I moved home last week and spent a couple of weeks trying to sell out the big chunks of furniture from my house. I’m in transit and we’ve been living this nomadic life so the furniture is not pure wood or vintage pieces. This would be the big cot and twin cots, dining table and chairs, and recliners. I was successful at selling all pieces but one – the recliner. One of them got left behind. This is my experience as an impromptu sales person.
So let me start at the beginning and list out my learnings. But first off, let me explain where I come from and how the application of learnings from school makes a difference. This is an interesting way to test out if people actually read the content or copy in your advertisements. I have been a writer for most of my life I started my career in Advertising- so, copy has been a big part of my life. I am also a little obsessed with what and how I use things. And anyone who has had the luck to take my hand-me-downs would tell you that I keep things working and in good condition all the time. Even when I don’t use it. This is one of the reasons I got myself certified in UI/UX. I will elaborate on the experience a little further down in this write-up.
Round 1:
Visual:
The visuals are clean and precise. The products to sell were cots and recliners.
Copy: This was the copy I had placed along with each visual.
For sale:
1 twin-size cot size 140X200, from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. No Mattress.
1 twin-size cot size 140X200, from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. No Mattress.
1 King-size cot size 180X200, from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. No Mattress. Regular wear and tear. Around 2 years old.
Recliners from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00 for 1 piece and AED XX.00 for 2 pieces. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. Gently used. Around 2 years old.
My quote was well below 50% of the market price for the same product. My pieces were in good condition. The ads were sent vis WhatsApp to a couple of sellers I had contacted earlier. But the main part of this advertisement was created to place on the FB marketplace.
Feedback: These were the queries that I received, and I have placed them here and gone back to tweak the message on my copy and visual as the case arose.
Best price? Can you come down to (a quote of almost 60% of the quoted price)?
Bed with side table? How much for a side table?
Bed with the mattress? How much for the mattress? Can you sell mattress also?
Modified Ads / Round 2:
Visuals:
I modified the visuals to include details of the product I was going to sell. I was living in the same space while I waited for the purchaser to pick up the pieces, so I was not going to rearrange the house all that much. Hence, while I had only posted the cot, AND I had moved the mattress off the cot, to make the point, I was unable to move the side tables around. So those questions remained. Again, the copy was modified to suit the visuals:
For Sale:
1 twin-size cot size 140X200, from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. No Mattress. No side tables.
1 twin-size cot size 140X200, from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. No Mattress. No side tables.
1 King-size cot size 180X200, from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. No Mattress. Regular wear and tear. Around 2 years old. No side tables.
Recliners from (brand name). Cost: AED XX.00 for 1 piece and AED XX.00 for 2 pieces. Negotiable. No Transport. Pay and Pick-up only. Gently used. Around 2 years old.
Feedback:
I had the requests added. No mattress and no side tables. Location updated. The last one is important because, for the buyers to organize the pick-up they needed to pre-negotiate the location that included the from and to addresses. Some of the buyers dropped off as the pickup and drop off worked out to be more than the actual cost of the object itself. This was something I had accounted for. And cost. This is something that everyone negotiates over. From individuals to furniture resellers, everyone wants to negotiate and feel like they have a good deal.
So, what were the real learnings from this exercise?
For a housewife trying to get rid of old furniture, as an expat, I would curtail my learnings for any future sales I may want to make of pre-laminated or manufactured wood furniture. This includes economical brands like Ikea, HomeBox, Home Centre, etc.
Time: Here I am referring to the actual duration of the time it takes to ensure that the product that you want to sell, moves from your home to its next point of residence. This includes the time when you decide to put up your advertisements until the time you remove your listings or the product leaves your home. Usually this can get done in a day. But, I have had the experience of this dragging on for a couple of weeks as well.
Tip: Plan for and add a couple of weeks as well.
Cost: Posting on the marketplace- on a social networking site, is a free-for-all. Adding the word, ‘Negotiable’ ensures that you are ready mentally for hagglers. Everyone negotiates. Everyone loves a good bargain. Never hesitate to quote your price and stick to it.
I have sold furniture to an individual who was making the purchase for his family, and on their request even ‘gifted’ (since they did not pay for it) a snake plant. But, at the same time, when a buyer came home and insisted that the cost of a product was a quarter of the quote because it had a few nicks, I refused to make the sale. And when they ‘demanded’ that I sell my mattress, (which set me back by a couple of thousands) or alternatively sell the side tables, I refused just on principle. The product did get sold, at a mutually acceptable cost, that I had prepared for earlier.
Cost estimations: This is based on the actual price of the product in the market today, as against the cost you paid for it and how worn out it really is. if you are careful, then this amount need not be a steal, but a good bargain. Here, do add a lower limit- this is the lowest you would go to to ensure the sale is completed.
Tips:
- Having your furniture photographed without any distractions in the best light you receive makes for an amazing visual for a purchaser.
- Distractions can lead to a lot of back-and-forth conversations on, is (a) included; or is (b) included; or what is the cost if you include (a) and (b).
- Patience is a virtue. buyers like to talk. And online, this becomes one-word conversations. Like, ‘available?’; or ‘location?’ or ‘Transport?’. So, you can respond in monosyllables or two-word sentences. I alternated between ‘No Transport’ to ‘This is a pay and pick-up product’ depending on when I saw the message.
For me, completing the sales cycle was a priority. My target audience was ‘anyone who wanted the furniture- irrespective of individual buyers or re-sellers of used furniture’. The products are out of my house and that’s the end of the story for me. Thankfully there are no after-sales that I must handle or service logistics I must consider.
Where does UI/UX come into the picture, well between version 1 and version 2 of visual and copy changes, I also made some slight tweaks to the content. This was a paragraph I included in a couple of ads, and this got me responses from individuals.
Some cots are just so comfortable to look at that they invite you in for a nap. This (brand name) piece is one such model that makes you feel at home and relaxed. The mattress sits perfectly on top and makes the headboard comfortable to lean on. The height of the headboard makes it perfect to use clip-on reading lights.
Not furniture resellers. And that was important. As a writer, I was curious to see if any of the people who saw my ad were reading the content. Honestly, I put this down out of frustration, because sometimes, I got questions like, ‘Location?’ – when the location had been clearly mentioned. The result was interesting. I did have a couple of women who enquired about the products and it was clear that they had read the advertisement and the description I had included. However, as a seller, I gave it off to the person that came in first, paid, and picked it.
The experience of how you use a product makes a difference. When you include details of how you have used the product and how comfortable it really is, your audience is interested to continue the conversation. I am confident, if I had the time, then I may have had individual buyers.
This exercise in sales forced me to face the universal truth that, we are all ‘salespeople’. We all sell concepts, ideas, objects, beliefs – everything. When you convince your mom to increase the screen time on your device so you can finish that last 15 minutes of your game even though you have spent most of the day on your device or when you convince your teacher, that a free period is better spent out in the field than sitting in class watching a documentary, we sell. And when selling, it’s best to note down and keep track of all the learnings. This will help you hone your skills, making you understand market dynamics and people dynamics, and depending on where your interest lies and what you are good at you either become a salesperson or a diplomat. 😉
Just a little more 