25 Tips to Sell Your Second Hand Stuff Online

swapit_marketing-dollarSelling your second hand things online is a great way to recover money you have previously spent on those items. At the same time, you also contribute to the environment by actively encouraging people to buy used items instead of purchasing new ones from the store.

There are a variety of websites online as well as places offline, where you can list your stuff for sale. One of the more popular such places is our Swapit Marketplace App. However, generally the rules are all the same and the real trick to finally make your sale, comes from a combination of different techniques you can use to:

  1. Present your product best
  2. Communicate its core purpose
  3. Show the price/value of that product

We’ve put together the probably most comprehensive list of 25 tips that help you close your sale quickly. Some of such tips are geared a bit toward our Swapit Marketplace, but most of them are generally applicable to any marketplace or classified out there. So let’s take a look at the full list of our 25 Tips to Make a Sale:

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Swapit Update: Feature Your Items

swapit-blog_downloadWe’ve just updated Swapit again and this time with a great new feature that gives you the power to feature any of your items all by yourself!

Get Your Swapit Update Today: http://get.swapit.la/now

 

After our last update with the brand new home of Swapit, we’ve now added a feature many of you have been asking us about: You can now feature your own items inside Swapit.

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Feature

Getting featured on Swapit is really easy. You can simply open any of the items you’ve posted and click the FEATURE button at the bottom of that screen. Follow the instructions and your item will be featured. At a rock bottom price of $1 per feature, your item will remain featured for a full week on the home screen of Swapit.

Here is how that looks like on the new Swapit home screen:

Large Profile Pictures

Again, due to our users’ great feedback, we’ve now made it possible to view the profile pictures of sellers in big format. That makes it easy for people who want to meet up, to know what the meeting partner looks like before they are at the spot.

Stay tuned for future updates. At our blog, you’re absolutely at the right place. Feel free to sign up by email to stay on top of the game.

Have you tried Swapit yet? It’s free. You can get it here: http://get.swapit.la/now

3 Winners Were Chosen for the Swapit Mobile Studio – XMAS Promotion

CONGRATULATIONS to the 3 winners of our Post+Win a Mobile Studio from Swapit!

The 3 Winners:

  1. 219 posts: rads*****@gmail.com
  2. 72 posts: julia*****@gmail.com
  3. 44 posts: nani*****@gmail.com

 

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We’ve just reached out to our three winners and they now have 24 hours to reply to our email. Once we receive a reply, we’ll arrange for a hand over of a Swapit Mobile Studio to each of the winners.

It’s been great to see a lot of people participating and sharing Swapit to their friends.

Have you tried Swapit yet? You can download it for free from: http://get.swapit.la/now

SELL+WIN: Only 24 Hours Left

There are only 24 hours left to join our promotion and stand a chance to win an awesome Braven Bluetooth speaker!

All you need to do is: Post any item for sale on Swapit. You will automatically enter the promotion.

2016-07-27_braven_email_counter_24_hours_left_584

The more items you post, the higher your chances!

If you post 2 items, you’ll double your chances to win. If you post 3 items, you’re chances are even higher, and so on. You can sell your items or post them as free give away items. Please make sure your items comply with our Swapit terms, though.

Go to Swapit now & post an item.
It only takes 30 seconds!
Post your item here: http://app.swapit.la/post

Want to find out more? Read the full article with time schedule at: SELL+WIN a Braven BRV-PRO Bluetooth Speaker (August 1-15)

SELL+WIN: Only 3 Days Left

There are only 3 days left to join our promotion and stand a chance to win an awesome Braven Bluetooth speaker!

All you need to do is: Post any item for sale on Swapit. You will automatically enter the promotion.

2016-07-27_braven_email_counter_3_days_left_584

The more items you post, the higher your chances!

If you post 2 items, you’ll double your chances to win. If you post 3 items, you’re chances are even higher, and so on. You can sell your items or post them as free give away items. Please make sure your items comply with our Swapit terms, though.

