to find your product. It’s important to use every available space.

Don’t waste your characters on punctuation or words that you think buyers will not enter in their searches. For example, words like “the”, “a”,”for”, or “at” are not a good use of the limited space you have for your title. Use specific ones instead, especially brand names and characteristics.

On your website builder, there is also a search function that you can set to look for matching results from the based on matching keyword in the product description, or the product category.

Trait Three: Complete Description with Plenty of Details

In an earlier lesson we mentioned using words to describe both the benefits and the features of your products. Too often, listings are posted with very short descriptions.

The description in the example below is far too short:

“Three Mary Kay Satin Hands Hand Cream, new! Provides instant hydration to condition and moisturize hands for hours. 3 oz each.”

While your buyers will want (and deserve) a clear description of what they’re buying, a clear description by itself won’t convince them to buy. There’s nothing compelling in the description above, nothing to encourage them to buy beyond the cold facts.

Someone who feels compelled to buy the Satin Hands® system is already imagining how their hands will feel after using the product. Words and phrases like “luxurious,” “pamper yourself,” and “your hands will stop aging,” will help to reach right past the question of cost and into the question of benefit.

Buyers want to be convinced that they need or want your product before they buy. In addition to your clear description, include a compelling statement about why they should buy it. Answer the “So what?” or “What’s in it for me?” questions.

If you are selling a product from a dropshipper on your website, don’t feel like you are “stuck” with the inadequate description that the dropshipper provides for the product. I have yet to see a dropshipper whose product description covers what the benefits of the product are, or answers the questions mentioned above. Make the description your own, and make it worth the customer’s time in reading it!

Trait Four: Clear Shipping and Payment Policies

You need clear shipping and payment policies for two reasons:

1.  To establish trust
2.  To spell out expectations and ensure a smooth transaction

Experienced sellers understand the value of spelling out what the buyer can expect from them, and what the seller expects of his or her buyers. These policies help eliminate problems before they can begin. Experienced buyers will also notice if you don’t have clear policies too, which can hurt a potential sale. Finally, well-established policies will give you another layer of safety against fraud or sloppy buyers.

Trait Five: Informed Decisions about Pricing

In a previous lesson, we talked you about the eBay fees (particularly insertion fees) associated with the starting price you choose. Sometimes the insertion fees associated with a starting price of $100 will be much larger than the fees you’d have to pay for a $99 start price. Before you choose your starting price, make sure you check out associated the insertion fees at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html and plan around them.

You will also want to keep a clear record of what you are having to pay your supplier for the product on your end. Remember that a large profit on a single item may not be as lucrative as a smaller profit on an item you can sell more often!

Trait Six: Clear Shipping Costs

Most of today’s online shoppers are sophisticated and have some very specific minimum expectations. If there is missing information, such as the price for shipping, many will not take another minute to look at your listing, no matter how great a deal it is.

Make sure you clearly inform your potential buyers about how much it will cost them to have the item shipped. Then, make sure that you don’t charge much more than it will actually cost to ship the item. You’ll be more likely to make the sale, and have a better chance of repeat business

Trait Seven: Appropriate Use of Color and Fonts

Have you ever been in Walmart while a sale was going on? Marked-down prices are around every corner. Imagine if, for every item on sale, there were a sales person with a megaphone to announce every item on sale. Where would your attention go? With so many megaphones calling you in every direction, you probably wouldn’t be able to pay attention to any of them. The megaphones would lose most of their effectiveness, and would just be maddening instead. You might just leave the store, rather than endure the chaos and make a purchase.

The same is true of the use of color and fonts. If you try to draw attention to too many selling points at once, or do it the wrong way, the effect is confusing. Do it badly enough, and your potential buyer might not finish looking through your auction.

With your fonts, stick to one font style. Make the majority of your text the same size, and color. Only use a larger font, bold, or color for the one or two things you most want your potential buyer to read.

Trait Eight: No Grammar Errors or Typos

Since your buyers have never met you before, they understandably want to feel like they can trust you before they give you their money. This trust doesn’t just extend to honesty either (though that is critically important); customers also want to trust that you are competent.

Grammatical errors and typos will significantly lower your customers’ confidence in you. If you’re worried about what you’ve written, cut and paste it into a spell-checker. Pay attention to your punctuation as well; make sure your sentences begin with a capital letter and that they end with proper punctuation.

In the example below, the seller’s sloppy writing gives the impression that he or she does not pay attention to details. Buyers might assume that the seller isn’t competent, which could easily cost him a sale when dealing with something as quality-oriented as a guitar.

“this is a Jay Jr Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar in Black. its sounds great and plays great also. Just a good all around guitar..”
Attention to all the details of your listing, including the spelling and punctuation, add to the buyer’s impression that you are professional, know what you are talking about, and capable of delivering what they expect.

Trait Nine: Romance

This is my favorite trait. It’s a little intangible, but it will make a huge difference in your success. The “romance” is the way you hope to make your buyer feel about the item before they ever buy. This message is delivered in the tone of both the photograph and the sales text.

For example, if you’re selling an antique, don’t just describe it: tell the story of how you found it. If you know its history, tell that, too. Let the pictures you use support the story you tell.

eBay buyers, in particular, respond well to a good story. Don’t be afraid to reach out, on a personal level, to your customers. It’s the heart of the online buying experience.

Conclusion

The bottom line is, you want to sell your products, and sell them more often. Make sure that you don’t have anything that is hindering your ability to do just that. Take some time and go through your website products, of the items you are listing on eBay, and double check them against these nine traits. Chances are, you’ll find something you could be doing just a little bit better, and you will notice a difference.

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