An important aspect of running a successful business is knowing the right places to be. In the past, a company could open up a retail location and wait for customers to start arriving. Nowadays, many companies start their journeys by setting up shop online.
But, with so many potential places to sell your electronics, where’s the best place to start? If you ask many business owners, a lot of them would say social media. And, we’re inclined to agree with them.
By reading this blog post, you’ll learn more about:
Why you should start selling electronics on social media
The best social platforms to help you make more sales
Helpful ways to jumpstart your social media sales
Mistakes you’ll want to avoid on social media
Why Should I Sell Cell Phones Wholesale on Social Media?
Before you start selling cell phones on social media, you might need a little convincing. It’s understandable to do some research before you start this type of venture. Fortunately, there are many reasons why selling cell phones on social media is such a great idea.
Many Popular Platforms To Choose From
Most likely, you’re aware of more than one social media platform. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are just a few of the world’s favorite social media websites. Chances are, you have active accounts on the previously mentioned websites or apps.
Having so many platforms to choose from also means having multiple ways to market your company and its electronics.
A Safe Place for Transactions
As your company continues gaining momentum, this will likely lead to more sales. When this time arrives, it’s always helpful to do business on a platform you can trust. In the past, it wasn’t possible to sell anything through social media websites. Now, companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram all have integrated platforms to help you make and manage your company’s sales.
If you prefer, it’s still possible to decline having stores connected with your social accounts. Instead, you can always link to your company’s website if you prefer. However, for new sellers who don’t care how sales come in, it can be helpful to handle transactions through a customer’s favorite social media platform.
Gaining a Loyal Following
These days, everyone has a social media account. With so many conversations taking place on social media, you’ll want your company to be on these platforms. As you continue to post content and interact with others on social media, you could soon find that this business begins gaining a loyal following.
Bringing More Traffic To Your Website
Another great reason to have social media accounts is to gain more website traffic. You’ll want to have lots of links to your websites on your social media accounts. Chances are, you’ll easily do this by having links set up on your profile page. You can also throw links up to your website in your social media posts.
As you continue to stay active on social media, you’ll begin seeing more traffic arrive at your company’s website. This can help improve your company’s search engine rankings. It’s also a great way for potential customers to learn more about your business, which could lead to more sales.
Being Ready To Manage Potential Crisis Situations
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the good things about owning a business. But, we’d be lying if we said that things will always go easy. Unfortunately, a few times will likely arise when someone, for whatever reason, had a bad experience with your business. If this happens, it’s always good to be active on social media.
For one, your business will have an outlet for people and companies to reach you. Sometimes, the mentions your company receives might not be positive. Fortunately, you can use these situations to respond positively and take care of any legitimate concerns or issues.
What Are The Best Social Media Platforms for Selling Electronics?
You’ve learned about why it’s great to have accounts on social media. Now, you’re going to find out what platforms are the best for buying and selling electronic devices. You can start creating personal accounts on these platforms. But, don’t forget to claim business pages in your company’s name. Here are the platforms you’ll want to check out.
Trade-In Tech
If you want to buy and sell electronics on a popular social platform, you’ll definitely want to check out Trade-In Tech. Since 2012, this wholesale platform for electronics dealers has continued to grow.
So, what separates Trade-In Tech from other social media platforms? One way we do this is by being solely for those in the electronics industry. You won’t find your feeds cluttered with anything but electronics-related content. This allows you to focus on having one single platform to establish and grow your company. But, that’s far from where the benefits of joining Trade-In Tech end.
Something else we’re proud of is offering no fees when you buy or sell electronics on Trade-In Tech. We understand that starting and maintaining a business comes with a lot of costs. Considering that, we don’t feel that you should have to pay fees for transactions you make on our platform. With zero fees, Trade-In Tech helps you save more of your company’s income for other business-related matters.
We also have many ways for you to buy or sell electronics. You can check out the Trade-In Tech marketplace to take a closer look at what people are buying and selling on our platform. There are also chat rooms and groups dedicated to a wide range of electronics.
You can find smartphones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, and lots of other electronics on Trade-In Tech. Plus, we constantly have inventory moving through our platform from the most popular electronics companies, including Sony, Apple, Google, Samsung, and many others.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for on Trade-In Tech, you can create a 100% customizable buyer’s request. By filling out a short online form, you can request any type of electronics. After creating and submitting your request, it gets sent out to our networks of tens of thousands of members.
