EPISODE NOTES
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What is the one thing we all want to do? Sell more of our products. I thought I would share some ideas that worked for me when I ran my own product-based business, Tiny Chipmunk, and things that I have seen work for my clients.
I’m not a sales expert, and not everything that I suggest will work for everyone or appeal to everyone. But I wanted to share a few different ideas that you could try to give your sales a boost.
At the end of the episode I have included some Amazon specific ideas. I hope you will find this useful even if you don’t currently sell on Amazon, as some of these tips are transferable to other platforms.
Good luck and let me know what works for you.
Listen in to hear me share:
- An introduction to myself and the topic (00:34)
- My top sales tips (01:44)
- Sales tips for Amazon (12:31)
- How to share your tips (21:58)
USEFUL RESOURCES:
Read the blog post for this episode
Episode 82 How to sell your products on social media with Emma Peries, Digital Mother
Episode 76 How to work with influencers with Donna Jackson
Free Resources, including Amazon Checklist
LET’S CONNECT
Join my free Facebook group for product makers and creators
Transcript
Welcome to the, Bring Your Product Ideas To Life podcast, practical advice,
Speaker:and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products.
Speaker:Here's your host Vicki Weinberg.
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to this week's episode.
Speaker:It's just me this week, I'm having a super busy week so far.
Speaker:It's only Tuesday.
Speaker:So I'm going to get right to the point and start talking about today's topic.
Speaker:So this episode has been inspired by, um, something I've seen a lot
Speaker:of recently, which is people asking how to increase their product sales.
Speaker:So I've been asked this myself by clients and I've seen this spoken about, on
Speaker:lots of, um, online groups as well.
Speaker:And I just want to caveat this by saying, I am no means a sales expert, but I have
Speaker:tried a lot during my years of creating, selling products of my own baby brands.
Speaker:Um, I've also tried a lot of things with various clients I've worked with, and I
Speaker:know that not everything I suggest will work for everyone and not everything
Speaker:I suggest would appeal for you.
Speaker:But I just wanted to give you a few different ideas that you could try and see
Speaker:if they give your sales a bit of a boost.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So most of the ideas I'm talking about will apply to everyone.
Speaker:Wherever you sell your products, you should be able to do most of these.
Speaker:But at the very end, I've included some Amazon specific ideas.
Speaker:So if you are an Amazon seller or you're thinking about it, do you hold
Speaker:out for those because there are some things that you can do on Amazon that
Speaker:you can't do on any other marketplaces.
Speaker:And I just wanted to highlight them as many of you, even if you've been
Speaker:selling on Amazon for a while, you might not actually know what some of these
Speaker:features are, even that you have them.
Speaker:So I'm going to start with the ideas.
Speaker:It should work regardless of where you sell your products.
Speaker:So number one, run a sale or promotion.
Speaker:I know this sounds really, really simple, but it can work.
Speaker:So could you, for example, offer a limited time discount on the product
Speaker:or products you'd like to sell more of.
Speaker:I suggest making the offer as generous as you can, but limiting it.
Speaker:So something I see a lot on Amazon, it's like a permanent sale price.
Speaker:You've probably seen this too, where it will tell you what the RRP is.
Speaker:And then it'll say, oh, but it's 43% off, but it's 43% off or whatever
Speaker:like every day, so that doesn't really feel like a true price.
Speaker:What I think is the best thing to do is offer a decent discount, but
Speaker:offer it for a really short period of time or on a limited number of sales.
Speaker:So for example, I'm going to give 30% off to the first 10 customers or whatever
Speaker:it is, Um, and make it clear from the outset that this offer is only going
Speaker:to be around for two days, three days, however long you decide and stick to it.
Speaker:I think that's really important.
Speaker:I think a little bit of urgency can really help, but what you don't
Speaker:want to do is end up being one of those brands that's always on sale.
Speaker:Like, um, years ago I used to shop at Gap and I used to never, ever bought
Speaker:anything there, full price because there was always another sale rolling
Speaker:around and sometimes the next one would be better than the current one.
Speaker:And yeah, I just got in a cycle of waiting things, be on offer before buying.
Speaker:And, um, you can probably think of brands, you do this with as well.
Speaker:Um, but I don't want this to be you.
