Tag: products

How Google Lens is Getting Your Products Found Online

Google is constantly innovating and testing new features, and augmented reality (AR) is a hot topic right now.

You might think of AR as a way to make digital images appear in your living room. But Google’s visual search technology for Android, Google Lens, does a lot more than that.

It enables you to bring your physical environment into the digital world.

What Is Google Lens?

Google Lens is an image recognition technology that allows users to interact with real-world objects using their phone’s camera.  

Using AI, Google’s technology interprets the objects on your phone camera and provides additional information. It can scan and translate text, see furniture in your house, and help you explore local landmarks.

Google Lens is integrated directly into the camera on some phone models. If it doesn’t come pre-loaded on your device, there’s also an app you can download from the Google Play store to try it out.  

Uses of Google Lens

Have you ever been traveling and wished you could read that train ticket in a foreign language? With Google Lens, just hover your phone camera over it, and it will translate the text for you.

You can also use Google Lens to learn about your environment in other ways. If you point your camera at a nearby landmark, you’ll see historical facts and information about opening hours. If you use it on an animal or plant, it can identify the type of flower or the breed of dog.

When eating out at a restaurant, you see which items on the menu are most popular (this information is pulled from Google Maps). Students can even use it to help them with their homework: if they hover over an equation, they’ll get a step-by-step guide to solve the problem.  

But one of Google Lens’ most exciting applications for marketers, and the one I’m going to talk about today, has to do with online shopping.

Say a user is browsing on their phone and sees a sweater they like.

Rather than typing a long query into Google (“brown sweater, zig-zag pattern…”), the user can tap and hold the image, and Google Lens will find the same item (or a similar one), so they can buy it.

The app also provides style tips and ideas about what items to pair with the sweater. The recommendations are based on AI’s understanding of how people in fashion photos typically wear similar clothing.

Before the shopping feature came out, users could already search for clothing by taking a screenshot and opening it in Google Photos, or by pointing their camera at a physical item in a store. Long clicking on an online image for an instant search just makes the whole process easier.

In the future, Google plans to make AR showrooms available, so shoppers may soon be able to try on clothes at home virtually.

How Can E-commerce Businesses Optimize for Google Lens?

Once SEOs experiments with the long click search, we’ll gain some more insights into what works and what doesn’t with that specific feature.

But we know a fair bit since Google Lens and image search have been around for a few years.

Here’s what you do if you want to optimize for Google Lens:  

Get Your Products to Appear on Google Lens

Before we get into specifics about image optimization, you’ll want to make sure your product listings show up on Google. So how do you do that? With product listings.

Product listings on Google are free. You can also run a paid campaign on Google Shopping if you want, although Shopping now offers free listings as well.

If you take advantage of Google’s free product listings, your products will show up in Google Search, Google Images, Google Shopping, and Google Lens searches. However, they need to follow Google’s policies, and you’ll need to do one of the following two things:

  1. Open a Google Merchant Center account and create a feed to upload your product data
  2. Integrate structured data markup onto your website

Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center lets Google know more about your products, so they can list them in search.

Here’s how to sign up for Google Merchant Center:

Go to Google’s Merchant Center homepage and sign in to your Google account.

merchant center signin google lens

Click “Sign in to Merchant Center” in the dropdown menu.

sign into merchant center google lens

Then, enter your business’ name and information.

business name and info merchant center google lens

Scroll down, and fill in more information about your checkout process, tools you use, and whether you’d like to receive emails.

When you’re finished, agree to the Terms of Service and click “Create Account.”

Once you’ve created your account, don’t forget to add your products.

You can do this by creating a product feed. On the home screen of your new account, click “Add product data”:

add product data merchant center google lens

You can then choose to add individual or multiple products.

Structured Data Markup

If you don’t want to use Google Merchant Center, you can still get your products to show up on Google Lens and elsewhere. However, you’ll need to add some structured data markup to your website. (In fact, I recommend doing this even if you do use Google Merchant Center.)

Structured data markup is code snippets added to your HTML that help Google better understand information on your website. Schema.org annotations are the most commonly used markups for SEO.

For example, Schema can tell Google that a specific page is a recipe, an article, about a local business, or an event.

To implement Schema.org markup, you’ll need access to edit the HTML on your site.

Google provides a helpful support guide on setting up structured data so that your site is compatible with their Merchant Center.  

If you use WordPress, there are also several Schema markup plugins. 

Once you’ve added the code, use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure Google understands your markups.

Follow Google Image Optimization Best Practices With Google Lens

Google Lens technology is similar to Google’s reverse image search, but with a more sophisticated use of AI. A lot of the same principles that apply to regular image optimization for SEO also apply when you’re optimizing for Google Lens.

Image Size

Large images that load slowly (or not at all) can hurt your SEO (as well as making your website less user-friendly).

