Category Archives: online sellers

Quick Questionnaire On How Sellers Can Plan The Upcoming Holiday Sale

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For every e-commerce store, the holiday season is the busiest time for them. They need to make all the preparations so that they don’t face any issues or run out of stock. So, to make sure that the sellers don’t experience any issues, we have collated several answers from the experts here. Let’s get started:

Question 1: Before the holiday season begins, what all the sellers needs to do?

To make preparations quickly before the holiday season, all sellers must concentrate on utilizing their strategies in three different sections, such as fulfilling, selling, and marketing. Under marketing, you must finalize the holiday budget and create an advertisement campaign. That way, it will become easier to implement before the beginning of the holiday season.

When there is plenty of time to optimize the campaigns, both the campaigns and the sellers will build relevance and history in the marketplace. For the selling part, you must check that all the products are available for purchase at the marketplace.

You should also check that the entire listing content is completely optimized. Don’t forget to review the titles, images, definitions, appropriate products, and bullet points. All these things will make sure that you gain success during the holiday season.

Question 2: In the area of product listing, what does “optimizing the product content” means?

You must have proper knowledge of your merchandise so that the procurer can comprehend whether or not the merchandise you’re marketing will match their needs. For instance, when you visit a physical shop, you will check out the products and touch and sell all the areas.

This is something that you must put under your consideration when making a product listing. You need to provide strong titles so that they can catch a customer’s attention effectively. You should also add several images to show all the purchasers the product you’re offering.

Question 3: What all the sellers should do to make sure that the inventory does not go out of stock?

To make sure that you don’t get to run out of stock during the holiday season, you should review and be proactive with the inventory forecasting work. Check the Q4 of the previous year, go through the yearly trends of the current year, and then decide on the growth objectives for Q4 2023. You should consider the products that sold the most in the previous year.

You must also consider all the new product lines and the features style of this year that should get prioritized. Be sure that you have a great amount of stock for all the prioritized and popular items that will surely satisfy all the early shoppers effectively.

Question 4: What can we do to avoid marketplace suspension as sellers?

It takes some time for all the sellers to take care of the stock levels. But at times, many of the sellers don’t get the time to effectively verify compliance, monitor the expiration date, and evaluate the condition. Due to the lack of attention, this can lead to many kinds of problems and will ultimately cause account suspension. So, the best way you can avoid these issues is by:

Verify the product compliance
Evaluate the product condition
Track the expiration date of the inventory
Review the present Amazon Prohibited Guidelines
Take a look at the present Amazon Safety Guidelines

Question 5: Can you share some tips on the delivery capabilities and make sure all the products reach the consumers on time?

It’s important to understand the shipment dates and then plan everything accordingly. To properly deal with shipment delays, here are some effective tips:

Effectively communicate with all the customers
Provide the free shipping option
Offer shipment tracking services
Partner up with all the domestic suppliers
Provide discounts and offers
To see an improvement in the delivery capabilities, the following tips can certainly help:
Align the product delivery with business strategy and product development
Concentrate on small groups of people
Make all the tech-related choices based on people and products
Stay agile and don’t opt for templates

Ending Phrase

The Q&A provided in this post can certainly help you gain more information on how sellers can make preparations for the upcoming holidays and take care of all the things. For Utilising Channelsale Team Expertise To Assist, Schedule Live Demo Meet.

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17 Steps To Get Your Customers ‘Head Over Heels’ When Reviewing Your Products

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Did you know that 92 percent of consumers now read online reviews? Or that 84 percent of them trust such customer generated contents just as much as their friends?

These numbers very well outline just how important of a role reviews and ratings come to play in the success of a business today. For online sellers, it is even more crucial. Amid stiff competition and when other vendors are, more or less, offering the same kind of products and executing similar strategies, there are only a handful of things that can make as much of a difference as customer reviews.

Not only do such contents put forth the products and brands in the truest of form, which usually lacks in (poor) self-absorbed marketing efforts, they also build trust. And in the online scene, trust has emerged to be a defining line between the small and high earning sellers.

So, if you’re an online merchant, getting customer reviews should be at the top of your priority list. But then again, getting words out of customers, and the good ones at that, is a challenge in itself. Additionally, tackling negative reviews is an art that is known not to many.

But don’t worry, we have got you covered here.

There are ways to get your customers go ‘head over heels’ when reviewing your products. The whole process can be divided into 4 parts.