Speaker:So obviously we want to increase your sales, but obviously also it's great
Speaker:if more people can find you and buy our products when they're on full price.
Speaker:So to give yourselves a bit of a boost, I would make a sale or promotion be
Speaker:something you don't do too frequently.
Speaker:And I think it's better to give a decent discount over a really
Speaker:short period of time and do it.
Speaker:I don't know, a couple of times a year then just constantly
Speaker:have everything on sale.
Speaker:So my second suggestion is to share on social media.
Speaker:Um, again, this might sound really obvious, but have a think.
Speaker:Now, when the last time was you posted about your products, because I see
Speaker:so many product businesses who create some really great posts, but they
Speaker:don't actually do many posts about what they sell and how to buy it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was looking at jewellery recently, for example, I'd come across and I had to
Speaker:scroll down her grid quite a lot before I saw any pictures of her products, um, or
Speaker:any shopping tags or anything like that.
Speaker:And there was a link to the website that I could go to.
Speaker:And while I was really interested in.
Speaker:And, you know, the person behind the brand, I was actually there to shop
Speaker:because somebody recommended it and it, there wasn't actually a great
Speaker:deal on the, about her products.
Speaker:Um, I have a great podcast episode about selling your products on
Speaker:social media, which I will link to in the show notes for this episode.
Speaker:Um, in case you find that useful, but that has some really good suggestions of
Speaker:things you could do, like little Reels you could create, um, things like that,
Speaker:um, which might be worth looking at.
Speaker:And remember you can share your products in other places
Speaker:too, where it's appropriate.
Speaker:So for example, um, you can talk about your products on
Speaker:your own personal social media.
Speaker:You can talk about them in groups.
Speaker:If there are any uh, core opportunities to do that.
Speaker:Say my own Facebook group, for example, has a special post every week, which is
Speaker:literally just a members to share links to their products and any offers they've got.
Speaker:If you want to join, I'd love to have you.
Speaker:It's facebook.com forward slash product creators club all one word.
Speaker:And I would get linked to that in the show notes.
Speaker:And of course I would love it.
Speaker:If you wanted to come and join us, you'd be so.
Speaker:So suggestion number three is to email your mailing list.
Speaker:So if you have an email list and I would say if you don't if not, why not?
Speaker:Uh, why not use it, especially if you are running a site or promotion um,
Speaker:even if not, you could share any new products that you have, or perhaps
Speaker:ones that are due to be discontinued.
Speaker:You could ask people to share your products with their friends.
Speaker:You could give you some information.
Speaker:So perhaps advice relevant to your products.
Speaker:Um, if you're publishing any blog, on your website, you could share those, or
Speaker:you could just give people a reminder of who you are and what you sell.
Speaker:And I do get, this is a hard one.
Speaker:I have to say when I had my products business, I think this
Speaker:was something I did pretty poorly.
Speaker:I didn't have any sort of plan for emailing.
Speaker:Um, I would email when I had a sale, but then I would also think,
Speaker:oh, I haven't emailed for ages or just emailed about this blog post.
Speaker:I think I'd probably be doing better, either sticking to I'm only going
Speaker:to email when I've got something to say, for example, my products are
Speaker:reduced or having a plan and saying, I'm going to email every month and
Speaker:I'm going to find something to say every month, wherever it's a new blog
Speaker:post about how to use the products or wherever it's asking people for images
Speaker:as I'm using them, whatever it was.
Speaker:I think that probably would have worked a bit better.
Speaker:I'm not an email marketing expert.
Speaker:Um, but I've certainly found that now that I send weekly emails to my common email
Speaker:list, um, I get a lot more engagement than with my previous business when I just used
Speaker:to email people extremely sporadically.
Speaker:So if you don't have an email, if you have an email list why not email them,
Speaker:um, maybe think of an angle you can use to kind of increase your sales.
Speaker:I don't know whether it's, uh, recommend a friend and you both get
Speaker:a discount or what, you know, you can be quite creative here, but if
Speaker:you have a list, why not use it?
Speaker:And if you don't have an email list yet, um, my suggestion number four
Speaker:is a way to build one, which is why not give a code for email sign up.