Since e-commerce websites tend to have many images (as they should!), loading times are particularly important.

Use a compression tool like Compress JPEG or Compress PNG to shrink your images.

Label Images and Add Keywords

Make sure to use keywords and descriptive language wherever you can, for example in image titles, ALT text, filenames, and EXIF data.

Add image titles and ALT text via the HTML of your website, or using your content management system (like WordPress or Squarespace).

EXIF data can be edited locally on your computer. This data adds more in-depth information to your photo, such as the time and date it was taken and what camera was used.

Although machine learning tools like Google Lens rely more on image recognition than text when executing a search, adding clear and relevant information to your image can improve SEO and user experience.

Use High Photo Quality and Visuals For Google Lens

Another way to optimize for Google Lens is by providing crystal clear product images.

If someone long clicks on a brown sweater in a photo, and that sweater is a product you sell in your e-commerce store, you want your product to come up as part of their search. To do that, Google needs to understand the brown sweater you’re selling is the item the searcher is looking for.

Look through your website and replace any images that are blurry, cropped oddly, or don’t fully show items.

Ideally, you’ll want to use high-resolution images taken on a professional camera while balancing quality with file load time. Opt for a high-quality file format like .PNG or .JPG.

Google Lens vs. Pinterest Lens

Google Lens isn’t the only game in town. Pinterest offers a similar feature, called Pinterest Lens.

Just like Google Lens, Pinterest Lens allows users to shop for products from third-party retailers. Users can take a photo, upload one, or hover over a physical item with their camera to use the feature.

So what’s the difference between Google Lens and Pinterest Lens?

On Pinterest, there’s a lot of action going on inside the Pinterest app. Unlike the all-pervasive Google, Pinterest is a specific ecosystem with its own Verified Merchant Program and internal search engine.

If you want to optimize your brand for Pinterest Lens, make sure you have a Pinterest business account, get your products onto Pinterest using Catalogs, and join the Verified Merchant Program.   

Otherwise, many of the same rules apply as with Google Lens. To get found in Pinterest Lens, optimize your images by adding keywords in the filename, title, and ALT text, and ensure photos load fast and are high quality.

What Does Google Lens Mean for Marketers?

Advances in Google Lens search aren’t just changing the nature of SEO. They also represent a significant shift in the way people look for products.

Nowadays, if you want to shop online, you might go to an online store and type in a specific search term. When you’ve found what you’re looking for, you’ll check out and go back to whatever you were doing before.

But with Google Lens, every minute you spend online becomes a potential shopping experience. While you’re busy looking through social media posts, reading blog articles, or messaging friends, you might spot an item you like and start casually browsing through products.

Tech journalists have viewed Google’s focus on improving the Shopping and Lens experiences as part of a broader strategy to compete with Amazon… and they’re probably right.

Google wants people to spend more time in Google search and less time browsing e-commerce websites.

If you’re a marketer working in e-commerce, this is big news. It means in the future, fewer people might be visiting your website directly by typing it into the address bar. Instead, they may arrive directly via channels like Google Lens or Pinterest Lens.  

In the future, we may see brands investing more heavily in strategies like product placement as part of their marketing. If tons of pictures of a famous person using your product are floating around the web, people could then easily seek that product out directly with a Lens search.  

Conclusion

Google is always innovating and creating new and different ways to search. Google Lens is the most recent example of the search giants’ constant growth.

For e-commerce retailers, this new technology should not be ignored as it could very well be the future of image search.

As marketers, we’re expected to pivot rapidly as technology changes, and Google Lens is no exception.

Have you heard about Google Lens or Pinterest Lens? What are your thoughts about this way of searching?

The post How Google Lens is Getting Your Products Found Online appeared first on Neil Patel.

Why You Should Consider Selling Customized Products

In today’s global marketplace, it’s a great time to be a consumer. The rise of e-commerce means more and more businesses are striving to get the consumer’s attention, offering better prices and services just to keep them interested. With online sales representing 16 percent of total retail ad spend, business owners don’t want to leave money on the table.

The smartest business owners know that the only way to consistently beat the competition is by offering more value to customers.

However, if everyone in my industry is selling the same products, at the same price, how can I stay competitive? The answer: Create memorable experiences.

If you’re looking for a unique way to offer value to consumers, customized products can be a powerful, engaging tool that improves customer satisfaction and drives up conversions in the process.

What Are Customized Products?

Customized products exist as a way for consumers to customize their purchases and walk away with a unique brand experience.

Examples include:

These examples showcase the importance of offering customization and customization.

It’s not just a theory. Epsilon’s research found that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer customized experiences.

The concept of customization was designed just a few decades ago to promote exclusivity. Customized products were a status symbol, a vehicle to make consumers with massive budgets feel special.

Although that’s still the case with certain products (exotic cars and designer handbags, for example), rapid advances in technology have made mass-customization a possibility for everyone.

