005: What To Do When Your Item Isn’t Selling
Shownotes:
Finally! You buy something and post it up for sale.
You know you’re going to make a profit and successfully flip it — hands down!
Days pass… Weeks pass… Next thing you know — your item is just NOT selling!
No texts. No phone calls. No emails.
Why aren’t people buying!?
What the heck do you do when you post something up and it’s just not selling? Just not getting any bites?
Well, when something is not selling — it’s not the market’s fault — it’s yours.
You are 100% responsible for the sale.
So here are 6 things you must check to guarantee your item will sell.
If your item is not selling — go through these 6 things and it will SELL!
1. Check the website
2. Is the category correct?
3. Improve the description. Improve and enhance your ad copy.
4. Check for mistakes. Make sure your ad doesn’t sound ‘spammy’.
5. Check pictures — quality and quantity of photos.
6. Re-post to get back to the top of the list.
It doesn’t matter what your item is. Remember that everything sells and if it isn’t selling then at least one of those 6 points will fix it.
Go through them all and start making money!
Quotes:
“I always recommend people post their items on every channel every website possible.”
“Make sure your ad doesn’t sound spammy. A lot of people overlook this. Try and make it sound conversational, like there’s a human on the other side.”
“Sometimes the small details makes a big difference. And people’s ability to trust you, and trust that you’re not some scam artist, or some random guy from Nigeria trying to get your credit card details.”
“Your item should be presented in the best light possible. You should take photos from multiple angles. You don’t want blurry, dark, crappy photos where you can barely see the item.”
“I see so many ads out there with terrible pictures.These are actually money-making opportunities for you. You could pick those items up. You can buy them. You can take better pictures and post them for more and make more money just by enhancing the pictures alone. Okay, so Secret #5 is make sure your pictures are top of the line.”
Want me to answer your questions about flipping, side hustles, marketing, entrepreneurship, personal development, motivation, mindset, lifestyle — or anything else?
Have your question featured on a future show!
Send your questions in to AJ[at]TheFlippingNinja.com
What To Do Next
LOVE FLIPPING AND WANT TO LEARN MORE MONEY-MAKING AND MARKETING SECRETS? READY TO EARN 1K ON THE SIDE? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS…
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Full Episode Transcript
So the big question is Americans like us, ones who weren’t born rich, what side hustle can we do that will give us more control, more freedom and more confidence in our lives. How can we make our own money when we want, where we want and how we want, while being our own boss and calling all the shots. What can you do right now that quickly, simply and easily banks you an extra 1000 to $5,000 a month? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is AJ and welcome to the Flipping Ninja podcast.
What to do when your item is not selling? So the number one most common question I get in the flipping business is I posted up something for sale and it’s just not selling. I haven’t gotten any calls, I haven’t gotten any emails and nobody is biting. What do you do when your item is not selling? Do you give it up? Do you quit? Do you decide that flipping doesn’t work? Do you walk away from it? What do you do?– so I’m going to go over six reasons. The six reasons, the six things that you have to go through: anytime you post something for sale and it’s not selling or it’s sitting on the market quick, okay. When something does not sell, it’s typically something on your end that’s your fault, okay? You are fully responsible for the sale. You’re fully responsible for marketing it in such a way that it does sell successfully.
Okay. Then as far as timeline goes, how quickly that is all dependent upon a lot of factors like how well you market it, how you know the offer, the price you have, your, you know, the complete, you know, the actual deal. Like what are you getting or what are you selling, what are you giving away for, how much, etcetera. Just to keep things general, simple and straight forward. I’m going to go over six things to go through to guarantee that your item will sell, okay. To guarantee that you’re going to get those phone calls, people are going to start paying you and you are going to be able to keep flipping things and keep moving on to other things to flip.
Number one: number one is check the website. Now, when I say check the website, I simply mean is the website that you posted that item on for sale, is that the best or the ideal website for whatever item you’re selling?