Speaker:So, what I mean here is you could offer a discount code or a free product or
Speaker:whatever you wanted to offer really with every email sign up, you could
Speaker:promote this via pop-up on your website.
Speaker:You could promote it on social media.
Speaker:Um, you might want to give the code a short expiry dates.
Speaker:People are incentivized to use it soon.
Speaker:Um, you could also, depending how you dispatch your products, give this code
Speaker:as a little, uh, on a little postcard or business card inside saying sign
Speaker:up on my website and get a discount.
Speaker:There's a lot, you know, you can be quite creative with this.
Speaker:Um, I think people really need a reason to join your mailing list, especially
Speaker:nowadays when we're all on so many lists and we get bombarded with emails.
Speaker:One of my big jobs at the moment is unsubscribing to everything I've
Speaker:subscribed to in the past I don't know it feels like 10 years at the moment.
Speaker:It feels never ending.
Speaker:But hopefully, um, a discount will be enough to encourage somebody
Speaker:to want to be on your list.
Speaker:And then if you're emailing them regularly or you're letting them know
Speaker:when you've got some great offers going on, they'll be happy to stay on.
Speaker:So my fifth suggestion is to give a discount for repeat purchases.
Speaker:And I know this means you have to be getting some sales already, but bear
Speaker:with me if you are getting sales, but perhaps not as many as you'd like
Speaker:you might consider including a flyer or a card that offers a discount
Speaker:for anyone who buys from you again.
Speaker:Um, by the way, this does work on Amazon too.
Speaker:And it's great if you want to encourage customers to your own website rather
Speaker:than ordering from another marketplace.
Speaker:So let's say someone's bought from you on Amazon, but inside
Speaker:the little package that they get with your product, there's a card.
Speaker:And it says, you know, buy on, our website in the next week, and we'll
Speaker:give you 20% off or whatever it is, they encourage them over to your website,
Speaker:which hopefully also gets them on your email list and get you another sale.
Speaker:Um, and perhaps you can even make it a code they could share with a friend.
Speaker:If what they've bought from you isn't necessarily something they'd be, you know,
Speaker:they wouldn't necessarily be needing to make another purchase in the short term.
Speaker:My sixth suggestion is to work with influencers and I won't say very
Speaker:much about this as I'm definitely not an expert, but I do have an
Speaker:entire podcast episode or blog post.
Speaker:If you prefer that about how to work with influence to sell your products,
Speaker:featuring Donna Jackson from The Curious Mummy, um, Donna Jackson is
Speaker:an influencer and she gave so much great information about how to find
Speaker:influencers that might want to promote your products, how to work with them,
Speaker:how to approach them just so much stuff.
Speaker:So again, I will link to that in the show notes because I really
Speaker:think that's worth looking at
Speaker:My seventh suggestion is to use your existing networks.
Speaker:So be honest, how often do you ask your friends, your family, or even
Speaker:your current customers to share your products and talk about your products.
Speaker:Probably not that often if ever.
Speaker:Um, so one thing you could do is spend some time on a great social media post,
Speaker:or maybe even a Reel if you're brave.
Speaker:Um, um, I haven't really got into it, which I find quite scary.
Speaker:And you could ask people to share your products, or you could write.
Speaker:You could do another sort of post or even an email asking people to
Speaker:share their photos of them using your products and tag you in.
Speaker:Maybe you could offer a discount or a freebie for anyone who does this.
Speaker:The idea is it's just to get other people talking about your products.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Something like share a photo and tag us in and get a discount on your next order.
Speaker:And then you send them the code that you've already
Speaker:created or something like that.
Speaker:Again, I think a lot of these are about being creative and
Speaker:thinking what would work for you, your business and your product.
Speaker:The whole purpose of this episode is just to get you started with some ideas
Speaker:that you can adapt to work for you.
Speaker:But I do think that can be quite nice.
Speaker:I think it gives you a nice bit of social proof as well.
Speaker:Um, I don't know about you, but I love it.
Speaker:I mean, reviews are like the most obvious form of social proof.
Speaker:I really liked that, but I also really like it on Instagram when I look at brands
Speaker:and then I can see all the people that have tagged that brands in because they're
Speaker:wearing their clothes or their jewelry or using their product in some way, because
Speaker:it just says to me, okay, other people are using this and other people like it.