Still, despite the lowered barrier to entry, product customization maintains a certain allure to consumers. This begs the question: If the key component of customized products is no longer there (the exclusive status symbol), then why are consumers still so interested?

The answer is actually pretty straightforward: Businesses were operating with a fundamental misunderstanding of what made customization so appealing in the first place.

Reasons Your Company Should Offer Customized Products

What massive brands around the world have figured out, and what e-commerce business owners need to understand, is that exclusivity was only a small piece of the puzzle.

Product customization can have a massive impact on customer satisfaction, and by extension, your e-commerce business’s success. Why? Because not all of your customers want to experience your product in the same way.

Think about it. When it comes to something like marketing, we understand that different customers have different needs. The first-time visitor to your site needs a different call-to-action than the customer with the abandoned shopping cart. Customized customer experiences are nothing new, it’s just time that e-commerce businesses started to expand their customization horizons.

Where things get really interesting for me is when you start considering the potential financial value this brings to companies all over the world. Let’s not ignore the fact that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations. More specifically, it puts business owners in a win-win scenario.

When you offer dozens of different variants and options to users, you’re creating a more inclusive marketplace, and different consumers with unique priorities can still walk away with something they like.

Even more interesting is the capacity for testing. You don’t need to make everything in your store customizable. Instead, you can test for specific features and determine the ones that people love.

Over time, business owners can collect data and use this information to build product offerings that their customers are statistically more interested in. More value for consumers, more value for the business. Win-win.

Understand What’s Driving the Popularity of Customized Products

The benefits of customized products are pretty easy to measure. When a consumer can personalize a purchase, it gives them a chance to “stand out” and be distinctive.

Let’s use the example of a custom T-shirt. On the surface, it seems like customers are simply modifying something to maximize the value of that product. In reality, the experience is a bit more layered.

For the sake of analysis, let’s break down a study conducted by the Journal of Information Technology Management.

We’ve established that customizing products brings consumers a certain level of enjoyment. We can view “Enjoyment” as the umbrella category.

Within that category, there are two subcategories of enjoyment. On one hand, there’s “Use Enjoyment” and “Design Enjoyment.” Certain customers will fall into certain categories, depending on what they value in particular.

Each of those subcategories had its own subdivisions.

Consumers who fell in the “Use Enjoyment” category either enjoyed the unique appearance of the item or enjoyed the functionalities of the item that fulfilled their unique needs. Consumers in the “Design Enjoyment” category either enjoyed innovating or enjoyed participating in the design process.

You can use this framework as a way to test what your consumers expect from your business, but the key lesson to keep in mind here is that product customization should be an engaging, exciting process for customers.

Examples of Customized Products

All of this can get a bit abstract, so let’s take a look at a tangible example. Here’s how Dollar Shave Club handles customization.

They start with some strong and clear copy, and with a single click, you’re building your custom Dollar Shave Club box.

customized products quiz

From there, you’ll complete a quiz and come out on the other end with a straightforward recommendation and a strong call-to-action. Of course, you can further customize your options by scrolling down the page.

On the surface, this might look like just another way to sell their products. In reality, that’s only half the story. Every aspect of this quiz is designed to ensure that consumers are presented with a solution that accurately addresses their pain points.

Lenovo, on the other hand, actually lets you build out your dream laptop.

It’s important to keep the limitations in mind, of course. While the laptop would be customized, the capacity of the laptop is limited.

When creating your customized product offerings, remember that removing concerns about compatibility can make life much simpler for your consumer. Unless they’re particularly tech-savvy, they probably wouldn’t understand why certain components just don’t work together.

customized products kit example

Alleviating friction before it becomes an issue is one of the many benefits that come from creating a rich customization experience.

Tips for Creating Customized Products

All of that looks and sounds great, but how on earth are you supposed to create customized products for your consumers? After all, offering 100+ options isn’t exactly budget-friendly.

Well, remember that consumers aren’t just interested in custom products. They want customized experiences. Most business owners already know this. It’s the reason so much time and money goes into marketing campaigns.

Focusing on customized experiences helps you develop a deeper relationship with your consumers. They can buy products anywhere, but your business is the only one that helps them customize their experience. Those better experiences lead to customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and hopefully, repeat customers!

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the tools you can use to build tailor-made products and experiences.

Custom Fit

Whether you sell swimsuits, winter jackets, or everything in between, you understand that selling clothes online can be a customer satisfaction nightmare.

The biggest problem? Fit.

Everyone seems to have different definitions of small, medium, and large. While this can usually be fixed with a quick return and exchange, it tends to leave a bad taste in your customer’s mouth.

So rather than focusing on fixing the problem, let’s find a way to make sure it never happens again. Making it an engaging sales tool is just a bonus!

A Custom Fit quiz might seem simple but make no mistake: Making your customers feel more secure about their sizing choices means they’re more likely to purchase as possible sizing issues are avoided.

