Contents in bullet points:

• A good way how to establish yourself and successfully sell on online marketplaces is to build trust with your customers and develop credible, outstanding seller profile. Here are three main things you should consider with this respect:

1) Get references and customer testimonials - reviews from your customers help to increase your trustworthiness and catalyse word-of-mouth marketing (e.g. customers spread the word about yourself and your products).

2) Improve your credibility - establishing a credible profile among the community of your customers based on providing credentials, engaging in forums and sharing experience, and presenting personal background information will help to build trust with your customers and boost your sales.

3) Stand out from the crowd - following tips and hints to stand out from thousands of other sellers on online marketplaces will let your customers notice and recognize yourself, leading to increased sales of your products.

A) References and customer testimonials

• Reviews from your customers will refer to two main attributes: A) your product(s), and B) your customers service (i.e. the way you treat your customers before, during and after the process of handling their orders). Both of these attributes are equally important and crucial prerequisites to obtain positive customer feedback.

• Your hard work to provide great products and customer service, can, in turn, lead to positive reviews. Seeing that others had a positive experience helps new customers feel comfortable making a purchase, especially if they have never purchased from you before.

• Also, how you handle unhappy customers can result in positive feedback as well. In any case, you should be confident that your products are good and your descriptions are realistic. Even though, however, some of your customers may be unhappy. In this case, make sure that you handle such situations professionally, as customers might in turn leave positive feedback about your great customer service.

• An experienced seller from an online marketplace for arts & crafts identified the following five ways to get great reviews:

o „Treat every buyer like they’re your first. Your shop’s success is dependent on the people that purchase from it, each and every one of them. I never let an order pass through my shop without reaching out to thank the customer personally. This means going beyond the automatic email that’s sent out when an order is placed and sending a direct Conversation message, written by me, expressing my gratitude. Not only is a timely thank-you note a great way to convey how much you value their support, but customers will often take the direct connection as an opportunity to ask last-minute questions that might be important to address before you produce or ship their order.“

o „Keep your shop honest. When you’re focused on capturing beautiful product photos and writing snazzy copy for your item listings, it can be easy to overlook the obvious question: Will your buyers actually know what they’ll receive after looking at your listing? Your photos and item description should set clear expectations for your buyers: Do your photos showcase each item’s size and what will be included with their purchase? Do your item descriptions answer any possible questions buyers might have?“

o „Deal with mistakes right away. Mistakes happen, no matter how hard we try to prevent them. Customer service snafus can be a total nightmare, and no matter who is in the right, ask yourself, is it worth arguing with a customer? What solution would you want if the situation was reversed? For me, this is the most painful aspect of running a shop on online marketplace, although the best solution is often a no-brainer: Give the buyer what they’re looking for, and come up with ways to prevent the same issue from happening in the future. While this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, I can say from experience that what may initially feel like a loss can result in a worthwhile gain down the line.“

o „Ask yourself, “Is there anything else I can do?” Think about what else you can you do for your buyer to ensure an exceptional experience. For me, this often manifests in how I package an order; I’ll include a little print as a wedding gift or include a handwritten note congratulating the couple on their upcoming wedding. After all, who doesn’t love to receive a thoughtful bonus with their order?“

o „Always follow up. Strategically following up with buyers after an order is processed is great for a number of reasons. First, you enable your buyer to alert you if they had any issues with their order so you can resolve the problem before they leave a negative review. You can also inquire about ways to improve, and proactively make changes to your shop policies and workflow to prevent similar issues from happening again. Your final correspondence is also a great opportunity to encourage buyers to leave feedback for your shop. The messaging and timing of your follow-up message is key, since you don’t want to seem spammy or too aggressive. I normally reach out around the time the item is expected to arrive to ask the buyer if they’ve received everything safely and as expected. I’ll also give them instructions for leaving feedback if they’re so inclined - that way I’m making the process as simple as possible.“

• However, as a new seller you usually have one disadvantage – no one knows you, your brand or your product. So, how to persuade potential customers to buy your product then? You can try highlighting your offer (a paid option), but customers will probably not trust your products, as they look for “social proof” from reviews and testimonials. There are several options to get your first reviews:

o Ask your customers for review. Remember, ask for a “review”, not for a “good review”. Also, ask them only after the purchase process has been completed.