Facebook Marketplace
One of the most popular social media platforms is Facebook. If you’re a fan of this platform, you might already know about Facebook Marketplace. If you don’t, this is where Facebook users can buy and sell items. The catch is that most people on this platform will list items locally. So, this platform might not be the best option for people wanting to sell their items online only.
For some reason, Facebook does seem to attract a fair amount of bargain hunters. This is why some people intentionally price their items 5-15% higher on Facebook Marketplace. However, whether you choose to adopt this strategy is up to you.
A great tip to remember when selling cell phones here is to make use of Facebook Marketplace’s tag box. This is where you’ll want to enter any tags or words you think a buyer would search for. Let’s say that you’re selling iPhones on Facebook’s Marketplace. If you wanted to get traffic for this listing, you would want to include tags like Apple, iPhone, and other relevant information about this smartphone.
It’s important to note that Facebook Marketplace is a popular platform. So, this means that you could be competing with lots of sellers. Be patient while selling items on Facebook Marketplace, and it should pay off. Also, make sure to be responsive whenever you receive a message or comments on one of your posts.
If you want other people and companies to know more about your business, it’s a good idea to be active on Instagram. This social media network is one where videos and pictures are the main ways to post content. What’s also great about this platform is that it recently implemented Instagram Shopping.
Instagram Shopping is this social media website’s marketplace for its users to enjoy. Like Facebook and other popular social media platforms, you can use Instagram’s tag feature to ensure that you’re flipping phones and making them visible to any interested buyers.
A great potential way to boost your sales on Instagram is by using this platform’s Stories feature. Instagram Stories are photos or videos you can post to your account. Some companies post behind-the-scenes videos as Stories. What you decide to post is up to you, but it’s a good idea to post Stories that help your business engage with its audience.
You can also generate hype for your company by using countdown stickers on your products. By embedding these timers on your product posts, you’ll let everyone know when you’re selling certain kinds of electronics. It’s also possible to have your company’s followers set reminders when these timers end, and they can start purchasing your products.
Pinterest is a social media website that organizes things like an online scrap board. Users of Pinterest can navigate this website by finding collections that contain pins. Since it began, Pinterest remains one of the most popular social media websites. Also, a recent study found that over half of Pinterest’s accounts use this website for shopping purposes.
Considering its popularity, this social media platform recently started allowing people to buy and sell items on Pinterest. You can start selling wholesale cell phones on this platform by learning about Pinterest’s Buyable Pins. The first thing you’ll need to do is create a business account on Pinterest. You won’t be able to sell items from your personal account. However, you can easily convert a personal account into a business account.
Once you set up your account, you’ll also need to link and verify your company’s website. After that step is complete, you should be able to start listing your products on Pinterest. Since Pinterest is all about visuals, you’ll want to ensure you’re posting high-quality images of what you’re selling.
While you’re setting up your Buyable Pins, you can also include your website’s name and social account handles in your images. Not only does this act as a type of image watermark, but it also easily lets other people know about your website and social accounts.
Another tip to remember while selling iPhones or any other types of electronics on Pinterest is to post using Rich Pins. These types of pins pull product and price information from your website to include in the Pins you post. Rich Pins give Pinterest’s in-app users everything they need without them having to go back and forth between Pinterest and your website.
YouTube
Chances are, you or people you know watch videos on YouTube. No matter what your interests are, this popular social platform likely has many videos dedicated to them. YouTube is so popular that it’s currently the third most popular search engine in the world. Driving this point home, over 1 billion hours of YouTube’s content gets watched each day!
Because of YouTube’s immense popularity, this is definitely a website you want to use in your company’s marketing and sales strategy. And, yes, you will need to post videos if you want your company’s accounts to gain popularity on YouTube.
Fortunately, you don’t need to have a huge video production budget or even be on camera in these videos. If you need help making videos, there are many companies on the internet that can help you solve this problem.
What’s cool about YouTube is that they allow you to place links to your company’s e-commerce website in multiple locations. One of the most popular locations for links is in the descriptions of your videos.
You can also place links to what you’re selling in pinned comments. The great thing about pinned comments is that they’ll stay at the top of YouTube’s comment sections for your videos. This means that everyone checking out the comments section or creating a comment of their own should at least see your pinned links.