Customized Product Bundling

One of the most undervalued aspects of product customization is its potential for reducing friction.

When you offer to bundle an accessory with a particular product, you’re not just upselling to make some extra money on the sale. You’re addressing two possible customer pain points before they even arise.

Right off the bat, you’re making customers aware of the fact that a particular accessory is necessary to ensure they maximize their purchase. As a bonus, you’re able to confirm compatibility by clearly showing consumers which items they should pair together.

It’s a way to ensure that consumers walk away with everything they need after a single transaction. Further, it’s more than just a good sales tactic. It’s an effective, thorough customer satisfaction tactic.

Tips for Selling Customized Products

Maximizing your sales and profit margins is always going to be a priority, and every tactic here is designed to support that goal.

That being said, selling a consumer on the concept of customized products is less about actively selling and more about creating experiences that guide customers down the sales funnel with valuable information.

As far as I’m concerned, the best-customized experiences sell themselves. Of course, it helps if you’re building experiences that are so compelling and engaging that consumers can’t help but click the “Buy” button.

Use these tactics to drive conversions while still keeping the shopping experience engaging and personal.

Don’t Overcommit (Test the Waters)

All this talk of customized products might have you worried that you’ll need to spend tons of money on new inventory and be stocked up for potential buyers.

In reality, the process should start small. Unless you have a massive budget, your best bet is to test the waters and figure out what versions of products consumers are actively seeking.

If you’re experimenting with customizable T-shirt colors, you don’t need 50 new colors. Start with a few set colors, and give yourself plenty of lead time so you don’t have to rush production.

People aren’t interested in new colors? You can phase them out without worrying that you’ve let hundreds of dollars go to waste.

Customized Product Recommendations

We already discussed this a bit earlier, but the value of the customer quiz shouldn’t be understated.

Let’s say you frequently have website visitors that don’t have a well-defined shopping list yet. These are people who are just browsing and seeing what catches their eye.

Well, what if you could guide that person towards a sale, while also providing them with value in an engaging way? Sounds like a great way to kick-start your relationship, if you ask me. Keep in mind that 90% of consumers are willing to share their behavioral data if it’ll make their shopping easier.

By creating a simple quiz and offering customized product recommendations, you can accomplish so much.

For starters, customers will walk away with a much clearer understanding of their needs. They’ll also associate you with industry authority since your business showcased your know-how and expertise.

Beyond that, your consumers are one step closer to making a purchase through your site. All thanks to a simple, two-minute quiz.

Conclusion

Customized products are often seen as some sort of gimmick, a cheap way to offer variety instead of value.

Interestingly enough, I’ve found that well-designed customized products offer an impressive amount of value to consumers.

Consumers can be empowered by a process that simplifies their shopping experience. Or they can walk away with a deeper understanding of what they need from your business.

As long as your customized e-commerce experience is compelling, engaging, and generally value-driven, you can be optimistic that you’re enhancing your customer’s shopping experience and by extension, increasing your chances of making a sale.

What kind of customized products do you think offer the most value? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Why You Should Consider Selling Customized Products appeared first on Neil Patel.

The Good and Bad of Deadstock Products for E-commerce

E-commerce retailers face many obstacles in the realm of online business.

A common yet persistent issue is deadstock products.

The accumulation of deadstock inventory can drive up operational and warehouse costs. As more products enter the warehouse, the cost of storing unsold items can drain the valuable financial resources of your business.

What’s more, seasonal trends and products make it difficult to eliminate deadstock products completely.

How to solve this problem? This article explains how to avoid deadstock and how to get rid of it when it piles up in your warehouse.

Let’s start with the definition for deadstock first.

What Does Deadstock Mean?

Deadstock is synonymous with dead inventory.

These are items that haven’t been sold and are very unlikely to sell. If you don’t use an inventory management system, these goods likely pile up and remain forgotten in your warehouse.

An alternative definition of “deadstock” refers to goods that are no longer sold in stores. In this case, these deadstock goods, like unused or unworn shoes or vintage apparel, are sold at much higher rates.

For the purposes of this article, we won’t explore the latter definition in this post.

Is Deadstock Bad for Business?

Deadstock comes with a price.

Retailers won’t be able to recoup the cost of manufacturing products if they never sell.  

As a result, unwanted items take up space in your warehouse. A longer stay means more storage costs for your business.

How to calculate deadstock? To understand its consequences for your business, calculate the costs involved in holding onto these useless products.

List rental costs, utilities, equipment, insurance, and security used to guard your items.

Ideally, businesses make up for these costs through sales, but deadstock products remain stagnant in your warehouse. Instead of making a profit, retailers pay to keep these useless goods.

Deadstock also has an attached opportunity cost.

The space occupied by these items could have been used for “headstock” or highly profitable and bestselling items, which instantly make a profit for your business.