Speaker:And I think that can really help your sales.
Speaker:And my eight suggestion is to try something.
Speaker:Um, I'll be honest, this one's probably a bit more work than everything else
Speaker:I've suggested, but sometimes it can be worth trying something different.
Speaker:So for example, say, you know, whatever you're doing now, let's say you're not
Speaker:generating an amount of sales you'd like to, how about trying, selling on
Speaker:a different online marketplace, um, obviously ensuring first, anywhere new,
Speaker:you try as a good fit and worth investing in whether that's time or money, whatever.
Speaker:Or if you only sell your products online, is it worth
Speaker:you getting a stall at a market.
Speaker:Um, is it worth you looking at, including your products in a pop-up shop?
Speaker:Um, you know, just be really creative here and just think about
Speaker:what other opportunities are there.
Speaker:Is there someone you could collaborate with?
Speaker:Um, I think the opportunities are endless.
Speaker:But I guess my point here is if, if what if you feel that what you're
Speaker:doing currently isn't working, it just might be a really good
Speaker:opportunity to try something new.
Speaker:And as I say, I want to caveat that with you don't want to be spending
Speaker:loads of time and effort on something.
Speaker:Um, you know, if you're not sure if it's going to pay off, so you do have to, there
Speaker:does have to be a bit of a balance there, but, um, yeah, hopefully doing something
Speaker:different will achieve different results.
Speaker:So now I'm going to move on to the things you can do if you're selling
Speaker:on Amazon to help increase your sales.
Speaker:Um, and I'm going to start off with a really basic one.
Speaker:Also, I will say, even if you're not an Amazon seller, do you still sort of, I do
Speaker:still don't switch off right now because some of these still might be actually
Speaker:be quite interesting either because you thought about Amazon or my first one
Speaker:in particular, I do think would apply to lots of other marketplaces as well.
Speaker:So my first suggestion is to review your product listing.
Speaker:So one of the fundamentals of selling well on Amazon is to have a great listing.
Speaker:I've talked about this lots, I can link a podcast episodes and blog posts in the
Speaker:show notes where I've talked about this.
Speaker:Um, so I'm not going to pick myself here, but really this is the first thing to do.
Speaker:If you feel you should be selling more than you are, you do need
Speaker:to look at is your listing as good as it possibly can be.
Speaker:I do actually have a free guide to getting started on Amazon, where I go through
Speaker:all of the things that I believe make up a really great Amazon product listing.
Speaker:And you can get that for free by going to Vicki weinberg.com forward slash
Speaker:free resources or by the link that I will put in the show notes for you.
Speaker:My second Amazon specific suggestion is to experiment with Amazon Prime.
Speaker:So if you're currently fulfilling all your orders on Amazon yourself,
Speaker:then you may want to see if trialling Amazon FBA helps with your sales.
Speaker:I say, try.
Speaker:And I say, may um for two things.
Speaker:One is that depending on what you sell Amazon FBA may or may not be viable
Speaker:if you sell something really huge.
Speaker:For example, the oversize storage fees probably gonna make it not worth your
Speaker:while equally, if you send her something really small, um, you know, the postage
Speaker:costs may not work for you either.
Speaker:So this isn't something for everyone.
Speaker:However, for some of you, it might, it definitely might be worth trying.
Speaker:Um, And I say, when I say trial, I don't mean sending hundreds of units to Amazon.
Speaker:I mean, sending 10, you know, something really low and just
Speaker:see if having a prime offer, does anything to increase your sales.
Speaker:Um, if you don't fancy try in this, or if, you know, you know, it's just not going
Speaker:to work for your products, you could at the very least, and I would suggest you do
Speaker:this anyway offer free shipping on Amazon.
Speaker:Even if you need to increase your product price to accommodate this
Speaker:so maybe it's not exactly free.
Speaker:Um, it would just then look comparable in terms of shipping cost.
Speaker:And because something we do see on Amazon is the customers can be a bit
Speaker:pissed off when they look at a product and then they say, oh, now I have to
Speaker:pay three pound 50 or three pound 99, wherever it is postage, where it's
Speaker:a single price with free shipping and that can help with conversion.