Part 1: Giving enough REASONS to leave good reviews
Part 2: Asking them to leave reviews for the products purchased
Part 3: Winning their reviews (more on this later)
Part 4: Handling the bad reviews swiftly

Now let’s break down these parts into multiple steps to understand things better.

PART 1 1. Offer great products

Guess who is offering good products? Your competitors! If you want to outdo them, it’s imperative that you offer great products. NO LESS! No amount of marketing and fawning can beat the quality. So, ensure whatever that you are offering is of A-Quality.

2. Don’t exaggerate

Many online sellers are in bad habit exaggerating about their products on different channels and in different forms. They go over-the-top in product descriptions and use false claims in marketing efforts just to attract more purchasers. Don’t do this. Because upon getting their products, customers would see through your lies and embellishments. And if that happens, your retention sizes to ZERO. They might even leave bad words for you on different platforms. At such time, Online Reputation Management becomes extremely difficult. So, avoid creating contents that exaggerate about your offerings. Be as honest as possible. All the time.

3. Deliver faster

If the estimated shipping date is 25th, try to deliver the product on 23rd. Everyone loves surprises. When you deliver faster than customers’ expectation, you can easily delight them. And in that, getting a positive review becomes very easy. So, team up with the right shipping partner and make quick deliveries. (And under no circumstance should you ever delay!)

4. Talk to them

How would you react to a person talking to you very friendly? Unless you doubt him/her to be a serial killer, you would respond in an equally friendly manner. And in that conversation, you will see a bond forming that, if nourished properly, can go on to become much more meaningful.

The same dynamics work even in the online scene. When you engage your audience or customer in a meaningful conversation, you can connect to them on a more intimate level. This can then easily shape in a good customer experience. And when the customer has enjoyed or is enjoying dealing with you, they would definitely love to leave you good product reviews.

These are 4 steps that accrue enough reasons for the customers to leave good reviews and ratings for your products. Now to the next part of asking them to leave reviews.

PART 2 5. Note in the package

Include a note in the product package asking the customers to leave you an online review. When, after checking and trying the product, they see a request from you to leave good words for the product, they are more likely to act on that.

Now the note, if you can, make it more personalized. Include the name of the buyer if possible. Also, along with that, include a QR code and shorten URL where the customers can conveniently go and rate and review the product.

‘Hey (name), did you like the product? We have worked very hard in making and delivering the product to you. Can you please leave a good review for us online? :)’

Who wouldn’t want to act on that sweet request?!

6. Push a friendly email

Follow up the sale with a drip email campaign. Depending on the product you sold, you can tell customers more about its features and how they can maximize its usage. Ask them if they are facing any problem with their purchase. And then ask them to leave good review and rating on the product page. With the right email automation partner and copywriter, this is quite easy.

7. Tell them on social channels

Don’t just use social channels to talk all good about your products. Use it regularly to ask your existing customers to leave reviews and ratings. This is like a simple reminder. If you have offered them a good product, most of them wouldn’t mind rating you good.

Also, don’t go “please review us” or “please rate us on Amazon”. Such requests usually go unnoticed. Try to be creative and keep the focus on the customers. Something like “Did you like our product? We would love to listen to you here (link to your product page)” would be much more effective.

These are 3 simple steps to ask your customers to rate your products on marketplaces. Of course, even then, many of them wouldn’t care about doing that. In such case, you must WIN their reviews as something of a prized item. This is what the next part helps you do—win reviews of reluctant customers.

PART 3 8. Message them on their phone

This step might be a little bit intrusive and many people won’t like it, but it’s worth trying. You already have the number of the customers that you collected at the time of checkout. Pull up those numbers and shoot them a sweet text message on their phone. Ask them if they liked the product and remind them to ‘write about their experience’ on the following link. Given it’s a much more personalized form of communication, many would act on it.

9. Produce blog articles

You can use blog articles to engage your purchasing customers and push them to leave their ratings and reviews. Here, you are required to be a tad creative.

For example, say you sell athletic wears. Now, you can write an article on something like “How to improve the longevity of your fitness wears” or “10 tips to run and workout longer every day”. After giving them a resourceful read, at the end include a Call To Action (CTA), asking the customers to leave their reviews on the products they purchased.

In the CTA button, you should be original. Instead of saying “review us” or “please leave a review for our products”, you can say something like “We’re continuously trying to improve our products and would love to listen to your personal experience. Please tell us how did you like our products here (include link).”

If you have offered them something worthy in the article, many would be much more positive towards your CTA, eventually leaving you good reviews.