o Instead of asking directly, you can motivate your customers to provide a review by putting links on review site to your e-mail signature, or add the request to a message about another topic (e.g. newsletter, follow-up distribution of relevant information etc.).

o Add a small gift and a small flyer (e.g. business card format) requesting customer to provide a review about how he/she was happy with the product and customer service.

o Look for active reviewers, offer them significant discount or free sample and ask them to leave their feedback.

o Ask couple of your friends to purchase your product through the particular online marketplace and place their reviews. Remember, they have to be honest and natural.

o Finally, do not worry. After getting to know your customers well, you will be able to find and utilize the most appropriate way to receive reviews. To boost this, try to understand your customers using a market analysis.

• How should good reviews look like? Helpful and trustworthy reviews that will help you to build trust among your customers should have the following parameters:

o Include the "why": The best reviews include not only whether your customer liked or disliked a product, but also why. Encourage customers to make comparisons with related products or services they have experienced.

o Specific: A review should be relevant to the product the customer is reviewing and focus on specific features or his/her experience. For video and image reviews, writing a brief introduction is recommended.

o Not too short, not too long: Written reviews should be at least 20 words, and the ideal length is around 75 to 500 words. For video reviews, 2 to 5 minutes length is recommended to keep the audience engaged.

o Sincere: Reviews should not be artificial, but they should provide customer’s honest opinion about the product.

• In addition to reviews, sometimes you also can include customer testimonials in your seller profile or shop at the online marketplace. These should be excerpts from genuine e-mails or messages from customers expressing how they enjoyed your products or buying process. This last point is important - customer testimonial that states how your product benefited them is much more effective than one that just says something like "Your product is great!".

B) Improve your credibility – credentials, experience, background information

Here are some useful tips and advices how to build improve your credibility on arts & crafts online marketplace:

Providing credentials and personal information

• You can enhance your credibility by adding a section to your copy that outlines your credentials, experience and any background information that makes you qualified to make great products. Your aim should be to effectively convince potential customers that you are the right person to offer them what they look for.

• As online businesses have no face-to-face contact with customers, they have to find other ways to convey the fact that they are trustworthy. You should try to get as many accreditations as possible, including association and trade body membership. Join local guilds or groups to show you are part of the local community. Include endorsements, testimonials and case studies from customers on your online profile.

• Try to personalise your online profile as much as possible. When there's no face-to-face contact, it's good to have a human element on any ecommerce website.

Engaging in forums and sharing experience

• Online discussion forums are great places to give out tips and advice, answer questions, and acquire a customer or two.

• Use the forums located on the online marketplace you are using as your sales channel, but also try to Google search out some active forums that may directly relate to your product. When you post, ensure you aren’t breaking any forum rules when you promote your brand or products. Get to know the limits and restrictions of the forum, and stick to them. Using your forum avatar, signature, and profile page to promote your brand are usually well within the rules.

• You may feel the temptation to post and promote wildly, but keep it professional. No forum will tolerate constant promotion or posts full of links to your website. Bedsides, acting in such a way online will damage your brand in the eyes of other forum users. So, keep it simple by posting just enough for people to notice your activity, but not enough to constitute spam. Also, avoid coming screaming in, telling everyone what you have for sale. This will generally get you banned from the forum faster than you can say spam.

• Instead of trying wildly to promote yourself, always try to follow a customer-centric or "you-centric" approach rather than a "me-centric" approach. Try to provide value and genially help customers or peers with their problems.

• Finally, be patient and follow gradual steps to establish your trustworthy position in the forum. First, sign up, fill out your bio and “about me” sections, upload a real photo of yourself, but refrain from putting up links to your ecommerce website. Second, read and listen. The main point is to learn as much as you can from your audience. Remember, these are your future customers. Third, help. After you feel comfortable with your new community, feel free to help people. Helping people by responding to their questions and providing information to them will make you highly respected in any forum. Fourth, only now you should promote your products, but make sure you do it the right way. Start by going back to your bio and link to your website. When you feel really comfortable and if the forum allows it, create a signature that links back to your website.