For example, something like a furniture piece, you are probably 99% chance, 99% likely that craigslist is the place to post it because it’s a free local marketplace. The big thing is it’s local, so that means that for like something large and bulky, like a piece of furniture, you’re probably not going to, you know, post it on EBay and try and spend $500 to get it shipped to someone. Okay, so is your, you know check the website. Now I always recommend people post their items on every channel, every website possible. Unless it’s that, unless it’s something, you know, larger, bulky, like a furniture piece. But for the most part for probably, you know, 90% of items, probably more than that actually, but I would post it on every website possible because the point is you want to get in front of as many marketplaces you want to get in front of as many eyeballs and people as possible.
Okay, you want to get your item, your ad, your offering in front of as many eyeballs as possible. So let’s say you post a men’s Movado watch that you bought from upon store. Let’s say you posted on craigslist for $200, okay. You bought it for $70. He posted on craigslist for 200 and it’s not getting any hits, you know, it’s not getting any a, you’re not getting any phone calls, texts, emails on it. Maybe you get one offer, someone offers like 100 bucks for it, but you decide it’s too low. You researched the value online and you know, you know, you can get at least 150 for it. So it’s on craigslist, it’s just not selling, it’s been weeks. What do you do? You first step is check the website. Is craigslist the best place to post this watch now to completely eliminate this whole check the website thing, this whole number one of the ways or of the things you do to make sure your item sells, simply posted on every website. So post it on Craigslist, on EBay, post it on an ad, you know, an app called Offer Up, post it on Amazon, even if you have to but typically the EBay and craigslist for that specific sample, the men without a watch should cover it, so check the website. The fix for that is simply post it on every channel, every website possible to get as many eyeballs as possible.
So the second point, the second point to check when you’re going down this list, when your item is not selling, the second thing to look over to guarantee that it sells, is the category correct? So what I mean by that is, for example, let’s say you have like a smartphone that you bought. Let’s say you bought a Samsung Galaxy note seven that you bought low and you’re trying to flip it. Now if you post that item on craigslist and you choose like the video games category or you choose the furniture category or even if it’s an accident, you accidentally you know, miss it and you choose some random category for the smartphone, like household goods or something like that, you’re basically screwed over because now you, by being in the wrong category, there are a ton of people who are going to miss your ad, okay.
They’re not going to be able to see it unless they’re specifically searching those keywords, which most likely they probably are. But the point is these websites are optimized to whatever category you posted the item, and then they will kind of give you more better optimized exposure, okay. Same thing goes with EBay. Let’s say you bought like a- you have like some rare antique, flower vase. You bought it and you post it on EBay and you accidentally posted in the electronics category. Again, you are probably taking away a bunch of eyeballs from your ad because you posted it in the wrong category. So number two is check the categories. The category correct, number one was checks the website. Let’s go over number three and guys, I just want to say if you have something that’s not selling, I guarantee you going through all these six points will get that item to sell, okay?
So number three is a game changer and that is improve the description. Okay, this one is huge. This one is obvious, but it’s not at the same time, okay. So your description is everything, your description, you write for the product, your actual ad copy, that’s what sells the product, okay. It’s that combined with pictures. You know your headline, your ad description, think of your ad description as your personal salesman who’s out there selling to people, selling your product to people. Okay, so if you have a very vague or very general ad description that’s not detailed, that’s not selling people, that’s not getting them emotionally engaged, that’s not painting a clear picture on what the item is, all its features, all its benefits, dimensions, you know, size, color, etcetera. Then you are basically limiting your market share, okay. You’re limiting your, you’re just simply not selling, okay. You’re not selling as good as well as you can be and you’re leaving money on the table and you’re wasting time because nobody is buying it. So third one is improve the description, improve and enhance your ad copy, okay.
Number four is check for mistakes. Okay, a lot of people kind of overlook this, you might be so used to copying and pasting your like ad description and headline that you might have mistakes in there that you just never went over to double check. So make sure your ad also doesn’t sound like spammy. Try and make it try and make it sound conversational like there’s a human on the other side, you know, creating and selling the item or creating the ad and selling the items, so check for mistakes, typos, things like that. Sometimes the small details makes a big difference in people’s ability to trust you and trust that you are not, you know, spam or a scam or some guy from Nigeria trying to get your credit card details, okay.