10. Offer exclusive discounts

Ask your customers to review your products and then offer them exclusive discounts on their next purchase. This can not only increase the number of reviews but also effectively increase your sales.

Admittedly, pulling such campaign on a mass level could be a tedious task. First, you must redefine your pricing strategy and keep your long-term profit margin intact. Also, you must efficiently communicate this offer to your customers, and on the right platforms.

Moreover, you must have a proper mechanism to track the reviews and who are those individuals. Your customer database will only get bigger.

But kept aside all the efforts you would have to make in this process, if you manage to pull all the strings correctly, the rewards could be beyond your expectations.

11. Talk to them on social media

Talking to your customers individually, asking them the right questions and resolving all their queries—these are sure shot ways of not just getting good reviews from them but also improving your retention rate.

So, after email, the next best avenue for engaging your customers is social media platforms. Converse them on the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, DM them, strike a meaningful conversation. And at the end, ask them to share their experience about the conversation and the product in the review section.

12. Offer cash backs

Cash backs are a new breed of offer in the online shopping world. And it must be your last resort. So, before that, you must do your calculation correctly.

How much cashback do you want to offer your customers for leaving good product reviews? How much benefit will that particular review bring to your business? How you’re going to track such reviews, customers, and cash back? How are you going to communicate this offer to the buyers in the most impactful way?

These are few questions that you must answer before going ahead with the cashback offer. Again, this task could end-up becoming a big stress for you. So, ensure you have enough resource to handle the workload and that the return is worth the effort.

These are 5 steps that would help you WIN the reviews of your customers. If done correctly, in no time, will you have a pool of buyers going head over heels for your products in the review section. After that, comes the next big challenge—negative reviews and how to deal with them. This is what we discuss in the next part.

PART 4 13. Respond promptly

Good or bad, respond to every kind of review promptly. But when dealing with the negative ones, understand the difference between promptly and hastily. When you act in haste, there’s a big room for making mistakes. But when you are prompt, you think first and then respond.

So, whenever you spot a negative review, however cruel, take a deep breath, control your emotions, think from the perspective of that customer, think of the most appropriate way of responding and then hit the reply button. The quicker you reply, the better it is. Because you never know how many customers can form a perception of your product through this negative review.

Now here’s prickle though—at least for multi-channel vendors. When selling on various platforms, keeping a tab of all pouring reviews can be difficult. Responding them can be even more hectic. This is where a good e-commerce solution can come to save your life. Names like ChannelSale, a globally trusted multi-channel e-commerce software solution, can integrate all your shopping channels and make handling the various ends of your stores much easier and quicker. So, on their centralized platform, among other things (like inventory, listing and shipment), you can easily track your reviews on different storefronts and then respond to them promptly.

14. Never question the customer

Never (ever) argue with the customers. Never call them a liar or question their experience. Regardless how tempted you are to go against their words, always act empathetically. Listen to them. Nod. Agree with what they are saying. And then provide the right course of action or solution.

When you question them, you will only make the matter worse. And the conversation there may even trigger other customers who may end up reviewing you bad.

15. Spot smear campaigns

These days, it’s not uncommon to find businesses running smear campaigns against their competition. Often you, too, can fall for such campaign by your competitors. So, it’s important to identify such negative reviews from the unauthentic resources, which could be tricky.

Do a background check on the customer who left the bad review with whatever information you have at hand. Ask them for their invoice number to identify them or any other reference number you have provided them.

If they haven’t purchased from you and are lying in the review, even then don’t go all guns blazing at them. Just stay calm, use humor and deal with them in a good way.

16. Accept. Apologize. Improve.

Many online sellers do this thing—instead of admitting their mistakes and the flaw in their products, they try to give some lame excuses. And unless the customer is really dumb, nobody buys such reasons. So, whenever you find that it was your mistake and the product wasn’t the best, the go-to option is to accept it, then apologize for it, and then promise to improve. A positive response to negative reviews can win hearts.

17. Compensate

You will often find customers who will be angrier than they should. They are hard to deal with. And they would completely shame your brand and products. Again, yes, they might be over-reacting, but it was your mistake for providing them a bad product, right? So, at such times, it is best that you compensate for the troubles they are going through.

Now you can decide to return back their money, replace the product for free or offer them some freebie as a gesture of sorry. Such measures can easily calm them down and reassure the other people who are reading the review that you’re a good seller.

These are 5 steps to effectively deal with negative reviews.

