Facebook’s best online sales opportunities

Facebook is considered to be one of the most powerful social media in terms of marketing power due to the very large number of people who use it in all parts of the world and statistics show that the Facebook platform is visited by more than 2.6 billion active users every month. Facebook is no longer a dating and posting site as it used to be, but has become a huge marketplace used by merchants and marketers to sell online on Facebook and make a profit from the internet due to the ease of posting products and selling them either in a free way through the ‘Facebook Marketplace’ feature provided by the Facebook platform or through paid advertisements.

A- Sell from a Facebook Page :

Selling through Facebook Pages is a professional way of selling online on Facebook, you can create a Facebook Page in seconds and link it to your website or store, then start posting your products or content that you are working on and build a fan base that will follow you continuously. This method is used by large merchants and marketers to promote content or products.

B- Sell online through Facebook Marketplace :

Merchants find that selling online on Facebook through Facebook Marketplace is the easiest and cheapest way to sell their products, as all they have to do is post product photos and information on Facebook Marketplace. This method of selling online on Facebook is very effective, with very large sales being made on a daily basis, and it is also free.

C- 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 does take some time, so in the beginning all you need to do is create a group for the type of products you are working on and invite people who are interested in that type of product to grow your group and increase the level of interaction in 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 business by using this group to sell online on Facebook and make great profits.

I- How to sell online on Facebook using a Facebook page :

Selling through a Facebook page requires the presence of some necessary elements in any promotional offer to sell products or services, such as the preparation of attractive images and a description that motivates the purchase, so we will now go through the explanation of how to display the product, addressing these two components, as they are essential components in the product display process :

A- Product presentation :

If you want to sell a product on your site, you must pay attention to the following components :

1- Use images : To sell online on Facebook and market your products well, you need to post 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 money, 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- Using video to sell online on Facebook : Videos that accompany posts help increase the number of sales due to the role of video in bringing viewers closer to the product in a clearer and closer to reality, you can show your products from different angles, determine its dimensions, weight and all its characteristics, and you can explain how to use it either before or after the sales process to help buyers use the product correctly.

3- Use Gifs : The animated GIF technique is one of the most effective ways to market products, but in an abbreviated form, unlike videos. GIFs can be used to communicate product ideas in a brief way, such as the colour of the product or its sizes, this method is a tool to help promote your products and not a primary marketing tool.

B- Selling online on Facebook with a private page :

One of the first steps to selling online on Facebook with a private page is to create the page itself according to the standards of professional marketing pages. Here is a series of 15 steps you need to take to sell online on Facebook :

1- Prepare good content for your products, consisting of professional photos and videos.

2- 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.

3- Stay in touch with your audience and determine when you are available and let them know.

4- Customise your incoming messages section with an automated messaging feature or Facebook Chat Bot to answer potential and often repeated questions from buyers, this will save you more time.

5- Do not omit the price of the product in the posts to send them privately to customers, this will be a source of suspicion and lose the trust of your customers.

6- Be active in responding to your audience’s interactions and requests, this will earn you more trust with them and you will achieve great sales and thus earn more money from the Internet.

7- Do not rely on selling as the main goal in all your posts, this will cause your audience to get bored, so make interactive posts where you ask your audience’s opinion about some products or listen to their suggestions and requests to prepare them, do not forget to add a sense of humour and fun sometimes to create a good relationship with your audience beyond selling and buying.

8- Make discounts and attractive offers to motivate your followers to buy, especially those who have not bought from your store before, this method can be effective with them to motivate them to buy and discover your products.

9- Don’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of anniversaries and holidays to prepare special offers and products for each occasion, to take advantage of the increased demand for them during this period.

10- Don’t forget to link your website or online shop to the page and make them consistent to create a great movement between the special page and the website and maximise your profits.

11- Once your page has grown and you have a large following, inform your audience of the need to activate messaging to be able to send them private messages and promote your upcoming offers and ensure that your offers reach all customers, unlike posts that do not always reach all followers.

12- Support your page and extend its reach by creating paid advertisements, especially during events that are known to have high purchase rates.