C) Stand out from the crowd to let your customers notice yourself

• An important aspect of building your customers’ trust and earning references is to build an outstanding and consistent online profile on the online marketplace. This will let your customers notice and recognize yourself, leading to increased sales of your products.

• Try to grab the attention of "scanners" by changing the formatting and appearance of your advertisement, profile or shop. Very few visitors will read every word of your sales copy from start to finish. Most will "scan" your copy as they scroll down the page, reading only certain words and phrases that jump out at them or catch their eye. That's why you need to highlight your key benefits to grab the attention of people who scan rather than read online. These include:

o Using bold, italics and highlighting (sparingly) to emphasize the most important attributes or benefits of your offer

o Varying the length of your paragraphs so the page doesn't just look like a block of uniformly formatted text

o Adding sub-headlines that emphasize your key messages and compel your visitors to read the paragraphs that follow

o Leaving the right-hand side of your text ragged (as that's easier to read than "justified" text that uses the whole width of the page)

o Centering important--but short--chunks of text or sub-headlines to further draw them out of the main body of text

o Using bullet lists (like this one) to emphasize key points

• Before you finalize your online profile or shop on the online marketplace, make sure to go through this checklist to ensure it will stand out due its quality:

o Is your shop organized into categories?

o Is there too much clutter in the listings?

o Is there a shop banner and a shop window (if this is enabled by the particular online marketplace)?

o Do you have a profile photo and profile information?

o Do you have high quality, supportive product images?

o Are product descriptions clear and detailed?

o Have you clearly stated the services you will offer and other terms of sales?

• To build an outstanding profile on the online marketplace it is not enough to just setup a shop/profile and list items. You need to put clear and focused effort to ensure that these listings reach the right customers and are marketed correctly. Here are some tips from experienced online marketplace sellers:

o Create a strong shop: The first step is to find the right name and outlook for the store. An interesting name and shop description goes a long way in bringing in customers.

o Add a personal touch: Customers can relate better to a more personal welcome than a generic storefront. If they see a photo or you and a brief story of how you got there, they will feel more involved in the store and your products.

o Use quality photographs: Since the nature of online shopping takes away some of the buyer’s experience that is touch and feel of a product, it is important to offset this by using clear and high quality photographs. The better the photograph the more the chances of a buyer actually making the purchase. Photos should have good lightening, be aesthetically taken, show as many features as possible and be from different angles.

o Use detailed but crisp descriptions: Items listed in a store should be clearly and concisely described to help the buyer get a good idea of the product before they decide to buy. Any specific features and benefits should be clearly listed together with essential information such as sizes, dimensions, colours and materials. Additional information can include care instructions.

o Keywords: Make sure you understand and use search engine optimization techniques to help find and place the right keywords in your product listings and descriptions.

o Clearly state terms of sale or refund policies: If you want to set criteria for sales or potential refunds, make sure that they are mentioned clearly as part of your store information. This helps avoid unplanned situations and a potentially unhappy customer.

o Be a part of the community: Most of the online marketplaces’ (like DaWanda and Etsy) business model allows users to benefit from a close knit community. Forums help sellers get in touch with each other and offer tips and tricks as well as practical information and advice. This is a good way of building up your network and getting off to the right start.

o Use social networks: Social networks are a great way to direct buyers into your store. Use instagram, pinterest, facebook, twitter or tumblr to find the right audience for your products and leverage these for the sale of your products.

o Create a blog: Blogs further the personal element of a store and can help you continue to reach out to potential buyers and your community through updates and a personal journey behind your products.

• As product photos are an important attribute of creating an outstanding online marketplace identity, here are some tips related to them. Product photos are a must for arts & crafts online sellers. There are two main requirements: 1) provide a product photo, and 2) provided photo must be a good quality professional-like.

• Adding images will boost your product's desirability. Images of your products make them seem more tangible and "real" to visitors and are a powerful sales tool. They show buyers what they are actually purchasing but more importantly, good pictures make the buyer want to own the product in the first place.

• Quality and professional pictures of your products can help you to attract customers on the online marketplace and stand out from the crowd. A good product picture is as important as the product itself. There are two good news with this respect. First, you really don’t need expensive photo equipment to take great photos. Second, there are many do’s and don’ts guidelines to make good images available on the internet.

