Selling handmade goods can be an absolute slog, especially when every other seller out there is just as passionate as you in getting something sold. So in today’s article, I’m going to be digging into four real-world examples of people selling handmade products on Facebook Marketplace and run their listings through my seven-point framework.
Exampe 1: Handmade Cold Process Soap
the first listing we’re going to look at is this one labeled handmade cold process soap. Overall, this is a pretty decent title. It’s clear exactly what we’re selling, and the only thing that I’d say is if we were to improve on this title, I would potentially include whether or not the soap is new, or also talk about some previews or teasing of exactly what types of soap might be available for sale.
For example, from this picture, it makes me think that maybe there are sets available for sale, but I’m not sure from the original title of this post. The next criteria on our framework is price, and whether or not that’s clear. In this situation, it’s not that clear because it’s listed at $7, but I’m not sure if this is $7 per piece of soap, or if it’s for all three in the picture. So it needs to be really crystal clear specifically what the $7 is for.
Just going through this listing a little bit more in-depth, something that I don’t really like is how this person is trying to use Facebook Marketplace to drive traffic to their website. Facebook Marketplace is not the place for you to be driving traffic for your website. It’s a place for you to be driving sales. So don’t try to sneak in different social tags like Facebook or Instagram pages in order to get people to try to click to those other places. Instead focus on all of your efforts being around, actually selling the thing that you’re listing.
Anyways, it’s really hard to even click any of these links that this seller has listed in the listing. So it’s not worth your time in your description. Overall for the photos I think that the seller has done pretty well. It’s clear that these are the sorts of staging photos that they might be using on an Etsy shop affairs.
One of the improvements though, that would make this stand out even better is some sort of size comparison for the soap. It’s really hard for me to conceptualize from the pictures that are currently shared exactly how big each stick of soap is so that I can actually compare it to whether it’s a standard piece of soap or some other larger set of soaps.
So when we start digging into condition, it’s really clear they’ve used the tag for new. So they get full marks for that. When it talking about the benefits to the buyer, this is where it’s a little bit more unclear. It’s not really clear specifically if there’s anything particular about the soap that I should know as the buyer and more motivation being given to me in terms of why I should buy this particular soap.
The last two points in terms of the savings angle, it’s super not clear in terms of if there’s any savings when I buy in bulk or anything like that. We talked about that in terms of just the quantity, is it $7 per stick or is it for sets, et cetera. And then the other thing is preferred payment is not really clear. It’s not clear exactly how you would like me to pay if I were interested in buying your soap.
So overall when we rate this listing on the seven-point scale, I would give it full marks in terms of the photos, as well as the item condition. However, I would penalize this in terms of the keyword-optimized title, the desired price benefits to the buyer, savings angle as well as preferred pickup and payment delivery method.
Example 2: Handmade Soap Gifts
As we dig into our second example, we have another soap example. And in this case, the title is handmade soap gifts. Overall, my thoughts on this title are very similar to the first listing, in that it’s not the worst title I’ve seen, but it also could be made much more specific.
It looks like from the pictures, there’s something related to baskets, and yet there’s no mention or use of the word baskets when it comes to the title of this post. As we dig into the price. I think that this is also pretty unclear. It’s unclear if this is $12 per basket, or if it’s $12 for the three that I see in the picture. You just want to make sure that it’s crystal clear and that you’re answering these sorts of questions upfront, as opposed to having to deal with these sorts of questions later on in the direct messages.
As we start to read this particular listing, I have very similar feedback to the first listing in that no one honestly cares about your Facebook page. So when this person is talking about how there are many products in their Etsy store or on their Facebook page, this is not relevant to this particular listing.
Remember you want to use Facebook Marketplace to sell things, not to necessarily drive traffic to your different Etsy’s page or Facebook page and things like that. Instead, what you should do is you should focus on getting the sale today so that after you’ve sold them, you can then share information about your website and get them to become loyal customers of yours in the long-term.