Go to Swapit now & post an item.
It only takes 30 seconds!
Post your item here: http://app.swapit.la/post

Want to find out more? Read the full article with time schedule at: SELL+WIN a Braven BRV-PRO Bluetooth Speaker (August 1-15)

SELL+WIN: Only 1 Week Left

There is only 1 week left to join our promotion and stand a chance to win an awesome Braven Bluetooth speaker!

All you need to do is: Post any item for sale on Swapit. You will automatically enter the promotion.

2016-07-27_braven_email_counter_1_week_left_584

The more items you post, the higher your chances!

If you post 2 items, you’ll double your chances to win. If you post 3 items, you’re chances are even higher, and so on. You can sell your items or post them as free give away items. Please make sure your items comply with our Swapit terms, though.

Go to Swapit now & post an item.
It only takes 30 seconds!
Post your item here: http://app.swapit.la/post

Want to find out more? Read the full article with time schedule at: SELL+WIN a Braven BRV-PRO Bluetooth Speaker (August 1-15)

It’s Beach Time – Go to South Bay Beach this Weekend!

It’s summer in Hong Kong and many flock to the beaches! It’s fun, it’s outdoors and it’s meeting with friends, friends of friends for common purpose. That’s also – kind of – what Swapit is all about. So we thought, it might be a great place advertise Swapit to the many beach folks out there.

So we partnered with locals on some beaches across Hong Kong to provide some great Swapit Beach Umbrellas to the beach goers there. One of our best pilot beaches is South Bay Beach and it’s running on full steam now!

As you can see, we’ve managed to cover quite a nice area with our distinctly green beach umbrellas. We’ve deployed a nice number of umbrellas there and if you’d go to South Bay Beach this weekend, I am sure you can use one too.

Go to South Bay Beach

Just in case you’d like to go to South Bay Beach, make sure to check out the South Bay Beach Playground – at the rooftop.  It’s a great place with fresh drinks and some nice snacks. As it’s at the roof you’ll also get a nice elevated overview over the beach with all its green beach umbrellas!

Here is South Bay Beach on Google Maps.

Design That Stands Out

The great thing about our beach umbrellas are their obvious presence. We purposely went for a full-on green design with just a few Swapit logo design elements. Firstly, not many designs use green in general. Secondly, most beach umbrellas are rainbow-colored and generally very colorful. So having a simple single-color design, makes you stand out from the crowd. Not that we would need that on South Bay Beach, though.

Swapit loves Facebook

Because of our stand-out design, Swapit is now very present on photos posted on Facebook. People like to take photos at places where they have fun and therefore, a lot of beach photos end up on Facebook showing Swapit in the background, foreground and generally present there. Have a look a selection from South Bay Beach:

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From a social aspect, we’re getting a lot of coverage on Facebook now – sometimes even combined with some eye candy. That’s something some companies would spend a lot of marketing dollar on. All we did was getting some great umbrellas done.

So it’s been a great success thus far and we’re sure our investment will pay off over the whole summer time. We’re happy to see that we can help people get some cover from the sun and at the same time get a bit of our message across.

We’re rolling out more umbrellas to more beaches. Stay tuned for more on that!

P.S.: Actually, we’ve already deployed our beach umbrellas at some other beaches in Hong Kong. Though, it probably doesn’t look as impressive there yet. If you discover one, send us a photo! We’d love to share it.

Swapit is Featured as Recommended App on Google Play

swapit-google-play-featured_new-updatedSince last Friday Swapit has been featured in the “New and Updated Apps” category on Google Play. It is absolutely great to see Swapit in there, getting some recognition and coverage in our local home market.

Google Play has been a great app store for us so far. We’ve been able to push out new updates quickly. While we only announce larger app updates here on our blog, we did actually publish over 30 app binaries on Google Play over the past year. That’s almost one app update every one and half weeks on average! Many of those updates are based on our user’s feedback — especially when we introduce new product features which require refinement after wards. Being able to launch app updates and new innovative features quickly, is essential for us to being at the vanguard of innovation.