How to Avoid Deadstock

In my experience, you need to avoid deadstock as much as possible.

Business of Fashion reports that dead inventory costs around $50 billion per year for the US retail industry.

If a retail brand’s standard margin is around 60%, then a deadstock worth $40,000 represents around $100,000 worth of retail sales and $60,000 of gross margin dollars.

I’ve advised a lot of e-commerce stores, and I can tell you it’s best to avoid deadstock than to wait for it to snowball at a later time.

So today, I’ll share tips for avoiding deadstock.  

1. Improve Inventory Management For Less Deadstock

Inventory management is a major cause of deadstock.

Fortunately, an inventory management system can guarantee your inventory is monitored and managed appropriately.

Here are some popular inventory management systems:

  • inFlow Inventory: an inventory management system that can manage up to 100 products.
  • Sortly Pro: a cloud-based inventory management system that can handle up to 100 transaction entries per month.
  • Odoo: a free open source enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
  • ZhenHub: a cloud-based inventory management system for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

There is no right or wrong inventory management system. Instead, find a solution that meets your needs.

Once you have a system in place, keep track of the products on your shelves, as well as those that end up as dead inventory. In addition, you must identify the products with no sales or low sales for the past year.

An intelligent inventory management system can identify bestselling items, allowable return dates, expiration dates, as well as flopped goods you’re better off without.

2. Discount Potential Deadstock Items

Pay attention to what’s selling and what’s not.

Take into account the latest market trends. What are the popular products people love? How long will this trend last?

Seasonal products might be selling like hot cakes for the first few weeks, but the excitement fades eventually.

A good tip is to discount potential deadstock items by hosting end-of-season sales.

For example, Patagonia, The North Face, and H&M frequently have end-of-season sales to sell their jackets and coats once the winter season ends. This way, they can get rid of deadstock items and make way for next season’s collections.

Perishable goods won’t be sellable after their expiration date has passed. That’s precisely why you must monitor items that will almost reach their expiration date and then offer them at discounted prices.

Tools like Wasteless utilize AI to prevent food waste through a dynamic pricing model. By using machine learning, they can use variables like brand popularity, seasonal popularity, and expiration dates to determine the real-time price of perishable goods.  

Deadstock products for e commerce Wasteless tool

Of course, your profit margins will be lower than expected for discounted products. However, a discount helps you get rid of unpopular products, and it’s a lot better than stocking these goods in a warehouse and paying more for storage.

At the very least, you have an opportunity to make up for the manufacturing costs and break even.

3. Know Your Target Audience

This happens all the time: You promote the product, but it just won’t sell.

If an item remains unsold despite numerous promotions, your target audience probably doesn’t want them.

Every time you source potential products to sell, you must understand the conditions you are dealing with.

This is why market research and surveys are crucial to your success. The socioeconomic profile, gender, location, and interests of your audience can predict the outcome of the sales of your store.

So, before you pay for manufacturing costs, ensure your consumers want the product.

To get started, create a marketing persona for your online store. This doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here’s an example of a marketing persona that considers the demographics and characteristics of your consumers:

Deadstock products for e commerce Know your target audience

Another idea is to perform market research by sending regular surveys to pinpoint your customers’ needs. I highly recommend getting current customers as respondents because they’ve experienced your product and likely fit with the profile of your target market.

Survey Monkey recommends asking these questions to evaluate the product/market fit.

  • How did you find this product?
  • How would you feel if this product was no longer available?
  • What are the benefits of using this product?
  • What alternatives would you use if this product was no longer available?
  • Have you recommended using this product to anyone?

It’s best to conduct surveys regularly to identify opportunities within your target market.

Also, understand the items and trends that customers love and take them into consideration for future product releases. You can use inventory management software to identify products that sold out quickly to make sure you’re selling the products that shoppers need.

Having more bestselling items is key to the elimination of deadstock, and while you won’t always be able to sell 100% of items in your inventory, knowing your customers and assessing product/market fit will help reduce the accumulation of deadstock.

4. Diversify Your Products to Avoid Deadstock

You may opt to sell bestselling items only to avoid deadstock completely.

However, you must guarantee that most of the bestselling items in your store don’t have the same features or characteristics. Otherwise, you can get more deadstock too.

Having too many similar items may mean cannibalization. Some customers may prefer one brand or item over another, which leads to low sales numbers for other goods.

This is common for retailers offering similar items from multiple brands.

Diversify your product inventory to avoid this consequence.

A good tip is to add complementary products of existing items in your e-commerce store. For starters, complementary goods are products that are used together. They may be completely different from an item you’re selling, but their combination of complementary goods will sweeten the deal.

For example, if you’re an iPhone retailer, then add iPhone cases and accessories to your arsenal. As the value of the latest iPhone decreases, it may become more mainstream. Thus, more people will be buying your cases and accessories in the future.