When it comes to the item condition, they do a great job. Again, they use the condition tag, which is marked as new. So they get points for that. And when we talk about the call-to-action here, this is where it’s really unclear based off the listing. I don’t know if I should be contacting you on Facebook Marketplace, if you want me to visit your website or if you want me to email you. And so this is something in which it’s a complete waste of space in terms of the overall listing because they have so many different calls-to-action for me as a potential buyer.
So you want to make sure that your listing is something in which after the person hasn’t read your listing, the only thing that they have to potentially do is to get in touch with you in terms of buying the product that you’re selling. When we move into the next point in the framework around pictures, I think that the pictures are okay. That being said, though, what I don’t like about these pictures is that it’s actually so ornamented that it’s difficult for me to sometimes tell what the actual product is.
So you can tell them these particular pictures, for example, that it’s kind of hard to decipher exactly what it is in this particular basket. And so you want to make sure that each of your pictures are crystal clear to the buyer as to specifically what they are getting themselves into.
As we start to think about the savings angle, this is where I do think this listing does pretty well. In fact, it indirectly mentioned the savings angle by mentioning how people will receive a free gift if they were to purchase this. And then lastly, when we’re talking about preferred payment, this is something that this buyer also doesn’t cover really well. So it’s unclear from reading this listing exactly how I’m going to pay you and what your preferred method of payment is.
So when we take a look at the seven-point scale, this is how this particular listing scored. You get points for item condition, as well as the savings angle. However, they wouldn’t score points for anything else on the framework.
Example 3: Medium Eight Ounce Handmade Soy Candle
As we move into our third listing today, we’ve got the title medium eight-ounce handmade soy candle. Right off the bat, this title is phenomenal. It gets full marks. And the only thing that I potentially do is include the condition in the actual title. That being said, though, it’s pretty crystal clear that this looks like a new candle. So it’s not a huge deal in this situation since they’ve done such a good job in specking out this size, as well as the type of candle in the title.
When it comes to price, this is something that is actually clear because they’ve mentioned the eight-ounce candle and it’s clearly for the $15. However, the images are not clear. So it seems like the eight-ounce candle is the one on the left in the picture. However, the seller seems to be including some other things on the right-hand side that seemed bigger than the eight-ounce candle.
Also what I’m curious about is you’ll notice how they have mentioned that shipping is $5. However, in the listing itself, it says that $7. So it’s kind of unclear exactly what the actual price is in this situation. I would give it something like half marks here, or maybe close to full marks, but in general, this could be made a lot more crystal clear.
Something else that’s confusing from reading the actual listing is that the listing talks about how there’s a 16-ounce candle available as well. So it would just be more helpful if this seller were to create a separate listing for the 16-ounce candle, as opposed to putting it together with their eight-ounce candle.
When it comes to the photos, this is where my feedback applies from what I was talking about earlier. You have to make it really clear, which one is the eight-ounce candle. I want you to imagine that you own a storefront and you need to figure out how to make it as simple as possible as to communicating what you’re selling and how much it’s for.
That’s exactly what you do if you were to split out these photos so that you would only show the eight ounce candle. When it comes to item condition, I can assume that this is new since they’re making them, however, if they don’t use any tags so this is not clear from this particular listing.
As we shift gears to talking about the benefits to the buyer, this is also a little bit unclear. I don’t know exactly what makes the soy candles special, as opposed to some of the other products we’ve seen today. Something that I will say that I really do like about this particular buyer though, is how crystal clear they’ve made it in terms of readability. Notice how this listing is actually a lot easier to follow along with because of the way that they’ve used emoticons.
So don’t be afraid to use emoticons or line breaks to make it easier for readers, especially when it comes to reading a listing on a mobile device. Aside from just using line breaks, I also love how she mentions a little bit about her personal story and how these are the candles that she’s been making and how happy she is that she’s able to sell these. This isn’t sort of personal touch that you’d often see on a site like Etsy. And so it’s great to see this on Facebook Marketplace as well.