YouTube even allows its creators to post links that appear on the right side of their account’s image banners. While it might not gain as much traffic as description and comment links, banner links are worth using. Make sure to include a call-to-action (CTA) in this link to drive even more traffic to your online store.
Snapchat
Cell phones are devices that people of all ages use. However, it’s a safe assumption that the most avid smartphone users are people in the 18 to 34-year-old age range. If you want to appeal to this younger age range of potential customers, you’ll want to create a Snapchat account. Research shows that Snapchat has over 287 million active users per month!
When it comes to selling cell phones through Snapchat, you have a few ways to start enticing customers. One way to do this is by using Snap ads, which are types of interactive videos. While they can take a little time and effort to set up, these videos can instantly engage with Snapchat’s users. If you prefer a more traditional advertising method, you can pay for a Snapchat Discover ad. This can put a video or picture message in front of a lot of new eyes.
The one drawback of marketing your company with Snapchat is that it can get expensive. If you don’t have a sizable advertising budget, it could be best to avoid Snapchat for a little while.
How To Kickstart Your Social Media Sales
By now, you’ve obtained a decent understanding of selling refurbished electronics on social media. At this point, we wanted to include a few bonus tips that can drastically improve how many social media sales your company makes. Follow these tips to start ramping up your sales right away.
Start Creating Social Media Contests and Giveaways
If you want a way to entice your social media followers, think about having contests and giveaways for them to enjoy. You don’t need to lose a lot of money on these contests. However, having an occasional giveaway is something that many companies do through social media.
With contests and giveaways, your company will also benefit. One way to benefit from giveaways is by having people follow your accounts to gain an entry into your contests. Another popular way to benefit from social media contests is by asking users for generated content.
User-generated content on social media are text-based, image, or video posts that mention your company in them. For even more social traction, you can create a new hashtag to easily collect all of your company’s user-generated content.
Interact With Other Accounts
As you remain active on social media, it’s easy to get caught up with what’s happening on your company’s accounts. While this is important, make sure you’re also focusing on the social aspect of social media. This means setting aside time to follow and interact with other accounts.
For some people, this can seem a little intimidating. But don’t let those thoughts get to you. Most of the time, other social media accounts love seeing that they earned a new follower or received a new comment on one of their posts.
By interacting with other accounts on social media, you can quickly watch your business start to gain more customers and followers. Plus, people love following and leaving comments for social media accounts that remain active.
Try To Sell Your Cell Phones as Quick as Possible
We know this tip might seem obvious. But, we mention it to highlight the importance of how fast the cell phone industry can move. You can purchase a phone that’s the latest and greatest smartphones, only to find their values drop in a few months when a new generation or model gets released.
By working to keep your inventory coming in and moving out quickly, you’ll avoid the sinking feeling of having to lower your prices.
Be Honest About the Condition of Your Cell Phones
In life, you’ve probably heard that honesty is the best policy. This rule definitely applies when it comes to selling cell phones. As tempting as it might be to “forget” about a few of your cell phones’ flaws, this mistake can come back to haunt you.
In the age of social media and seller ratings, most customers will leave feedback about what they order from electronics dealers. Most platforms encourage their users to leave reviews. When you’re honest about what you’re selling, you won’t have to worry about any of your customers getting taken by surprise. Then, they can leave positive reviews about your business and make repeat purchases of their own.
Prepare for Customers Trying To Lower Your Prices
One thing that’s great about owning a business is setting your own prices. With that said, this can also mean encountering customers that want to pay less than the prices you set. Regardless of your pricing, this is something that many companies and their employees have to deal with.
How you respond to this situation depends on your personal preferences. Some business owners set firm prices and don’t want to haggle with a potential customer to make a sale. Or, you can set a bottom-dollar price. This price might be a little lower than your listing price, but it’s a good way to make the hagglers think they’re getting the deal of a lifetime.
Consider Paid Advertising
In certain cases, it can take a while to build up a large following on social media. We won’t lie - gaining a legitimate social media following does take quite a bit of effort. If you have a little money to spare and don’t want to wait for organic results, many social media platforms offer paid advertising.
Whether it’s on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, or one of the other platforms we mentioned, paid social media advertising can be extremely beneficial to your business. You’ll also notice that there are several ways to take part in paid social media advertising.
Some companies like to create sponsored posts. These are paid posts that show up in prominent places on social media websites, including at the top of user’s post feeds. Other companies prefer to utilize paid messages. Whatever you choose, monitor your results, and you should soon start developing an effective paid advertising strategy.