• Here is the summary of the main recommendations that can help you to take great product photos (adapted from dawanda.com):

o Background. Make sure that your product is easy to recognize by presenting it in a simple, neutral and full-coloured background. A patterned, grainy or poorly constructed background distracts from your product and has a negative effect on the general look and feel of the image. A good idea to put your product on a large sheet of paper so you have a clean background. White, Off-white or light grey are the most commonly used background colours, but you can also opt for something that matches your product. If you feel simple background is too boring for your products then feel free to experiment by adding extra elements. Just remember that the background should be favourable to your product and not distract from it. Also make sure that there is clear contrast between the background and your product so that your product doesn’t get lost in it. Make sure you use a similar background for all your products. This makes your shop page easier to view and enhances the shopping experience of visitors.

o Lighting. Whenever there is unfavourable lighting the camera’s automatic colour settings adapt to it and seldom show good results. Thus, try to adjust its settings manually. Also, don’t spend too much time experimenting with your camera’s flash when photographing indoors. The bright and direct light coming from your on-camera flash usually introduces harsh shadows and bright reflections and so, taking good photos with flash takes a lot of practice. Instead, try lighting the product with a lamp. A simple desk lamp can be used at a distance to illuminate your product from a different direction while emphasizing the shape of the object. If you have two lamps at your disposal then you could even try lighting your subject from two sides to fill-in any dark areas. Play around with it, practice makes perfect!

o Perspective. Perspective is key and choosing the right one can make all the difference in how your products are viewed. Some people choose to photograph their products from the front. Although a photo like this is fine, make sure you also provide other views of your creation. Experiment so that you find the perspective that makes your product appear the most authentic. A light angle of 45° works very well in most cases. Always ensure your main product image shows the entire product and not a cropped section of it. Fashion items look a lot better when displayed on people instead of dangling from a clothes hanger. A nice picture increases the chance that it will sell. We find that relatives, friends and acquaintances can be easily persuaded into a photoshoot. In an emergency you could use a mannequin, but in no case should you just photograph your clothes lying on the ground or hanging on a coat rack. This makes it difficult for buyers to visualise how the item would fit, or how it might look on them.

o To illustrate the importance of quality product pictures, dawanda.com tested how much a product photo influences customers by offering the same chain twice - once with a good photo, once with a bad photo. Both photos were taken with the item lying flat. The result was surprisingly clear. The listing with the good photo received 51% more clicks and 61% more visitors compared to the listing with the bad photo. This shows how worthwhile it is to invest some time and effort into creating great photos!

era’s automatic colour settings adapt to it and seldom show good results. Thus, try to adjust its settings manually. Also, don’t spend too much time experimenting with your camera’s flash when photographing indoors. The bright and direct light coming from your on-camera flash usually introduces harsh shadows and bright reflections and so, taking good photos with flash takes a lot of practice. Instead, try lighting the product with a lamp. A simple desk lamp can be used at a distance to illuminate your product from a different direction while emphasizing the shape of the object. If you have two lamps at your disposal then you could even try lighting your subject from two sides to fill-in any dark areas. Play around with it, practice makes perfect!

o Perspective. Perspective is key and choosing the right one can make all the difference in how your products are viewed. Some people choose to photograph their products from the front. Although a photo like this is fine, make sure you also provide other views of your creation. Experiment so that you find the perspective that makes your product appear the most authentic. A light angle of 45° works very well in most cases. Always ensure your main product image shows the entire product and not a cropped section of it. Fashion items look a lot better when displayed on people instead of dangling from a clothes hanger. A nice picture increases the chance that it will sell. We find that relatives, friends and acquaintances can be easily persuaded into a photoshoot. In an emergency you could use a mannequin, but in no case should you just photograph your clothes lying on the ground or hanging on a coat rack. This makes it difficult for buyers to visualise how the item would fit, or how it might look on them.

o To illustrate the importance of quality product pictures, dawanda.com tested how much a product photo influences customers by offering the same chain twice - once with a good photo, once with a bad photo. Both photos were taken with the item lying flat. The result was surprisingly clear. The listing with the good photo received 51% more clicks and 61% more visitors compared to the listing with the bad photo. This shows how worthwhile it is to invest some time and effort into creating great photos!