18 Best Practices for Selling on Facebook Marketplace

In fact, marketplaces like Amazon have actually made selling on them an essential part of any e-commerce business’s strategy these days. If you want to sell on Facebook Marketplace and other similar sites, here are the 18 best practices for making sure your business thrives.

1. Be selective about which products you sell.

Since you’re only able to sell to customers who are using Facebook Marketplace to shop, you’re unlikely to find any product that’s so niche that it has no demand. But the key here is to sell products that are relatively easy to ship and that have high profit margins. That way, you can actually make money with every item that you sell.

If you’re new to selling online, you shouldn’t start by selling products that are fragile or that require special handling. Doing so is incredibly risky, and you could lose money on every sale. Instead, find products that are easy to ship, use reliable fulfillment services, and you should be fine.

2. Always use fast shipping and reliable fulfillment services.

This is a particular problem for Amazon sellers, who often ship items from their own warehouses. But if you’re shipping from a warehouse in another state, you could be dealing with shipping times of several days.

And if you’re shipping from your home or an office, you could be dealing with shipping times of a few hours. That’s fine if you’re selling goods that have long enough lead-times to justify waiting a few days for them to arrive.

But if someone buys an item that you need to have there by the end of the day, you’ll fail. By using a reliable fulfillment service, you can make sure that customers get their purchases as quickly as possible. That way, they can leave you positive feedback and you can thrive on Facebook Marketplace.

3. Make sure to price your items competitively.

One of the great things about selling on Facebook Marketplace is that you don’t have to compete with Amazon’s massive discounts. When you’re selling goods that are already in Amazon’s inventory and that Amazon is already trying to sell, you’ll have to match the discounts that Amazon offers.

But when you’re selling your own goods on Facebook Marketplace, you don’t need to match the discounts that Amazon offers. That said, you’ll want to price your items as competitively as possible. By getting the best price, you can attract more customers while making sure they don’t end up buying from Amazon instead.

4. At the same time, make use of advertising to drive awareness.

Facebook Marketplace is one of the most popular shopping sites on the internet, but that doesn’t mean everyone knows about it. In fact, most people have probably never even heard of it before. And if you’re trying to attract customers to your store, you’re going to need to attract them somehow.

That’s where Facebook’s advertising tools come in. By using Facebook’s advertising platform, you can target people who are interested in buying goods of your type and send them to your Facebook Marketplace store.

That way, you can make sure that people are aware of your store even if they haven’t heard of Facebook Marketplace yet.

5. Don’t underestimate the importance of customer service.

Most customers don’t expect great customer service from online marketplaces. And if something goes wrong with their purchase, they usually end up getting little to no help. But if you’re selling on Facebook Marketplace, you can make sure that customers know you’re available for support.

You can do that by responding quickly to any customer service request you receive. By responding quickly, you’ll show customers that you care about them and that you want them to have a good experience using your store. That way, they’ll be more likely to leave positive feedback and come back again in the future.

6. Always Have a Great Picture of Your Product

When you’re selling on any marketplace, you’ll always want a great picture of your product. And while you’ll definitely need to have the right product in hand before listing it in order to capture the best images, you can always take a few extra photos for your online store.

But even if you do have the right product in hand, you may want to consider hiring a professional photographer. After all, you want your product images to be as good as possible.

Otherwise, you may end up with blurry, poorly-lit photos that are unhelpful. And while you can always try taking your own photos, hiring a professional photographer is often cheaper.

7. Use high-quality product descriptions.

Another important part of selling on any marketplace is writing high-quality product descriptions. And while you can definitely reuse some parts of the product descriptions you’re already writing for Amazon, you’ll want to tailor them for Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is a very visual site.

That means that people are most likely to click on listings that include images of the product from many different angles. That means that your product descriptions need to be short, sweet, and to the point. They shouldn’t include every little detail about the product. Instead, they should focus on the most important aspects of the product.

8. Don’t Give Away Free Samples

You’ll definitely want to make your store’s return policy clear. Many customers will be shopping at least partly out of curiosity. They may be wondering if your product is as good as the seller claims.

And if they try it and don’t like it, they’re unlikely to return it. But if you offer free samples, you may end up with a lot of returns. And since Facebook Marketplace doesn’t have a way to deal with that, you could wind up losing money. Instead, only offer samples if they’re not expensive to ship. And even then, make sure you don’t give them away to every customer.

9. Preserve Customer Information

When you’re selling on a marketplace like Facebook Marketplace, you’re not going to get any information from the customers who are buying from you. That’s because Facebook Marketplace doesn’t require customers to create an account before purchasing from you.

Instead, your customers are going to pay for their purchases with their credit card information. And when they do, you’ll be able to see the following information:

• The name of their card issuer
• Their credit card type
• Their card number
• Their expiration date
• Their billing address

That doesn’t leave you with much information to work with. But it is better than nothing, and it is definitely better than not getting any information at all.

10. Create a branded storefront on Facebook.

Finally, the last thing you should do is create a branded storefront on Facebook Marketplace. To do that, you’ll need to create a new Facebook page for your store. And once you do, you can use Facebook’s platform to create a storefront. That way, customers can click on your page and see everything that you’re selling.