Deadstock products for e commerce Diversify your products

Alternatively, you can offer an assortment of related products, instead of selling them separately.

For instance, Harry’s – a men’s grooming brand – offers a “Truman Set,” which includes a foam shave gel, blades, and razors packed in one convenient package.

Deadstock products for e commerce men s grooming brand

How Do I Get Rid Of Deadstock?

Now, if you already have deadstock, it’s time to get rid of it.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Return Deadstock Items To Suppliers

If you’re in the window to return, this may be the best option.

In the short-run, you’ll pay a small fee, but at least you can avoid a major loss and more deadstock.  

As long as the items are in good condition, you may be able to return them to the supplier. However, review the return policy of suppliers first to guarantee they allow this method.

Most suppliers have a restocking fee worth 10% of the merchandise. You’ll likely get an option to pay in credit rather than cash.

2. Put Deadstock in Clearance Sections and Bundles

What if you sold some items at a discount, but it just won’t sell? You can take it even further.

Find out the lowest price that you can sell these products. Then bundle related and complementary products together and sell them as a set.

For example, Glossier bundles related items together and offers them at a discounted price. Many beauty enthusiasts prefer a complete set sold at a discounted rate, rather than purchasing a single item with no discount.

Deadstock products for e commerce Put deadstock in clearance section

If you have a lot of stocks with the same item, get rid of them through freebies and giveaways. Consumers love to get free stuff, so it may compel them to return to your online store and make a purchase.  

During the holidays, you can bundle items to create holiday gift sets with an assortment of products.

For example, Soko Glam bundles miniature-sized skincare products and sells them as a gift set for the season of giving. Plus, customers who make orders above $135 will receive a Dreamy Satin Pillowcase while supplies last.

how to get rid of deadstock

3. Sell to Deadstock Buyers

You’ll likely lose some cash, but getting some money back is better than a total loss.

Here are some deadstock buyers to consider:

  • Wholesale: If you have a lot of deadstock in good condition, you can sell them to wholesalers. For clothing retailers, popular boutique wholesale clothing suppliers include Sugarlips Wholesale, Bloom Wholesale, Wholesale Fashion Square, Tasha Apparel, Magnolia Fashion Wholesale, and LAShowRoom.
  • Amazon Seller Central: Amazon has a Seller Central where you can adjust the pricing or match your competitor’s lowest price.
  • eBay: Deadstock consisting of repaired or returned products could be sold to eBay at drastically reduced costs.
  • Consignment shops and warehouses: These buyers usually purchase clothing, home goods, and old items that could be sold at low prices.
  • Closeout liquidators: These businesses can buy a bulk of your deadstock and resell it in their own stores at cheaper prices.

4. Donate Deadstock to Charities

Finally, if a product just won’t sell, consider donating it to charity.

Donating to charity is a popular option for clothing retailers. You can sell deadstock items to discount stores like T.J.Maxx or the Outnet as a last-ditch attempt to make sales.

Some foundations like The Salvation Army and Oxfam accept donated clothes.

We bet there are many charities in your local communities and cities. You can donate to any organization, just make sure it’s legal. Find a reputable charity where you can sell your items.

While you may not be able to sell these goods, you can claim a tax write off for donating them. If handled well, this initiative will make your business look good.

Conclusion

If you want to eliminate deadstock products, make an active effort to find products that will sell.

Use an inventory management system to track unwanted items in your inventory. Bundle deadstock products and sell them as gift bundles or give them away as freebies. As a last resort, you can even sell deadstock products to wholesalers, consignment shops, Amazon, or eBay.

There are many options to avoid the accumulation of deadstock and get rid of unsold items stuck in your inventory,

How will you avoid deadstock products?

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How to Get Your Products in Walmart Marketplace

As the most successful retailer in the world, it’s only natural for Walmart to have expanded into the e-commerce space. The Walmart Marketplace is among the fastest-growing e-commerce stores out there, so if you’re looking for an Amazon alternative, it’s a serious contender.

But how do you make the most of Walmart Marketplace? Well, let’s take a look, starting with how the platform operates.  

What is Walmart Marketplace?

As an e-commerce platform, Walmart Marketplace lets third-party vendors sell their products to the Walmart customer base. Once you register as a seller and upload your listings, your items appear in the search results alongside Walmart’s products and other Marketplace vendors.

You’re probably wondering what Walmart gets out of this, but it’s actually pretty simple. It’s all about moving with the times.

Walmart launched the marketplace back in 2009 to attract online shoppers and grow its customer base. By welcoming third-party vendors, Walmart can deliver a broader, more diverse product range to its customers, so there’s less need for them to shop elsewhere.

Why Should I Sell on Walmart Marketplace?

The most obvious reason why you should join the Marketplace is the potential customer reach. Since millions of people shop on Walmart.com, there’s already a huge customer base for you to draw from. If you haven’t quite figured out your target customers yet, Walmart handles this for you.