Admittedly, the mentioned steps in individual parts can take a lot of time and resource. So you must find the right and most efficient ways to execute them, which is a topic for another discussion. To make things quicker, you can signup to social media management tools and multi-channel e-commerce solution.

All being said, these are the steps how to get your customers go head-over-heels when reviewing your products. Now go, do it!

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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Comparison Shopping Engines

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Thousands of online vendors are swearing by comparison shopping engines. Many of them even
claim that this was the lost piece in their puzzle that they have long been looking for to boost their sales. In fact, even numbers and facts fairly justify their big words, easily establishing that if you are
to grow and sustain as an e-seller, you need to get onboard with these e-commerce partners.

But first, let’s get the basics right.

What Are Comparison Shopping Engines?

If the name didn’t give it away already, Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) are, in short, retail aggregators. These are websites where you can find multiple retailers offering the product that you’re looking to buy. For shoppers, they provide much ease and convenience of comparing the quality, specification, and price of different sellers. This, then, helps them make an informed decision.

Of course, beyond this basic definition of CSEs, lies plenty of features and aspects to unearth—more so for the merchants.

How Do They Work?

Originally, CSEs came into the scene to help buyers shop quickly, easily and satisfyingly. They help
them compare the same products of different retailers on a single interface. Shoppers, in turn, enjoy higher expediency; they don’t need to visit individual websites manually.

However, since their advent, these websites also became a major attraction for the online sellers,
who unveiled new opportunities for themselves to reach more of their target customers with
possibly low cost and high conversion rate.

How comparison shopping engines work is quite simple. The retailers create an account here, upload their product data feeds from the dashboard, and then set bids for particular products or categories. Following, they have to work constantly to optimize their catalog through different measures so as to get their products rank higher on the result pages. Now when someone clicks on your product, they are taken to your website.

Top 5 Comparison Shopping Engines

There exist many comparison shopping engines; some are free, others are premium. If you’re a
seller, it makes sense that you partner with only the top industry names. It is they who will deliver
you the highest ROI.

Now comes the most obvious question, which is the best CSE?

Well, there isn’t one particular name. Here are top 5 comparison shopping engines:

1. Google Shopping

Yes, the search engine giant also has major e-commerce imprints. And it isn’t surprising really.
Google Shopping is the largest CSE there is and likely the most popular name in the market. Backed by the power of Google, this website offers plenty of features and facilities to the sellers.

2. Shopzilla

Shopzilla is another highly popular comparison shopping name, trusted by thousands of online
sellers around the world. The platform touts a high market penetration with millions of monthly
visitors and millions of listed products.

3. Shopping.com

Part of eBay, Shopping.com is a very old market player and it has long been a favorite to many
sellers who look to increase their sales. It has a simple interface and a powerful dashboard for the
merchants that assure merchants high ROI.

4. PriceGrabber

While PriceGrabber is much similar to other CSEs on the operational front, what separates it from
the crowd is its powerful research tool and intensive market report. If you’re good at strategy-
making, PriceGrabber could be an ideal platform for you to strategically deploy your products and
improve sales consistently using rich data.

5. Bing Shopping

With Google already in this space, Bing had to follow that. Admittedly, not as popular as Google
Shopping, Bing Shopping is quite an appealing option for the niche sellers. It has a very low CPC.
Plus, competing with much fewer competitors, you are more likely for higher conversion here.

These are top five comparison shopping engines that millions of online sellers use to unleash their
sales potential. Of course, there are plenty more names. But these are the most used ones.

Benefits of Listing on CSE

The advantages of deploying a distinct selling strategy for comparison shopping engines are quite
evident. Listing your products on these websites can increase your exposure and reach more of your target customers. You can drive higher traffic to your product pages, which improves the chances of sales.

Understand that these platforms enjoy very targeted and relevant visitors. Meaning, conversion is
not much of an issue here. Prospects visiting your website are much more likely to purchase the
products than, say, the traffic you generated through organic means.

Aside from higher conversion and sales, CSEs can also significantly help shape your brand. Even if
you aren’t making many sales through these websites, your products still get a decent exposure,
which establishes your brand name as a renowned market player. And in the long run, this
subsequent and free branding can bring you big sales.

The other things…

Yes, comparison shopping engines can easily help you improve your sales. However, this doesn’t mean you go ahead and create accounts in each of them. There are too many factors that you must consider before taking any step.

For once, what kind of inbound traffic you’re expecting to your website? How you’re planning to
generate that traffic? Which platforms promise you more leads? Your strategy must have an answer to all such questions.