They can also use the website to purchase items directly from your Facebook page. And while it’s not exactly the same thing, having a fully-functioning storefront on Facebook could be the difference between success and failure.

11. Define your target audience and stay focused on them during your ad campaign

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when selling on online marketplaces is using the same approach for all of their ads. That is, they use the same ad copy and images across every ad and don’t try to cater to the people who are actually using the site on which they’re advertising.

The best way to make sure that you’re focusing on the people who are actually using each site is to take the time to really understand who your ideal customer is. Once you know that, you can then build your ads strategy around them.

That means using the right language and focusing on the problems that your ideal customer has. If you do that, you’ll be able to increase your conversion rates and sales significantly.

12. Use visual ads to help showcase what you’re selling

Visuals are a critical part of any ad campaign. If you don’t have images in your ads, then you’re leaving a critical piece of the sales puzzle out that could be helping you bring in more sales. That’s because visual ads are much more effective than text ads, at least when it comes to Facebook Marketplace.

That’s because people are more likely to click on ads that have images. We don’t know why exactly, but it does appear to be inherent in human nature. That means that if you want to improve your click-through rates, you need to make sure that you have images in your ads. Facebook recommends using at least one image per ad in your ad sets.

If you have more images, they can be used to help you segment your audience. That can help you to get even more sales by catering to more people with your ads.

13. Make sure you have a flexible payment policy

One thing that people love about selling on Amazon and other similar sites is that they know they can trust the sales process. A lot of people are nervous about buying things online because they don’t know if the seller is trustworthy.

Also read: 28 Tips for Selling on Aliexpress for Beginners

One way to combat that and make sure that people know that you’re a trustworthy seller is by specifying the payment type that you accept. Now, a lot of people think that you should only accept credit cards. But that’s not the case at all. You have a lot of freedom to accept different payment types.

For example, you can accept debit cards, cash, and even gift cards. And in some cases, you even have the option of accepting other forms of online payment, like PayPal or Venmo. That gives you a lot of flexibility and makes it easier for people who want to buy your products to do so.

14. Set reasonable shipping expectations

Another thing that you want to think about when selling on these sites is how you’re going to ship the items that you’re selling. That’s because you should set reasonable shipping expectations, and you don’t want to scare away potential buyers by having a shipping cost that’s too high.

There are two main ways that you can approach shipping costs when selling on these sites. The first is to just charge a flat shipping fee for all items. The second option is to use a shipping cost calculator to figure out exactly how much it will cost to ship the item to different places.

It’s up to you which option you prefer, though the first one is probably easiest and works for most people. The important thing is that you just make sure that you’re not charging an unreasonable amount for shipping.

15. Research your audience before creating a product listing.

One thing that people don’t often think about when selling on these online marketplaces is how they’re going to list the products that they’re selling. A lot of people just go in and list the product and don’t put a lot of thought into it.

That’s a mistake, though, because the way that you list your products can actually make a big difference in the number of sales you get. That means that you want to make sure that you’re putting a lot of thought into how you list your products.

You should start by researching your audience to make sure that you’re listing your products in a way that they’ll be interested in. That can be as basic as making sure that your product names are relevant to your target audience or that your product descriptions speak directly to your potential buyers.

16. Be fast and flexible with your customer service.

One thing that people are starting to pay more and more attention to is the customer service that they get when making online purchases. One of the best ways to stand out as a seller is by making sure that you have a flexible and fast customer service policy for people who buy your products.

That means that you should have clear instructions for returns or exchanges and make sure that you’re responding to customer service inquiries in a timely manner. The faster that you respond, the better.

That way, you’ll show people that you’re serious about your business and that you care about their experience. That’s particularly important on these marketplaces because you’re directly dealing with customers who may have never bought from you before.

17. Come up with effective merchandising strategies

Another thing that you want to think about when selling on these sites is how you’re going to merchandize your products. That is, how you’re going to display them on your page so that more people will see them.

That’s because there are lots of products being sold on these sites, and it’s hard for any one item to break through the noise and get noticed. That’s where merchandising comes in. Some of the most effective merchandising strategies that you can use include:

• Having a great product title
• Using relevant keywords in your product descriptions
• Having a great product image
• Adding a catchy product title or subtitle to break through the noise
• Understanding how the feed algorithm works on these sites and optimizing your product pages for it

18. Be thoughtful about your ad spend.

Selling on these marketplaces is a great way to expand your business and get more customers. But it’s important to be thoughtful about your ad spend. That means that you shouldn’t just spend as much as you can on your ads.

Instead, you should spend a sensible amount while still getting plenty of clicks and impressions. You can do that by tracking your ad performance and making sure that you’re constantly adjusting your budget based on your results.

You should also track the conversion rates of your ads and make sure that you’re not spending too much on ads that are bringing in low-conversion rates. That way, you’ll be able to make sure that you’re getting the most value out of each ad dollar that you spend.

Conclusion

Online shopping is only growing in popularity. And while there are a lot of different shopping sites that people can use, there are also a lot of different ways you can sell your goods online. If you want to sell on Facebook Marketplace, you have to be selective with the kinds of goods you offer and make sure they’re priced competitively.

You also have to make use of Facebook’s advertising platform to reach more people. By doing all that, you can ensure that your business thrives.