In today’s article, we are going to discuss giving you a comprehensive guide on how to sell online on Facebook, explaining all the features that will help you sell, in addition to providing plans and instructions that will improve your level of selling online on Facebook and achieve good profits.
Facebook is considered to be one of the most powerful social media platforms in terms of marketing power due to the very large number of people who use it in all parts of the world. Statistics also show that the Facebook platform is visited by more than 2.6 billion active users every month. Facebook is no longer the dating and publishing site it once was. Rather, it has become a huge marketplace used by merchants and marketers to sell online on Facebook and make a profit from the Internet because of the ease with which products can be published and sold, whether for free or through the “Facebook Marketplace” feature. “Facebook Marketplace” feature of the Facebook platform, or through paid advertising.
How do I sell on the Facebook platform
1- Selling from a Facebook Page
Selling through Pages is considered a professional method of selling online on Facebook, so you can create a Facebook Page in seconds and link it to your website or store, then start publishing your products or the content you are working on and build an audience that will follow you constantly. This method is used by major merchants and marketers to promote content or products.
2- Sell online through Facebook Marketplace
Merchants consider selling online on Facebook via Facebook Marketplace to be the easiest and cheapest way to sell their products, as all they have to do is publish images of the products and their information on Facebook Marketplace. This method of selling online on Facebook is characterised by its effectiveness, as very large sales are made using this method on a daily basis, and it is also free, i.e. not financially expensive.
3- Selling online on Facebook using Facebook Groups
This method is one of the best and most targeted ways to sell online on Facebook, but it takes some time. All you have to do in the beginning is create a group specific to the type of products you are working on and invite people interested in that type of product to expand your group and increase the level of interaction with it. The beauty of this method is that the number of members of your group will continue to grow and you will receive requests to join it on a daily basis, which will have a positive impact on the results of your work by using this group to sell online on Facebook and make great profits.
After learning about the methods of selling online on Facebook, we will now move on to explaining how to sell in an applied way using these methods. This will give you a clear vision that will allow you to choose the best way to start your e-commerce and profit from the Internet.
How to sell online using a Page on Facebook
Selling through a Facebook page requires the presence of some necessary elements in any promotion for the sale of products or services, such as the preparation of attractive images and a description that encourages the purchase. Therefore, we will now explain how to display the product, addressing these two components as they are essential parts of the product display process:
A- Product presentation
If you want to sell a product on your site, you must pay attention to the following display components:
1- Use of images
In order to sell online on Facebook and market your products well, you need to publish professional photos that will arouse the buyer’s curiosity and make them decide to buy from your store without hesitation. If you have a lot of capital, you can hire a professional photographer, but if you are a beginner, you should take professional photos yourself and use some artificial intelligence tools to improve the quality of the photos.
2- Use video to sell online on Facebook
Video clips that accompany publications help to increase the number of sales because the video brings the viewer closer to the product in a clearer and more realistic way. You can show your products from different angles, specify their size, weight and all their characteristics. You can also explain how to use them, either before or after the sales process, to help buyers use the product correctly.
3- Use animated GIFs
Animated image technology, or what is known as GIF, is considered one of the means to help market products, but in short, it is the opposite of video clips. Animated images can be used to convey ideas about the product in a nutshell, such as the colour of the product or its dimensions. This method is considered to be an auxiliary means of promoting your products and is not used as a primary marketing method.
B- Selling online on Facebook using a dedicated page
One of the first steps to selling online on Facebook from a private page is to create the page itself in a way that is compatible with the standards of professional marketing pages. Below we will present you with a series of 15 steps that you must take to sell online on Facebook:
Prepare good content for your products, consisting of professional photos and videos.
Be clear and precise when describing your products and don’t forget to include the price, which will save you time and effort when confirming orders.
Be in constant contact with your audience, set the working hours when you are available and let them know.
Customise the incoming messages section using the automatic messaging feature or the so-called Facebook Chat Bot to answer potential and often repeated questions from buyers. This will save you time.
Do not delete the price of the product in publications in order to send it privately to customers. This will arouse suspicion and you will lose the trust of your customers.
Be active in responding to your audience’s interactions and requests. This will earn you more trust from them and you will achieve great sales and thus earn more money from the Internet.
Do not rely on selling as the main objective in all your publications. This will make your audience bored, so create interactive publications where you ask your audience for their opinion on some products or listen to their suggestions and requests in order to work on preparing them. Do not forget to add a sense of humour and fun from time to time to build a relationship. A good relationship with your audience goes beyond the buying and selling process.
Make attractive discounts and offers to motivate your followers to buy, especially those who have not purchased from your store before. This can be an effective way to motivate them to buy and discover your products.
Do not miss the opportunity to take advantage of annual occasions and holidays to prepare special offers and products suitable for each occasion to take advantage of the increased demand for them during this period.
Do not forget to link your website or online shop to the page and make them consistent to create great movement between the private page and the website and double your profits.
Once you have developed your private page and gained a large following, inform your audience of the need to activate the messaging function so that you can write to them privately and promote your upcoming offers and ensure that your offers reach all customers, unlike posts that do not always reach all followers.
Support your page and extend its reach by creating paid advertisements, especially during events with high purchase rates.
Pay close attention to the statistics of your posts and the level of audience interaction with them. You can find all the relevant figures in your page settings. Choose the posts that have received the most interaction so that you can understand the behaviour of your followers and, on the basis of this, create similar posts to increase interaction and, therefore, sales. Increase the number of sales and make a profit from the Internet.
Do a live broadcast on your page from time to time to get closer to your audience. There is no harm in running competitions and then announcing the winners during the live broadcast. This will increase your credibility and gain more trust from your audience, especially new followers.