Speaker:So my next Amazon suggestion is to try using Amazon sponsored products for
Speaker:advertising your products on Amazon.
Speaker:If you're not running any ads on Amazon now, I definitely think it could be
Speaker:worth giving them a try if you've run ads before and they haven't gone that
Speaker:well perhaps give them another try.
Speaker:Um, as I've said before, it can be really hard to get those first sales on Amazon.
Speaker:Um, and even if you've been on there for a while, the first bit is a bit
Speaker:of a slog until you get into the point where you're making consistent
Speaker:sales every day, you really need to be doing something to encourage people.
Speaker:Well, first of all, to help them find your listing and then to encourage them to buy
Speaker:it, which we'll talk about in a moment.
Speaker:Um, so investing a little bit in advertising can
Speaker:really help get things going.
Speaker:I want to say a little bit.
Speaker:I do mean a little.
Speaker:If you've ever worked with me, you will know that I'm not a fan
Speaker:of spending lots of your money.
Speaker:And I do think that you can run a successful advertising campaign on Amazon
Speaker:as a small business for somewhere between five pounds and 10 pounds a day or less,
Speaker:if five pounds, your maximum budget.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:You just have to be sure that you're managing your campaigns and you're
Speaker:keeping an eye on your money and, um, you get a return on it there
Speaker:are, lots of advertising options.
Speaker:I'm not going to talk about Amazon advertising in detail.
Speaker:If you want me to do an episode specifically on that, let me know.
Speaker:Um, equally.
Speaker:I can, you can book a power hour with me where we can spend time just looking
Speaker:at your advertising either setting up a campaign or tweaking an existing one
Speaker:and improving it, whatever you need.
Speaker:So you can, um, find more about that on my website, VickiWeinberg.
Speaker:Um, but if you are just starting out, I suggest sticking with keyword targeting.
Speaker:So that means just targeting the things that people might
Speaker:be typing in the search bar.
Speaker:If they're looking for a product like yours and starting with a low
Speaker:daily budget, because you can always increase it once you're making sales.
Speaker:And you've got something to put back in.
Speaker:Another thing you can look at on Amazon is deals.
Speaker:So if your products are eligible and they're not always eligible,
Speaker:you can take part in Amazon deals.
Speaker:Um, you can read on seller central what the eligibility criteria is.
Speaker:Um, although one of them is that you need to be using Amazon FBA.
Speaker:So if you're not doing that already, um, unfortunately.
Speaker:You might be at, to take part in deals at this time.
Speaker:So deals can be like a lightning deal, which is a good discount
Speaker:over a period of a few days.
Speaker:Um, you can also set up deals for a week.
Speaker:They've also deals for Prime Day and Black Friday.
Speaker:Um, and to take part in any of these, as well as using FBA, you'll also
Speaker:have to give a minimum discount on a set number of products.
Speaker:And this is criteria that Amazon will set out for you before you commit to anything.
Speaker:And assuming that you're happy with.
Speaker:You know, the criteria that Amazon, um, give you, you set up your offer
Speaker:and it will be included on the Amazon deals page, um, or that you can't
Speaker:actually specify how prominent this is.
Speaker:So there's no guarantee you're going to be featured very heavily.
Speaker:Um, but you know, you will, there are people who go to Amazon just to look
Speaker:for deals and your product will be there
Speaker:another option for you is promotions.
Speaker:So wherever you're using Amazon FBA or wherever you're
Speaker:fulfilling orders yourself, you can always set up promotions.
Speaker:So what you can do here is either offer a discount on your product or
Speaker:set up a buy one, get one free deal.
Speaker:So these are displayed on the product listing and might be a
Speaker:good way of encouraging the sale.
Speaker:Particularly if the offer is time limited, which something I always recommend.
Speaker:So you could set up these promotions so you need a code to redeem the offer,
Speaker:which you could include in your email newsletter, for example, or perhaps in
Speaker:your packaging to encourage a repeat purchase, or you can just make this
Speaker:information available to everyone.
Speaker:Um, personally, I think the same thing applies that I spoke about right at the
Speaker:beginning of this episode, which is offer the best deal that you can for short
Speaker:periods, rather than having, you know, 5% off indefinitely, if you can offer 20% off
Speaker:for a week of a weekend or whatever suits you, I think that's going to be much more
Speaker:attractive and hopefully encourage people.