As we move on to the final things, I think the savings angle is not really clear. And I also think the preferred payment method is not clear, but since it is done through Facebook Marketplace, I would say that this is actually going to earn points for me here, because you’ll notice that buy now button in which it’s going to be pretty crystal clear how I pay for the item when I’m ready for it.
All right. So taking stock of our framework, I’m going to give this one point for the keyword-optimized title. I’m actually going to go ahead and give it points for the price, because it does mention clearly in the title of the eight ounces and how that’s $15. I do think that the photos though, will lose points because it’s not really clear, which one is the eight-ounce candle.
And so you’ll lose points on that as well as the item condition, the benefits, the buyer, as well as the savings angle. However, when it comes to the preferred pickup method or payment method as well, this is crystal clear because they are using Facebook Marketplace’s default payment options.
Overall, this one is clearly still missing a ton of things. However, I hope you notice from this example that the title was much better than the first two examples. Hopefully, as we dig into our last example today, we will finally find something that is a little bit more serviceable in terms of meeting the criteria of our seven-point framework.
Example 4: Olympic Bathhouse
Digging right in, the title of this listing is Olympic bathhouse. Overall, I think the title could use some work. It’s not really crystal clear as to what you’re selling from the title. And it’s not really easily discoverable either if you were to think about what Facebook’s going to look for, as it tries to classify your listing.
That said, though, everything else is really good about this listing and let’s dig right into why that is. As we look at the desired price, this is crystal clear. We see in the actual listing, how they have mentioned that all products are under $10. So I’m going to let this slide because they are using a multiproduct slideshow for this particular listing, but it’s still crystal clear to me as a buyer that everything I buy from the shop is going to be under $10.
If you want to be even more specific. The only thing that I’d say is you could say specifically what the range is. However, I’m going to let that slide for this particular listing. When it comes to the photos, that’s where this listing really excels. These photos are fantastic. They’re clearly professionally staged.
And you can tell because of the rich hues that are being brought out in each of these sequential photos, and also how much detail that the seller is showing you as a potential buyer. As we work our way through this listing, you’ll notice how much more professional these photos look versus some of the prior ones we looked at, and so they should get full marks for the photos here.
When it comes to condition, this seller also hits the mark here cause they use the tag for a new, and so this is something that’s really nicely done. This could be put in the title, as I’ve mentioned a few times at this point, however, in this case, no one has actually done this in this space. And so this might just be an industry thing in which people assume that when you’re buying something that’s handmade and something like that, that it’s going to be new.
Something that I also love about this listing is that benefits are crystal clear to the buyer. They talk about how bar soaps don’t dry out your skin, as well as how there are no chemicals used. This is just flawless execution. That’s the best example we’ve seen today.
When it comes to the savings angle, that’s something that is actually alluded to. They talk about how there’s a spring cleaning sale right now. This is good, however, it could be better. For example, they could position the copy with more urgency, like spring cleaning sale, everything must go.
By having something more clear there, it would be a little bit more compelling for me to actually take action on that savings angle. When it comes to the payment method, it is not clear how they might want to be paid. What I do like about this listing is even though they do include a link to their website and they’re driving traffic to their store, it’s something which they’ve actually made it really easy for me to actually copy that link in and go to their website.
Some of the earlier listings kind of just shyly mentioned their website, but in this case, they’re actually including the HTTPS protocol, which I appreciate when it comes to actually visiting their show. Speaking of which when we visit their website, we’ll notice that they’ve sold more than 300 sales on Etsy. So that’s ballpark at least two grand in revenue over the course of their lifetime.
And you’ll notice why, right? It’s because their listing is just so much more professionally put together. It’s clear that when you go the extra mile versus your competition, you will stand out, especially when it comes to a space like handmade goods or homemade.
So scoring these guys on the seven-point framework, these guys score five out of seven in which the only things they lose points on are on the title, as well as the preferred payment and pickup and delivery method. I’m really glad we came across this listing though, because thanks to Alison the seller here, we have found a worthy listing when it comes to selling things effectively in the handmade goods niche.
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