Another aspect that demands a large part of your attention is the cost involved here. Some of these CSEs charge upfront fees, others cut a commission on every click and sales. You need to be proficient and smart in your pricing. Also, you must have a basic idea of bidding for CPC campaigns. If the investment (money, time and energy) isn’t worth the return, you must either refine your strategy or do over with CSEs as a whole.

More stress, more errors

You’re already having trouble handling your online stores. Managing comparison shopping engines can burgeon your stress and even decrease your productivity. So, this is another aspect that you must be thoughtful of when crafting your CSE roadmap. Of course, with the right multi-channel e-commerce solution like ChannelSale by your side, things would be much easier and efficient. Yet still, you’re going to have to tread the water carefully.

BOTTOMLINE: if you’re an online seller, you must seriously consider getting on comparison shopping engines. They pack score of opportunities for merchants. If you manage to create and deploy the right strategy, they can seamlessly lift your sales and revenue.

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A Definite Guide to a Pricing Strategy That Slays Competition and Appeal Customers

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There’s a general misconception among online sellers—customers love cheap-priced products. When looked broadly, this claim might look quite fitting. But ‘broadly looking’ is also a gateway to make big blunders.

So, when running a business, you must look at things more scrutinizingly, with the practical
application of cause and effect theory. Online shoppers look for low-priced products. But what they
really love and want is high-quality purchase. And in that scenario, they don’t mind shelling few
extra bucks. Of course, come in play, certain exceptions, which we would discuss later.

This slight shift in mindset regarding online pricing is rather imperative for strategy-making, which,
for many vendors, till now, only includes setting products at the cheapest price possible. Why?
Because that’s what customers want!

So, let’s throw this important question to you— how do you price your products? Do you follow the
basic steps that are essential to becoming a profitable e-commerce player?

Admittedly, pricing your products might not look like too much work. You add the profit margin to
the final cost of the product, and that’s that—that’s the final selling price for you. (This strategy is
called cost-based pricing, by the way). Sadly, it isn’t that easy. It’s simple—but definitely not easy.
But worry not, this is why we’re here for! Let’s first get to know about common e-commerce
pricing strategies, and then jump onto which one should you employ.

5 Types of Online Pricing Strategies

I. Cost-based pricing

Discussed already, this is the most common type of pricing strategy, whose secret to popularity lies
in the simplicity. What’s the final cost of your product? What profit do you want to make from your
sales? Add both of these amounts together and you will have a final selling price at-hand.

(Cost + Desired Profit Margin = Selling Price)

At times, this pricing strategy is good enough. However, since not undertaking other factors aside
from your own desired profit, you shouldn’t always go with.

II. Value-based pricing

Why charge low when the value of your product is high? This is the basic underlying idea behind this
strategy. And brands like Apple, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci champion it.

Here, you must focus on the value that your product is offering to the customers. While perfect for
the luxury brands, this pricing strategy can also work decently with essential goods, caeteris paribus.
You need to do thorough market research and customer analysis before going ahead with this
strategy, factoring the value of your product (which would also depend on your branding strategy)
for a particular customer on a given period of time.

For example, if you’re offering an umbrella, people would buy it more in autumn than in winter.
Also, if you’re offering a colorful umbrella that likely costs more than the black-white ones, it might not suit the budget of all consumers. But since it’s raining, will the person buy from you or not,
depends on his budget, urgency in need, as well as your competitors nearby.

Without any doubt, this pricing strategy is quite complex to mechanize. It would require a lot of your
time.

III. Competitor-driven pricing

Here at ChannelSale, we have always been a firm believer that competitors can be a great source to
learn from and be motivated to reach new heights. This is what we say to all new online sellers, who
often feel lost even when with the best multi-channel e-commerce solution.

Back to the topic, competitor-driven pricing is pricing your products according to your competitors’.
You monitor the price at which your direct competitors are selling their products at, and then make
your decisions accordingly.

If they are selling low, you sell low, or lower. If they are selling high, after analyzing their sales
performance, you, too, sell high, or higher. Easy-peasy.

IV. Target-based pricing

This pricing strategy is a darling to startups whose initial focus remains to cross the break-even
point. You set the price of your products according to your long-term target; and by the long-term
target, we mean 9-24 months.

Set a goal for a return on the total cost, and then price your products in whatever way possible.
Offer discounts to few customers and charge others slightly higher, sell to few on loss and to others
in big profit—it doesn’t matter what approach you take. Your ultimate goal is to achieve this target.