However, that’s not the only plus for vendors. Here are some other key advantages to becoming a Walmart Marketplace Seller:

  1. Walmart consistently generates a high volume of sales.
  2. There’s a major push towards attracting millennials with improved delivery options, increased brand diversity, and better customer service. If you target millennials, this is the platform for you.
  3. There’s so much autonomy. You set your prices and fulfill orders, and you build your own brand.
  4. If you’re a Shopify vendor, it’s easy to integrate your listings with the Walmart Marketplace platform.

Who Should Not Sell on Walmart Marketplace?

There are lots of reasons to sign up for the platform. Still, it’s not for everyone, and it all comes down to Walmart’s price guarantee.

Your product listings appear alongside Walmart’s items, meaning you may be competing with lower-priced merchandise. What’s more, you can’t sell on Walmart Marketplace if:

  • You sell the products on other e-commerce platforms at lower prices.
  • Customers can buy the same product for less on another site.

My advice? Ensure you can meet Walmart’s price demands before you sign up. Don’t forget to factor in shipping fees and other costs.

What Products Are Allowed on Walmart Marketplace?

There are over 35 product categories to choose from, including toys, games, and electronics, so there’s a good chance you’ll find a fit for you. Some items, like perfumes and seasonal goods, require special permission before you can sell them—contact seller support to arrange this.

Here are some items you can’t sell on the Marketplace.

  • Alcohol
  • Event tickets
  • Gambling products
  • Tobacco
  • Any food requiring refrigeration, i.e., not shelf-stable

It’s always best to contact seller support if you’re unsure about an item you plan on listing.

What products are allowed on Walmart Marketplace

How Much Does Walmart Marketplace Cost?

It’s completely free to sign up for a basic Seller Account on the Marketplace, but here’s a breakdown of what you need to know.

  • You don’t pay anything to list products for sale on Walmart Marketplace.
  • Once you sell something, you pay a Referral Fee on the item.
  • You don’t pay monthly or annual subscriptions.

The Referral Fee is a percentage of the gross sale price and varies based on what item you sell and what category it’s in. Referral fees start at 6% and go up to around 20%.

Think of the Referral Fee as commission. You pay Walmart a commission for introducing you to potential customers and facilitating a sale.

How Much Can I Make on Walmart Marketplace?

That’s the biggest question, isn’t it—how much money can I make this way? It all comes down to:

  • Managing your store effectively
  • Optimizing your prices

First, you need to know how much other vendors charge for items like yours. In other words, do some market research.

  • Check out competitor stores.
  • Research how much your items sell for around the Marketplace and elsewhere.

If you list an item at the same price as another vendor, Walmart automatically promotes the product that was listed first. For example, if you and vendor B both sell hairdryers at $40, but vendor B listed their hairdryer the week before you, theirs appears in the item listings before yours.

Want yours listed first? Drop your prices if you can, and watch out for competitors changing their prices.

That said, there’s no point in selling items for rock bottom prices if you won’t make a profit. So, you should determine your profit margin. Factor in costs like:

  • Referral Fee
  • Shipping costs
  • Returns fees
  • Your purchase costs
  • Any overhead costs you have, e.g., electricity, labor costs, and other merchant costs if applicable

Once you’ve identified your margins, it’s time to set prices. We can’t tell you how much you should charge, but you should be aiming for the lowest possible price. If you can’t “compete” with Walmart’s low pricing structure, it might not be the platform for you.

There’s good news, though. As of Q2 in the 2021 fiscal year, Walmart online sales jumped by a record 97%, meaning there’s a whole lot of profit potential on this platform if you use it properly.

Let’s look at how to do just that.

Walmart Marketplace Community invitation

How Do I Sell on Walmart Marketplace?

Onboarding onto Walmart Marketplace is relatively straightforward, but it’s even easier if you know what steps to work through.        

1. Get a Walmart Marketplace Account

First, you need a Walmart Marketplace Account. Here’s what you need to get started:

  1. A US business address and tax ID
  2. An integration strategy for uploading and managing your product catalog
  3. A company website
  4. An established selling history

Essentially, you need to show Walmart that you’re a serious seller. You’re someone who knows how to process and fulfill orders, and you prioritize customer care.

Walmart Marketplace Registration Form

The application takes around 10-15 minutes to complete, but the approval process can take a few weeks, if not months.

2. Register Your Business on Walmart Marketplace

Approved to sell? Now, it’s time to create your Partner Profile, which offers customers an overview of your entire business and all your policies.

First, click the link in the email you received from Walmart Marketplace. It takes you to an account registration page.