Don’t Forget the Power of Humor
There’s a reason why some of the most popular content on the internet is humorous, and that’s because people enjoy laughing and feeling happy. You don’t have to spend much time browsing the internet before you find a few memes, funny images, and other types of internet humor.
Depending on the industry you’re in, it’s possible to use humor as a way for your company to connect with its audience. Since you’re likely operating in the electronics industry, it’s easy to find lots of humorous posts to include on your company’s social media pages.
As long as it’s relevant to your audience, non-offensive, and funny, the humorous content you post should drive further engagement on your social channels. Plus, many people enjoy sharing content that will make other people laugh or crack a smile. You might soon find that your company’s funny content starts leading to more sales!
Social Media Selling Mistakes To Avoid at All Costs
We’ve covered tips and strategies to help you sell lots of electronics and grow your company on social media. If you’re new to social media, it’s sometimes easy to make mistakes on these platforms. Unfortunately, these mistakes could be costing you a lot of sales. Don’t worry; we’re here to help you discover if you’re making any of these mistakes. We’ll also show you how to avoid these mistakes to watch the sales keep rolling in!
Not Posting Updates About Your Business
As you continue posting your company’s products and checking out other accounts, it’s sometimes easy to forget about using social media to keep your audience informed. Before you start posting nothing but links to your company’s e-commerce store, take some time to create posts about other relevant topics. This helps to give your brand a little personality.
What’s also great about posting lots of useful content on your social media pages is that this is great for building a loyal following. Most people on social media can see through a company that wants to do nothing more than make money off of them.
Ignoring Questions, Concerns, and Comments
One of the things we like to mention regarding social media is the importance of being responsive. With so many social media websites instantly broadcasting information, it leaves most people expecting instant results. So, when you get a message or comment on one of your pages, it’s always good to respond as fast as possible.
If you continue ignoring questions and other comments from your page’s visitors, it could negatively affect how people feel about your company. It could also cause people to avoid following your pages due to a lack of activity and content.
Set Up Chatbots
The life of most electronics distributors can get quite busy. Considering that, you might find yourself unintentionally getting back with customers and commenters later than you want to. However, you can solve this problem by setting up chatbots or automatic message responders on certain social media websites.
There’s no need for a lot of technical expertise to set up one of these programs. Most social media platforms will have walkthroughs that give you all the information you need. The key to setting up these bots is choosing their questions and responses.
When it comes to creating questions for your customers, you can do this by thinking about the questions you’re most commonly asked. Chances are, thinking about these questions will give you all the inspiration you need.
Getting Disappointed With Slow Progress
In life, it’s always good to have realistic expectations about things. While we hope that your company’s social media pages start receiving lots of traffic right away, this isn’t always possible. If you’re one of many new accounts that have a little trouble gaining popularity, this isn’t something to worry about.
Instead of stressing out about low traffic, continue using the previously mentioned social media growth methods. With enough effort and time, you should soon start seeing lots of people buying what your company is selling on the most popular social platforms.
Never Developing a Target Audience
Another common mistake many companies make when setting up shop on social media is not developing a target audience. It’s understandable to assume that a target audience is a fancy marketing term without much meaning. However, researching who’s in your target audience is much more than just a term.
Many people who worked or currently work in retail environments are often told about asking customers questions. By asking questions to customers, salespeople help learn about what a customer wants. A salesperson can then use this information to make product and service recommendations to a customer.
Unfortunately, you won’t have the chance to personally ask online customers about what they want to purchase. However, you can develop a target audience by taking a closer look at who your company’s current customers are. For instance, you might have a majority of customers that fall within a certain age range. Or, you might sell electronics to a lot more men than women.
If you have trouble determining who is in your company’s target audience, have a look at the analytics sections of your social media pages. These sections usually list more information about your followers and others who visited your social pages in the past. Also, don’t get freaked out if there’s little to no information in your analytics sections. This usually happens with newer pages - you’ll have the data you need after posting more content.
Wrapping things up, social media websites can be great places to sell your flipped cell phones. With so many social media platforms on the internet, it’s easy to start finding places to sell cell phones online. By putting in some of your time and effort, you should start noticing the sales rolling in. Are you looking for more content aimed to help you run a successful electronics business? For more content, don’t forget to visit our blog.