V. Time-based pricing

Umbrella, in the aforementioned example, is a seasonal product, whose demand peaks during
monsoon and slumps during winter. So, during rainy days, you can sell your umbrellas at a high
price—people would still buy from you because they require something to protect from the rain.
However, in winter, even when priced low, nobody would buy umbrellas because they don’t require
them.

This is what this time-based pricing strategy entails. Of course, the umbrella is a very evident
example. Other products may not be as evident as to how their price and demand swings with
season/time-change. This calls in for extensive market research and competitive analysis.

Once you’re aware of how prone your products are to time, you can then price them accordingly to
maximize the profit.

These are 5 types of online pricing strategies. Of course, if we get into details, these types branch
out into plenty more personalized, data-driven strategies. If you’re a new online vendor, it’s best
that you start with the basic strategy and then modify it as you go according to your persisting sales
performance and niche trends.

Now coming to the next part of the process – knowing which one of these strategies is ideally
employable for you. Identify the right one is quite easy. It all comes down to what you sell, who you
sell to and what are your goals. Let’s quickly dive into it with 5 crucial tips on online pricing strategy:

5 Tips on Creating an Effective Pricing Strategy

I. Invest in your brand

Apple, for example, can launch a Smartwatch tomorrow and sell it at any price that it desires. And
people would actually buy it. This isn’t an option for other less-known tech companies who might be
offering just as great smartwatches. Why? Because Apple has invested in its brand, others haven’t.
People trust its name. It commands authority in the market.

Imagine if you enjoy a similar power. You would enjoy higher flexibility in pricing. You would be able
to charge less or higher to customers knowing that your target audience will buy only from you
regardless the price because they trust your brand name.

So, right from the get-go, invest heavily in branding. Center your marketing efforts around your
brand name. Let people know who you are, what kind of products you offer and what quality
standards do you follow.

II. Care about your profit margin

There are sellers who obsess about making a good profit. And then there also those who overlook
their profit at the initial stage, hoping that once the sales pickup, they would make up for the lost
profits easily.

This is a very dangerous approach. If you have just started selling online, setting up the business
would have already cost you big. Now, in hope to increase sales, if you start offering the products at
the cheapest price, even if it means compromising on your profits, it could turn to be quite fatal for
the financial health of your business.

So, at any stage of the business, always keep an eye on the profit margin. Always ensure of a
consistent flow of income that’s covering the cost of your initial investment.

III. Don’t compete with successful competitors

Learn from successful competitors, don’t compete with them—this is a simple mantra you should
follow when pricing your products. Because your successful competitors have the room to lower
their price, attract more customers and run you out of the business. To tackle competition from new
entrants like you, they wouldn’t mind taking a hit on their profit margin for the time being.

So, handpick some of the successful names in your industry. And then follow their pricing strategy.
Unless you’re well-established yourself, don’t step-up to compete with them.

IV. Make incentives a big part of the pricing

Whatever pricing strategy you choose, there would always be some room to offer incentives to your
customer—you just need to know when and how to offer them.

Always remember, discounts can trigger online shoppers like no other thing. Adding unique offers to
the customers can significantly boost your retention rate. Going out of your way to incentivize your
existing customer – like offering them free vouchers – can turn them in your brand’s fans, which
could then initiate word-of-mouth marketing. And once people are talking about your brand and
products, there wouldn’t be any stopping to your sales.

V. Have a different strategy for different segments

This is a simple mistake we see many online sellers make—using a single pricing strategy for all the
market segments. And we understand why. With all the hassle and stress online selling brings with
so many backend tasks – like product listing and inventory management – who really have the time
to create unique strategies for different types of the target audience.

Here, you need to do two things: one, sign up to e-commerce software solution that can ease all
your backend activities, leaving you with ample of time; second, once with enough time, go on to
mechanize unique pricing strategies for unique segments. Create a sales funnel, identify where your

prospects are in the funnel, and then have a different set of pricing to help them through the
customer journey. It isn’t as difficult as it sounds, really!

Undertake these 5 crucial tips when pricing your products and it will become evidently clear what
kind of strategy would be an ideal fit for you.

The success of your e-commerce business, in today’s hyper-competitive market, depends largely on
your pricing strategy. Get things correct in this department and you’re good to go.

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Product Listing on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and More- Practical Tips and Best Practices

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For online vendors, the real battle is won or lost in the product listing. It is at this stage does it becomes evident how effective and fitting would be the selling strategy. Get this wrong and your whole dream of selling big can fall flat—even with thousands poured in marketing.