You can link your page to the WhatsApp service by adding a button with a link to your WhatsApp number to communicate directly with customers and confirm orders more quickly.
Selling online on Facebook through Facebook Marketplace
As mentioned above, the Facebook Marketplace is considered to be a very easy way to publish and sell products directly, without having to adjust settings, as is the case when selling online on Facebook through a dedicated page. Selling through the Marketplace is available to all categories of people, regardless of their level. It is also worth noting that, just two years after the launch of this service, the number of visitors to this branch of Facebook has exceeded 800 million users and is still growing. This is conclusive evidence of the scale of the commercial activity taking place in this section. Marketplace.
Stages of selling online on Facebook Marketplace
Below is a step-by-step explanation of how to sell products or services on Marketplace, so follow along:
A complete explanation of how to sell products from the Marketplace
1- If you are using a computer or Android phone, simply click on the “Store” icon at the top of your Facebook account.
If you are using an iPhone, click the menu icon in the bottom right-hand corner and select the “Store” icon.
You can also access the Facebook Marketplace through the direct link.
Once you have entered the Marketplace storefront, it will look like the image below.
2- Click on the icon (+ Create a new listing) to go to the next page.
3- Now you must choose to classify your product according to the existing categories.
4- Add pictures of the product, give it a precise description and then specify the selling price. Then click on the “Next” icon. You will then be presented with an option that will double your chances of selling: the possibility of publishing your product to 20 Facebook Groups of your choice. Once you have clicked on the ‘Publish’ button, the following will appear:
You can promote your product by clicking the Promote List of Products button if you want to run an advertising campaign for your product. On the other hand, if you only want to promote the Marketplace, you can simply click on the Close button.
5- Once you have completed the process of publishing your product on the Marketplace, you will have to wait for Facebook to validate your product and accept or reject it. Therefore, you must respect the rules of the Facebook platform before publishing to avoid having your posts rejected.
You can use the time while your post is being reviewed to review your post information. You can also share it with your Facebook account or your friends’ accounts by clicking the icon next to the “Share” button, which will display the following image:
The Marketplace storefront helps you communicate with your customers by providing customised messages that are displayed to them, these messages are as follows:
“Is this product still available?”
“I’m interested“.
Many messages are already provided by the Facebook platform, but there is no way to modify these messages.
Practical guidelines for effective use of the Facebook Marketplace
1- Pay attention to the quality and clarity of the images and do not forget to mention all the details of the product in your post.
2- Set a fair and reasonable price for your products and do not forget to monitor your competitors.
3- Do not leave the product without a price or with a value of 0. This will make you lose credibility with your audience and is not considered professional work.
4- List your product in the category to which it belongs to make it easier for customers to reach you.
5- If you have capital, it is okay to do some paid advertising to show your product to the greatest number of interested people.
6- During the process of publishing the product, Facebook suggests some groups that are interested in the same type of product as yours, and this greatly helps you to achieve sales through these groups.
Selling online on Facebook through Facebook Groups
This is considered to be a very good and targeted method, but it will take some time to build up your own audience that you can communicate with directly. Once the group has grown, you can invite members to join your page for the product you are promoting. Let us now learn how to create a Facebook group for selling online on Facebook.
1- Find the (+) button on your homepage and select a group.
2- Choose a cover photo for your group. Remember that your photo must be professional and give an indication of the content of the group.
3- Fill in the necessary information to identify your group. You can also customise the group as you wish.
For example: Do you want it to be visible to members only or to everyone?
4- To give your group a professional character, create a mailing in which you mention the purpose of the group and the rules to be respected by its members. Then start advertising your products and services in a professional way, as mentioned above.
5- Invite friends and people involved in the councils you are working on to join your group, they may become your customers in the future.
How to manage your group professionally
1- Pay close attention to the quality of the photos, as they play an important role in persuading customers to buy. You can use photos already available on the Internet or take your own photos and post them in your group.
2- Continually send out invitations to join the group to people who are interested in the same area as you.
3- Be an active participant in your group, explaining all the products you publish and proactively answering any questions the group members may have.
4- Do not forget to communicate with your customers who have bought your product and ask them for their opinion about it, and it is okay to ask them to share their opinion in a post on the group. This will help build trust between you and the rest of the group members and you will get more sales.
5- Surprise your audience with exclusive offers and discounts to encourage them to make a purchase.
6- Make sure that all your customers are satisfied by tracking their use of your product and monitoring their post-purchase reactions.
7- Listen to your group members and try to provide the things they most want.
Using combined online sales methods on Facebook
If you are working with any of these methods that I have mentioned before, or you are working with them separately and you want to increase the number of your sales and make more profit from the internet, you can combine these methods with each other so that you can have your own page for the group, or share your post in the marketplace in your group, you will definitely get better results using this method. Let us now explain what we have said in detail:
1- Combine the group with the page
You can benefit from selling online on Facebook by merging your Facebook Group with your own Page.
Go to the control panel of your page and click on the “Link groups” button. You will see all the groups you own, then choose the one you want to link to. You can also cancel this link at any time.
2-Share your Facebook Marketplace post with a group
This method cannot be linked in the same way as linking the Page to the Group. The Marketplace section allows you to choose twenty groups interested in your type of product to publish to. It can suggest one of your own groups if it matches the type of product you want to publish.
In conclusion, the Facebook platform has become a huge market full of opportunities to benefit from the Internet, especially through online sales on Facebook, thanks to the huge number of visitors who use it constantly, from all walks of life and with all kinds of interests and libraries. In addition, it is constantly developing its algorithms and features to provide the best possible service and differentiate itself from other competitors, giving you a golden opportunity to take advantage of all these developments to make a profit from the Internet.
