What To Do With Products That Aren't Selling

When you started your online store, you probably envisioned a potential future in which your products sold consistently and predictably, generating a steady and reliable stream of revenue for you, the entrepreneur. It was also probably a matter of weeks before you realized things were a bit more complicated. If you’re like most business owners, your online store has at least some products that simply aren’t selling. In this blog post we’ll talk about what to do with products that aren’t selling and how you can take advantage of them.

How to decide what isn't selling.

To begin, you need to look at your website stats. Ideally, your web host or website builder will provide you with an analytics platform that you can use to calculate the number of products sold, the amount of revenue you generate and other metrics. If a product has sold zero times or only a few times throughout its history in your store, this will qualify as a product that isn't selling.

Next, you'll want to figure out how many units of products you need to sell in order to be successful. This strictly depends on the amount of items you currently sell. A good rule of thumb is to say that your lowest performing product should be making at least 25 percent as much as your highest performing product. If you can't get this product to at least 25% of the sales as your highest performing product, this item is not selling.

What to do when your products don’t sell.

Now that you've identified some products that aren't doing as well as you'd hoped, here are a few things you can do.

Create a sale

At times, a special sale is all it takes to get customers excited about a product. Here's a great opportunity to push a holiday sale or even a clearance sale. Sales can actually help sell products that aren't selling because they create urgency and increase your traffic.

Urgency: If you have any customers who have been waiting to buy something from you, they will be more likely to take advantage of your sale than if they didn't get a discount. This creates an urgency for them and makes them feel like they need to act now or lose out on the opportunity forever. They also see other people buying at the sale price and want to join in on what seems like a good deal.

Increase in traffic: When customers see you are having a sale, they will want to check out what is on sale because they know there will be great deals available. This creates more traffic on your site and gives more people an opportunity to find something they might like or discover something new!

Snap some new photos

If you have a product that isn't selling, new product photos can help. If you're an online business owner, you know how important it is to have great product photos. You probably already have some great images for your products, but if you don't, it's time to update them. You might even want to hire a professional photographer to take some new shots for your products. This could give your business a fresh look and help you sell more items. If you're looking for a more in-depth explanation of how you can up your product page game, learn more here.

Consider new keywords

The first step in selling unsold products is doing keyword research. Keyword research is finding the right words to describe your product or service so that people who are looking for what you offer will find it on search engines like Google and Yahoo!

To do this, you'll need a keyword research tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or WordStream's Free Keyword Tool. These tools will help you find out which keywords your customers are searching for and which ones they're most likely looking for when they come to your site. You can then use these keywords in your product descriptions and titles so that more people will see them when they search online.

Check out the competition

You might think that if your product isn't selling, it must be because you're selling a bad product. But that's not always the case. There are plenty of good products out there that don't sell because they're priced too high, or they have a poor marketing strategy, or they haven't been branded properly. If you've been trying to sell your product and it hasn't worked, don't give up yet — look at what other people are doing with similar products and see if you can learn anything from them. Here are some things you can do:

• Check out your competitors' website for pricing information and see if they're selling their products for less than you are. If so, consider lowering the price of yours.
• Look at how they are marketing the product. Sometimes there can be an obvious reason a product is selling, that maybe you aren't capitalizing on. For example, if you're selling beanies and a competitor's website calls them comfortable, cozy and warm, but you call yours stylish, then you might be using the wrong interests points to persuade customers.

Say goodbye

If you have a product that isn't selling, it might be time to say goodbye to the item and remove it from your store. You should remove items from your store if:

• The item has been on your site for over three months and has sold no copies.
• The item has sold less than 10 copies per month for over three months.
• The item is taking up space or if you have too many of the items in stock.
• You're losing money on the items.

As a retailer, you'll have to make the tough decision of whether to keep an item in your inventory. It can be hard when you put time and money into creating a product and promoting it, only to watch it fail in sales. But if your product isn't selling, you'll want to take action before things get worse.

In conclusion

Hopefully, you've taken away a few ideas from this article: some that can help you with your current products, and others that will help you predict how well a particular product is likely to do for your business in the future. Regardless, many businesses find these methods lead to better results than simply letting products languish on the virtual shelf. So, whether you're looking to rise from the ashes of failure or build on past successes, there are plenty of things you can do to make a struggling product become an effective tool for your business. And who knows - if it's not selling like you think it should- maybe try something different. It might surprise you what awaits once you focus your attention from failing products to new ones!