Walmart Marketplace Login

Once you’ve chosen a password and confirmed your business name and address, you fill out a W-9 so that Walmart can verify your identity. Here’s what the form looks like:

Walmart Marketplace W 9

After you’re finished with the tax paperwork, select how you want to receive payment. You can choose from Payoneer or Hyperwallet. It’s a good idea to set up an account with one of these providers before you start the application.

Finally, you choose your shipping model, including which regions you deliver to and which delivery options you plan to make available.

Walmart Marketplace Shipping info form

Next, it’s time to add some details. Include your:

  • Privacy Policy
  • Shipping Policy
  • Customer Service and Returns Policy
  • Key contact information
Walmart Marketplace Partner Profile form

It shouldn’t take long to work through the Partner Profile, and there’s no need to wait for approval before moving on to the next stage.

3. Create Walmart Marketplace Listings

Once you’ve completed your Partner Profile, it’s time to post some items.

  • Have your image source URLs ready before you start.
  • Pick meta keywords to include in your listings.
  • Make sure you’ve chosen an upload method. For many people, the “Bulk Upload” method is preferable because all you’re doing is entering product details into a spreadsheet. You don’t need fancy technical skills.

The first step is picking the product category. Remember, there are multiple categories available, so be sure to choose the closest match. Here’s an example of what the categories look like.

Walmart Marketplace Categories

Then comes the tricky part: How do you make your listings stand out? Well, it’s all about optimization.

  • Choose the correct category.
  • Ensure you upload at least four product images.
  • Optimize your title with keywords – use my free tool, Ubersuggest, for keyword ideas.
  • Include customer reviews if you have them.
  • Choose a competitive price.
  • Offer Expedited Delivery, if possible. Customers generally want their items quickly.

Why is it so crucial for listings to stand out? Because the best listings win Walmart’s coveted “Buy Box.”

Remember when we said that Walmart shows customers the earliest-posted and cheapest item first? Well, customers don’t just “see” this item first. It’s the default product automatically added to someone’s cart when they click “Add to Cart.”

“Add to Cart” is the “Buy Box,” and as you can imagine, it’s highly coveted real estate on the Marketplace!

Walmart Marketplace Buy Box

4. Fulfill Walmart Marketplace Orders

You need to follow some pretty strict fulfillment rules to maintain your spot on the platform.

  • Always acknowledge a customer order within four hours of receipt, even if you’re not shipping it right away. This is key to excellent customer care.
  • Customers can usually return any item they buy within 30 days. You can reduce this to 15 days for products like electronics, but it’s okay to give customers longer to return items, too.
  • You don’t need to accept all returns, but your exceptions must be reasonable, e.g., if the merchandise is soiled or removed from original packaging.
  • If you’re at fault, e.g., you send someone the wrong item, you pay the return fee. Otherwise, the buyer pays.

You must always offer at least two shipping options:

  • Free Value Shipping
  • Standard Shipping

You can also offer Expedited or Next Day Delivery, but these orders must arrive quicker than the cheaper shipping options—or you might need to reimburse shipping.

Walmart Marketplace Shipping options

Avoid late orders wherever possible. Unhappy customers reflect poorly on your overall rating.

  • Set realistic order cutoff times for different shipping options.
  • Add a Shipping Policy to your profile, so customers know what to expect.

5. Get Paid by Walmart Marketplace

The payment rules are a little complicated, but we can break them down like this:

  • Most people get paid every 14 days.
  • The payments received depend on Walmart’s internal payment cycle.
  • If your account is less than 90 days old, it takes a little longer to receive payment. Each item you sell takes at least 28 days to settle, not 14, during this time. Think of it as a probationary period.  
  • Payments received after midnight on Friday PST settle in the following payment cycle. In other words, this is the cycle cut-off.
  • Walmart posts payments on Tuesdays.

Refunds are deducted from your payments as they’re processed. You can view your transaction history by checking the “Payments” section in the Seller Center.    

Walmart Marketplace Payment

6. Keep Your Walmart Marketplace Account Compliant

Walmart cares about vendor quality, so here are some tips to bear in mind.  

  • Don’t list prohibited products.
  • Fulfill orders on time.
  • Keep your inventory up-to-date to avoid disappointed customers.
  • Ensure your products match the descriptions, and don’t send out defective items.

The bottom line? Maintain high customer service standards, keep your listings accurate, and don’t take on more orders than you can handle.

Conclusion

Now we’ve explored the inner workings of the Walmart Marketplace, there’s only one thing left to do—apply to join the platform!

Just remember to optimize your listings with the right keywords and best prices before you get started. For some extra help with your marketing and analytics, check out my consulting services.

Remember, you need to impress the Marketplace before you sign up, so it makes sense to do some groundwork first.

Have you tried the Walmart Marketplace? How is it working for you? 

The post How to Get Your Products in Walmart Marketplace appeared first on Neil Patel.

Compound (YC S19) is hiring to build financial products for startup employees

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Flexport is hiring a senior product manager to lead our ocean freight products

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