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