An important part, in the entire process, product listing is, it’s also equally complex. There are NO hard-hitting rules outlined by top marketplaces that would pop your products at the top of search results. A lot depends on your actions, instincts, growth strategy and experience.

Besides, the likes of Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Jet.com, Sears and other selling channels—they all have their own set of policies and search infrastructure. So, what works on one marketplace might not be effective on the other.

If you’re an online seller, it’s important that you have sufficient knowledge of the art of proper product listing. Like mentioned, it’s complex. But you can still champion the process—even if you’re just a beginner. All you have to do is to (smartly) follow some proven practices and practical tips. And thankfully, such ‘tips and practices’ aren’t even obscure. They are pretty much out there for everyone to follow.

Here’s all you need to do to champ product listings and boost your sales on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Jet.com, Sears, Bonanza, Etsy and other channels:

1. Don’t do it manually

One of the very common mistakes new sellers make is trying to list products on individual platforms manually. Not only is this extremely time-consuming, but also pave way for errors and inefficiency. So instead of doing it all manually and making blunders in the listing, signup to listing software.

These days, third-party e-commerce solutions have become a popular option for online merchants. Sign up to a good solution provider, integrate all your selling channels on a centralized platform and then list all your products on different storefronts under a single roof, at the same time. It’s quick, easy and efficient.

Of course, selecting a good e-commerce solution that caters your distinct needs adequately is a challenge in itself. There are plenty of market players out there. To cherry-pick the best (and affordable) one, you must factor a range of aspects—ranging from the marketplaces where you sell products to your budget to future growth plans.

But once you have the right e-commerce partner by your side, you can rest assured to have the technical aspect of your product listing becoming much easier and efficient. And once you’re at convenience in updating your products (descriptions, images, and more), you can pan out your attention to the optimization aspect of your listing.

2. Do a keywords research

Many sellers spend days and weeks in producing enticing copies for their products. Their product descriptions, FAQs, and the entire sales page read quite good. However, even with all the efforts, they don’t get the desired returns. Why? Well, their contents (or products) aren’t really optimized for search engines.

If you want your products to rank higher on search result pages, it’s imperative that you have included relevant, targeted and long-tail keywords in your copies. This is how the search engines of every top marketplace understand and find relevancy of your products and stores.

So, here, in the optimization process, the first step is to do keywords research. There are many free and premium tools available online to help you find the right set of keywords. Once you have a list of right keys, use them across your web stores—in product titles, descriptions, anywhere applicable. Indeed, doing this won’t deliver you immediate result. So, have patience. Over the course, also mix and match with other keywords to see which of them are bringing you more prospects and sales.

3. Make product descriptions attractive

Your product descriptions must include keywords. But there’s a lot to them than this. Originally, such copies are meant for the purchasers and not the search bots. So, to avoid it looking like a spam, aside from stuffing-keywords, your descriptions must be informative and interesting. Although it is preferable to hire a professional copywriter for this—but then you can do it yourself if you have a decent flair for writing.

The first thing you must remember is to make such copies engaging and moderately informal. You don’t want it to sound robotic. Next, you must describe the appearance and functioning of your product thoroughly but concisely. In the end, provide the prospect a definite Call to Action. Tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Indeed, writing such copies may take some time. But if done correctly, it could benefit your business seamlessly.

4. Use High-Quality Images

This tip is quite a no-brainer. But you would be surprised just how casually many sellers take this. And their casualness eventually ends up hurting their sales. Not only some of them use poor quality images, many of them even use stock photos for their products.

Here’s a breaking news for you (excuse it if you already know): Stock images enjoy a very bad reputation and credibility in the e-commerce scene. Plus, they are also easily identifiable. If a prospect finds out that you’re using a stock image which you found somewhere in the corner of the internet, you can say goodbye to her/him forever.

Using High Definition image is not optional—it’s essential. Also, it’s equally important to use a real image of your product that shows the item in its real form. In online selling, anything less than WYSIWYG could totally damage the experience of buyers—jinxing all the rooms for retention for you.

So, when listing, make sure the product image you’re using is actually real image of the product and is of high quality.

5. Don’t sell at a low price

Yes, online shoppers are regularly looking for cheap deals. And keeping the branding aspect of your product aside, it’s no secret that low-priced varieties sell more than the premium ones. In short, this means that online sellers must sell at low price. Right?