Speaker:So the other option is vouchers.
Speaker:So you can set up a voucher which will be displayed on your product listing
Speaker:and gives a discount at the checkout.
Speaker:Um, these work in a similar way to promotions, although by default,
Speaker:these are open to all customers.
Speaker:So, um, if you set up a voucher, this isn't something that you
Speaker:could set up just for people who've signed up for your mailing list.
Speaker:For example, vouchers are displayed on the product listing.
Speaker:When someone takes a look, they click on the voucher and then they
Speaker:get a discount applied to that.
Speaker:Or.
Speaker:And my final Amazon suggestion is Amazon vine.
Speaker:Um, and it's not technically a way of getting more sales, but I
Speaker:think it is in a roundabout way.
Speaker:What this Amazon Vine is, um, it's an Amazon approved way of getting
Speaker:reviews from verified customers.
Speaker:So what happens is you need to have a stock in FBA to it to even apply.
Speaker:You need to be willing to give away some products to reviewers and
Speaker:Amazon will specify how many you need to do, but this can really help.
Speaker:Increase your, review count, although for a fee in a way that Amazon approves,
Speaker:um, you might be thinking, well, why am I suggesting this?
Speaker:Well, I'm a big fan of products having reviews.
Speaker:As they, as I mentioned earlier, they really do help customers
Speaker:choose to buy from you.
Speaker:And if you're struggling to get reviews yeah because I
Speaker:know it's really, really hard.
Speaker:Amazon buying could be an option because hopefully by increasing the number of
Speaker:reviews, you've got increases your social proof and will help with your conversions.
Speaker:So you can apply for Amazon vine and you can say, okay, I'm happy
Speaker:to give, let's say 20 units.
Speaker:so you are actually giving products away I should mention.
Speaker:Um, and the Amazon then contact the volume of viewers and say, we've got 20 of these.
Speaker:Who was there anyone like to have one and review it and then the customer has it.
Speaker:And then you get a verified review on your listing.
Speaker:Um, I think it's really worthwhile just to be really clear here.
Speaker:You're not necessarily going to get good review that isn't, you know, Vine
Speaker:isn't about giving five star reviews.
Speaker:However, if you have a great product and I'm sure you do have great
Speaker:products, there's no reason you wouldn't get a five star review.
Speaker:Um, but just to be super clear, If you sign up for Vine and then someone
Speaker:doesn't like your product for any reason and gives you a bad review.
Speaker:Um, unfortunately that's just a risk you have to take, but if you
Speaker:have a good product, as I say, hopefully it will never be an issue.
Speaker:So what am I missing?
Speaker:I am certain that you have better ideas than me, and I would
Speaker:absolutely love to hear them.
Speaker:If you're not there already, please do join my free Facebook group, the
Speaker:product creators club, which you can find by searching on Facebook.
Speaker:Um, this is a discussion we're going to be having in the group, I
Speaker:would love for you to be part of it.
Speaker:I'd love to hear your ideas.
Speaker:If you've tried any of these ideas, I'd love to know how they work for you.
Speaker:Um, so, you know, do, let me know.
Speaker:I really do like to hear from you.
Speaker:And I should also mention that I've had so many previous podcasts guests.
Speaker:Who've had loads of great ideas and loads, great experiences.
Speaker:So if you are looking for ideas to boost your sales, I really do recommend
Speaker:listening in to others and seeing what inspires you and what ideas you can take.
Speaker:As well.
Speaker:So as always, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker:Thank you for being here until the end.
Speaker:Um, have a lovely rest of your day and I will be back with another guest next week.
Speaker:Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end of this episode.
Speaker:If you've enjoyed it, please do leave me a review that really helps
Speaker:other people to find this podcast.
Speaker:Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and
Speaker:do tell your friends about it too.
Speaker:If you think that they also might enjoy it, you can find me@vickyweinberg.com.
Speaker:There you'll find links to all of my social channels.
Speaker:You'll find lots more information.
Speaker:All of the past podcast episodes and lots of free resources too.
Speaker:So again, that's Vicki weinberg.com.
Speaker:Take care, have a good week and see you next time