We are currently working on a new update of Swapit and will launch it very soon, actually. If you want to check out the current list of all recommended apps on Google Play, you can go to: https://play.google.com/store/recommended
(only when opening that link in Hong Kong, you’ll see Swapit in that list)

At this point, I’d like to personally thank the Google developer relations and Google Play team who helped us a lot with their feedback on Swapit. Because of their honest feedback, we were able to identify crucial points for improvement on Swapit in terms of Material Design principles as well as user experience / onboarding workflow. We know Swapit is still not perfect, but we are on a very good track on getting there. Thanks a lot! We do very much appreciate your help.

Do you use Swapit it? You can download it right here: http://get.swapit.la

The Progression of the Swapit Feature Graphic on Google Play

We’re constantly iterating through our mobile app(s), backend, website, microsites, pitch deck, investor proposal and also the presentation of our app on the app store. So yesterday, we uploaded our third iteration of the “Feature Graphic” on Google Play.

swapit-google-play-feature-graphic-v3What is the Feature Graphic?

On the Swapit listing on Google Play, the Feature Graphic is the #1 item every user sees first. It is placed right at the very top of the screen and takes up the whole width. When you have a video for your app (like we do), then you’ll also have a grey / translucent play button that shows on top of the Feature Graphic. By clicking that play button the video starts playing. However, the Feature Graphic is still the most important image in the app store listing on Google Play. Therefore, we have now improved that Feature Graphic to properly communicate Swapit’s purpose and message we want to get across. Let me explain the contents of the image in detail.

1. Real Products

Showing real products people can connect with, was important to us. We needed to make sure we demonstrate to people that Swapit is an app for them. Thus, with just this one image, we show exactly what kind of products can be bought on Swapit and what kind of products are being sold on Swapit. I believe we were able to show that.

2. Popular Categories

We chose to show 5 products from our top 5 product categories which are either the most popular ones or the ones we believe have the most potential. So we cover:

  • Mobile Phones & Accessories
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Fashion
  • Jewellery & Watches
  • Properties

Those product categories also have a rather general appeal. Properties might not be so appealing in other countries, but in Hong Kong they’re one of the essential second-hand items everyone is trading in.

3. Cool Stuff Sells

The items we show on this Feature Graphic are carefully chosen and represent the best of the best of the kind of products we know, do sell quickly on Swapit. People’s desire for the right products is essential for closing a sale. The high heels for example, are just a stunning piece of footwear and it is obvious, that those sold really quickly. Thus, we do suggest, to download Swapit as quickly as possible to make sure you never miss a quality bargain!

4. Beautiful Photos

Each photo is a beautiful piece of art that sets the expectation for the kind of product photos we would like to see on Swapit. We know that all phones (especially the Android phones) vary in terms of picture taking quality. However, good framing and proper lighting can be easily achieved with just a bit of effort. It is that expectation bar, that we set by showing such beautiful images on the very first image people see about Swapit.

5. Low Prices

When looking at the Feature Graphic closely, you’ll notice that the price for each item is very affordable – yet, not unrealistic. Those are actual prices such items are or were trading for on Swapit, but it is clear that the items are being offered at a very attractive cost base. By using price tags we also suggest a price “taggable” product and the corresponding range of pricing. Thus, the image in its entirety suggests again to be able to get a quality bargain at a very attractive low price.

6. Hinting at Features

We’ve also snuck in a “featured item” ribbon, which is one of our Premium Features. This lightens up the symmetry of the image a bit and helps to create a bit more of comfortable feel — at least to me that is. The size and alignment of the images is also important, as it resembles our standard list view which the user will see as soon as (s)he starts Swapit for the first time. Thus, the Feature Graphic already sets some expectation as to how the app will look like inside. Thus, I believe, it will emphasize the effect of the user feeling more familiar with the app when opening it for the first time.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps, I am interpreting too much into this one single graphic, but sometimes you got to go the long way and make sure you communicate the whole message you want to get across.

What do you think?

Visit Swapit on your Android phone or tablet to see the Feature Graphic in action: http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=la.swapit

 

The History of the Swapit Featured Graphic – thus far…

1st Feature Graphic (April 2015)

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2nd Feature Graphic (November 2015)

swapit_feature_v2

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3rd Feature Graphic (March 2016)

swapit_playstore_feature_v3

 

Have you tried Swapit yet? You can download it at: http://get.swapit.la