Number five is huge. Number five is gigantic. It’s check your pictures. Okay, quality and quantity of your photos must be top notch. Your photos must be extremely well taken, staged. You know, the items should be presented in the best light possible. You should take photos from multiple angles and basically have the photos part covered, okay. You don’t want to have blurry, dark, you know, crappy photos where you can barely see the item. I see so many ads out there with terrible pictures. These are actually moneymaking opportunities for you because you can simply pick that item up. You buy it, you can take better pictures and post it for more and make more money just by enhancing the pictures alone, okay. So number five is making sure your pictures are top of the line, okay.
Number six is reposting to get back to the top of the list. Okay, so what I mean by that is that I see a lot of people who, you know, they tell me, yeah, I posted this up for sale, but it’s just not selling. I’m not getting any hits and I asked them. I’m like well, “When did you create the ad? When did you post it?” And their response is, well, I posted it two weeks ago, okay. And I’m like, okay, have you touched the ads since then? They’re like, no. I’m like, well go back in. You guys have to renew and repost your ads regularly. Okay, so that means for example, let’s say you post something on Craigslist, I think about it on Craigslist, someone is posting something up for sale probably every second. Okay so your ad from the moment you publish it, it’s going to be, you know, eventually buried under dozens of other ads and people will not be able to see it.
Okay, so you have to make sure in the craigslist example, 48 hours after you post and publish your ad, it’ll give you the option. It’s a button called to renew. And what renew does is it basically refreshes your ad. It bumps it up back to the top of the list as if you just created a new ad. Okay so same thing goes with EBay. If you post something up for sale, let’s say it was a seven day auction and you’re kind of just forget about it after that seven days. If it doesn’t sell, it’s just going to kind of be, it’s going to end and it’s going to just kind of be sitting there and no one will be able to see it. Okay so you have to go in, you know, and repost the ad or recreate the ad so that it can be, you know, you’ve got a fresh new ad that’s current and updated.
So if someone’s on craigslist for example, and they see an item for a- or they see an ad for like a Yamaha keyboard that’s from two months ago, because Craigslist shows the date of when it was posted two months ago, they’ll probably assume that it probably already sold. And a lot of times they don’t even bother emailing you or contacting you about it just because it’s been so long. So number six is repost or renew your ad to get back to the top of the list of ads.
Okay, so to summarize these six points, to guarantee your item, will sell number one, check the website number to check if the category is correct. Number three, improve the description, you know, improve and enhance the ad copy. Number four, check for mistakes. Make sure your ad doesn’t sound spammy. Number five, check your photos. Make sure you’ve got both quality and quantity of photos, multiple angles, good light, etcetera. Number six, repost to get back to the top of the list.
Okay, so I don’t care what your item is, I don’t care what it is, I don’t care where you posted it remember that sells. Okay and if it isn’t selling at least one of these, those six points I just talked about, we’ll fix it. Go through them and I guarantee that your item will sell eventually. Okay. If something is not selling, it’s not other people’s faults. It’s not the market’s fault; it’s your fault for not successfully doing the job, okay. So it’s your responsibility to make sure it’s on the right site or sites. It’s in the right category. The ad description sells the product and closes the deal, no mistakes. You’ve got the best pictures possible to market and sell the item and you are constantly keeping tabs on every ad. You know, you’re making sure you’re updating them; you’re making sure you’re renewing them so that they’re not getting buried with dozens of other ads. Okay. Go through these six points and I guarantee you your item will sell. Okay, when something’s not selling these six points will get it to sound.
This has been the flipping Ninja podcast from the crew@theflippingninja.com we believe that all Americans should be able to make their own money without having to rely on a job. If you’re ready to ditch the nine to five, visit theflippingninja.com and join our flipping ninja blueprint masterclass where you’ll discover how to earn a reliable side income of $1000 to $5,000 a month flipping things. We’ve just five to 10 hours a week see we’re on a mission to help 100,000 people earn $1,000 a month on the side flipping things. Working professionals, students, parents, men, women, artists, techies, entrepreneurs, introverts, total newbies, you name it. Be a part of the revolution and blast out of living pay check to pay check once and for all at www.Theflippingninja.com. Until next time, remember, you’re just one flip away from freedom. Want to make a difference? If you enjoyed today’s show, please pay it forward and head over to iTunes. Give us a rating and leave a review so others just like you can benefit and take charge of their financial future.
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