No. Another common mistake of new online vendors is listing their products at the lowest price possible, hoping this would help them edge the competition and sell more. Some of them even compromise in their profit margin. Sadly, the result doesn’t always pan in a way they want it to be.

Offering products at a low price doesn’t boost sale. If anything, people look at your product with the cliched affirmation that cheap is bad quality. Instead of listing your products at a cheap price all the time, what you should do is offer discounts.

Special, exclusive and limited-time discounts trigger prospective buyers, bringing a sense of urgency in their purchasing decisions. They see a product that’s of high price. Then they see the discount that they can avail if they buy it in a given time frame. Many of them would actually end up buying it just so they get benefited from that deal.

So, don’t offer your products at cheap price. If they are of high-quality, you deserve a good pay for that. Instead, start offering timely discounts. It would help you make much more sales.
Also, always (always) offer FREE shipping if you really want your products to rank higher in the search result of Amazon, eBay, Walmart and more.

6. Ace Shipping and Inventory Management

Aside from the quality of the product, the next big reason why customers leave bad product reviews is because of delay in the shipping.

Admittedly, shipping and inventory management is a challenging part. Even for the pro sellers who have multiple storefronts. There’s a lot of room to commit mistakes. For once, you can oversell. You can mismatch timing of the delivery of your product to your shipping partner. There can be lots of confusion in data management.

In order to ace your shipping and inventory management skills, it is best to rely on a good solution provider. Yes, this, even when the inbuilt systems of top marketplaces are pretty solid. Such third-party software can streamline your data of various channels, bringing much more transparency to the operation. A powerful solution can easily eliminate any room for errors. You can then efficiently and swiftly manage shipping and inventory of your multiple channels without much of a hassle.

ChannelSale is one of such powerful e-commerce solutions that facilitate seamless inventory management. In partnership with over 200 shopping channels, it can easily integrate all your marketplace, webstores, affiliate networks and shipment partners. From a centralized platform, you can then swiftly manage all the data— eliminating any room for mistakes and enjoying maximum convenience.

These are 6 practical tips and best practices for successfully listing your products on various marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Jet.com, Walmart and more.

Once you do these right, you can then move to review management of your products, which would include effective strategies to gain more ratings and reviews, and how to combat the bad ones.

When all steps combined, you would see an evident and positive change in your sales performance. Your products would rank higher in search results, you would attract more customers, your marketing efforts would be rewarded optimally and, most importantly, your profit margin will increase.

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Otherwise Content Amazon Sellers Usually Complain About These Shortcomings

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Many e commerce sellers and researchers are into believing that seller central users in Amazon are usually the pampered lot. The latter however agree to disagree. It will not be entirely wrong to say that no seller solution per se is complete in itself even if it offers a flood of benefits that other solutions don’t. This mini lapse has been experienced by many Amazon sellers till date, many of have openly expressed their ‘only if’ list in infinite review channels hoping that this king of all e commerce marketplaces will take note of the same sooner or later.

Say for example, there is a significant number of startup lot that usually find the other side of business obligations like doing their taxes extremely taxing. Taking clue from jet.com, many of them only wish Amazon would handle the tax part for them. However, Amazon has made it amply clear that it will serve as no more than an extremely profitable and growth based e commerce marketplace with sole assistance extended towards making the process of selling easier while the rest should be handled by the sellers on their own.

Very often the matter of super generous return policies often ends up bugging sellers to a limit where they may get pushed up against the wall. Whether you like it or not, Amazon is usually right in their stand when it comes to making the process of returns as easy as click and no more. If buyers are not happy with what the sellers delivered, they have the right to request return / exchange and sellers have to abide by it. Sometimes, when the issues arise from the buyers’ side, the sellers need to take all the trouble and digest it as occupational hazards.

Altering returns policies to make it tad seller-friendly (like it is in Jet.com) is always expected, but Amazon is not likely to introduce such changes because it will directly compromise its attractiveness towards the purchase motivated lot.

Sellers also often wish that Amazon inventory management systems would also make a leap in evolution and move ahead and beyond the available spread-sheet format. It is true that many e commerce solution developers have already introduced integrated Amazon inventory control systems, the fact that they usually favor midsized to large sellers will higher inventory levels cannot be denied. Smaller sellers usually get stuck in the cost trap if they choose to use these solutions or face hassles of manual management which is fraught with errors.

Amazon has rarely been the cause for disappointment to buyers or sellers through all these years of its existence. So sellers can be hopeful that Amazon will introduce changes that may lift away existing shortcomings in the near future.

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PART 1

1. Offer great products