13- Pay close attention to the statistics of your posts and the level of audience interaction with them, you will find all the related figures in your page settings, select the posts that have received high percentages of interaction to be able to understand the behaviour of your followers and accordingly create similar posts to increase the interaction and thus increase the number of sales and make more profit from the Internet.

14- Make a live broadcast on your page from time to time to get closer to your audience, it is okay to make competitions and then announce the winners during the live broadcast, this will increase your credibility and get more trust from your audience, especially from new followers.

15- You can link your page to WhatsApp by adding a button to add a link to your WhatsApp number to communicate directly with customers and confirm orders faster.

II- Selling online on Facebook through the Facebook Marketplace :

As we have already mentioned, the Facebook Marketplace or the so-called Facebook Marketplace is a very simple way to publish and sell products directly, without having to adjust the settings as in the case of selling online on Facebook through a private page, selling through the Marketplace is available to all categories of people at any level, and it should be noted that the number of visitors to this branch created by Facebook is more than 800 million users just two years after the launch of this service and this number is constantly increasing until now, and this is a definite proof of the extent of the commercial movement that occurs in the Marketplace branch.

1- If you are using an Android computer or phone, simply click on the “Store” icon at the top of your Facebook account.

2- Click on the icon (+ create a new listing) to go to the next page.

3- Choose to categorise your product according to the existing categories.

4- Add photos of the product, write a detailed description and set the selling price. Then click on the ‘Next’ icon, an option will appear in front of you that will allow you to double your chances of selling, which is the possibility of publishing your product in 20 Facebook groups of your choice, after clicking on the ‘Publish’ button.

You can promote your product by clicking the Promote Listing button if you want to create an advertising campaign for your product, but if you just want to rely on the marketplace, just click the Close button.

5- After completing the process of publishing the product on the Marketplace, you will have to wait for Facebook to review the product to accept or reject it, so you must respect the rules of the Facebook platform before publishing to avoid rejection of your posts.

You can use the time while your post is being reviewed to review the information in your post and share it with your own Facebook account or your friends’ accounts.

Marketplace helps you communicate with your customers by providing personalised messages that appear to them in the following format.

‘Is this product still available ?

‘I’m interested’.

Many of these messages are pre-populated by the Facebook platform, but Facebook does not provide the ability to edit these messages.

III- How to use Facebook Marketplace effectively :

1- Pay attention to the quality and clarity of the images and do not forget to mention all the product details in your post.

2- Set a fair and reasonable price for your products and don’t forget to monitor your competitors.

3- Do not leave the product without a price or set a value of 0, this action loses confidence in front of your audience and is not considered professional work.

4- List your product in the category it belongs to, to make it easier for customers to reach you.

5- If you have the capital, it’s okay to do some paid advertising to show your product to the largest number of interested audience.

6- During the product posting process, Facebook suggests some groups that are interested in the same type of your product, and this helps you greatly in generating sales through these groups.

IV- Sell online on Facebook using Facebook Groups :

1- Find the (+) button on your homepage, then select a group

2- Put the cover photo for your group, don’t forget that your photo should be professional and give an indication of the content of the group.

3- Fill in the necessary information to introduce your group, you can also customise the group as you wish.

4- To professionalise your group, create a pop-up post stating the purpose of the group and the rules to be respected by the members. Then start posting your products and services in a professional manner as mentioned above.

5- Invite friends and people interested in the boards you are working on to join your group, they may become your future customers.

V- How to manage your collection professionally :

1- Pay attention to the quality of the photos, as they play an important role in convincing customers to buy; you can use photos that are already online or take your own photos and then post them in your group.

2- Continually send out invitations to join to people who are interested in the same area you are working on.

3- Be an active participant in your group by explaining all the products you post and proactively answering all the questions of the group members.

4- Don’t forget to communicate with your customers who have bought your product and ask them what they think about it, and it’s 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 get you more sales.

5- Surprise your audience with exclusive offers and discounts to encourage them to buy.

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 ask for more often.