How to make the most money for items on Facebook Marketplace | Toxiic's Tips
on: 28/12/2018 | 17:01
Money makes the world go around – and, that’s true!
Whether you need the money, having a clear-out or just want to make a name for yourself, a good place to (weirdly) start is on a platform that has over 1 billion users. That place is Facebook.
In this post, I’ll be writing about how to make the most amount of money by selling your unneeded items on Facebook Marketplace.
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Use your own photos
Despite it being easy to just screenshot a stock image (the photo that was taken professionally that retailers use to advertise the product) this doesn’t look genuine. Taking a photo as clear as possible of the product you’re selling whilst depicting as many of it’s angles should be done instead of using stock photos.
Using stock photos heightens the expectations of the buyer (as the photo was professionally taken which is likely to not be as perfect as in real life) and makes them question why a photo wasn’t taken by the seller themselves – so are likely to avoid the listing as there’s no proof that the item being sold is in the condition it’s supposed to be.
Taking 5 minutes to snap a few pictures on any device with a decent camera is the way to go, just make sure that the item is clean before you take the photo as it just doesn’t feel right looking at a listing of a phone where the phone has a host of dirty fingerprints on!
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Watch your ratings
Seller ratings are one of the only pieces of data (other than the Facebook “Joined on” date )that buyers can use to judge whether it’s suitable from buying from you. With it being so easy for buyers to rate you and leave an everlasting mark on your profiles, you should regularly check back to your profile to see these ratings.
Unfortunately with Marketplace, buyers literally need to send one message to be able to leave a rating so you really do need to message buyers in a warm, welcoming and friendly tone regardless of how they treat you as this will help Facebook see who is in the wrong if an event were to occur of a buyer negatively rating you for no apparent reason.
Ratings on Marketplace can be likened to EBay ratings. So, the lower your overall ratings are then the less likely a buyer will purchase from you regardless of the other factors in this article as it’s simply not worth them risking their own money when you (justifiably or not) have bad ratings.
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Be detailed
Typing the bare minimum for a product listing that you benefit from just doesn’t make sense. It’s best to thoughtfully include as many possible questions a buyer may have on the listing itself. You see, buyers don’t want to be wasting their time asking you (the seller) questions that other sellers could have included already and talk to buyers about the more important stuff like when you’re going to meet/deliver.
Generally, you should try to include the following:
- Why you’re selling the item (“unwanted gift/bought too many”).
- Where you purchased the item from (“I bought this at Amazon/Argos/ASOS”).
- How you’ll get the product to the buyer (“Delivery by me included if local/delivery via a delivery service/collection only”).
- What the features of the item are (“70% flour/Can connect to your phone via Bluetooth/4000mAh battery”).
- Any damage to the item (“slight crack on one side”). Remember to include clear pictures of the damage.
- Who the item may be suitable for (“Great for weightlifters/Perfect for children/A great Christmas gift for tech lovers).
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Do your research on pricing
This one should be an obvious one. Look at the current prices that retailers sell the item at and the prices the other sellers on the Marketplace set (which are the prices you’re directly competing with). Disregarding all the above points, having an excessive price can instantly dispose buyers from looking at your listing seeing as your listing is right next to other listings of the same items – making it easier for buyers to compare your price to others which makes them more likely to view the cheapest listings first which isn’t great for you if your price is soaring above everyone else.
What I personally do is find one of the cheaper listings (or the cheapest if it still leaves me with a profit that’s worth it) and remove 5-10%. This is very subjective and it depends on the seller I choose to mark it cheaper from, for instance, if that seller had poor ratings then I’d match them in price or go slightly higher.
If you're not looking for the item to go quickly then don’t be afraid to set the price slightly higher than normal and then reduce the price periodically if you don’t get much traction from getting the item sold. Just be aware that buyers sometimes assume that listings that have been active (not marked as sold) for a while means that the item has been sold and you’ve forgotten to mark the listing as sold.
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Interested in a FaceBay version of this? Click here.
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