CHAPTER 6 GUIDE
Listings That Sell
In short
A listing is everything a customer sees about one product: the title, the photos, the description, the price and the details. It's your only salesperson for that product, and it works all night.
What makes a good listing
Good listings are not clever. They're clear. A customer should be able to answer these questions in a few seconds:
- What is it?
- What does it do for me?
- Will it fit, work or suit my situation?
- What's it made of, and how big is it?
The listing bot
Give it a voice guide, just like a creator would. A few listings you're proud of, a few lines about how you talk and a list of words to avoid.
Using the customer's words
Remember the review research from Chapter 2? This is where it pays off.
Honest descriptions
This is the most important rule in the chapter. Every claim in a listing has to be true and something you can back up.
Titles
Titles do two jobs. They tell a customer what the product is, and they help people find it in search.
Photo shot lists
Photos sell more than words. A bot can't take them for you, but it can tell you what to take.
Details and specs
Size, weight, material, colors, what's in the box, care instructions. Boring, but they're what customers check before buying.
Listing on more than one site
If you sell on your own store and a marketplace, keeping listings consistent is a pain. Change the price in one place, forget the other.
Updating old listings
Every few months, ask the bot to look over your listings. Which products get views but few sales?
Walkthrough: one listing, start to finish
Here's how the clamp-on cable organizer listing came together.
What went wrong: "heavy duty"
An early draft called the spice riser "heavy duty". A customer put cast iron pans on it, and it cracked.
A worked example: two sites, one product
Shelf Life sells the spice riser on its own store and on a handmade marketplace. The marketplace has a shorter title limit and its own rules about how to describe items made with a 3D printer.
A worked example: the eco question
The Shelf Life owner switched to a filament made partly from recycled plastic and wanted to say so. The listing bot's first draft said "eco-friendly cable organizer".
Questions people ask
How long should a description be? Long enough to answer the five questions from the start of this chapter.