Shortly before Christmas I decided to try my very first “live” sale online at Facebook. I gathered up giftable items (including a large amount of the newly created jewelry), classes and other items I thought people would be interested in. Then I created individual posts for each and started promoting the event. Here’s a look at the flyer I made to generate interest:
I also created promo posts leading up to the event with the “Top 12” reasons to shop the online sale memes – some heartfelt, some funny and all true – and used them across Instagram, FB, Twitter, etc. I also added incentive for people to share the event – the more people, the more purchases and the bigger the discounts! Starting at 10% off all the listings I added an additional 1% for each sale, with a cap at 50% off. Below are the details of how an online “live” event can be set up on Facebook, if you’re wondering how it works.
The prep was actually more time consuming than any other aspect, making sure I had good images and accurate descriptions for each thing. I also designed trivia posts with prizes to keep it fun and interesting. Overachiever that I am, I had 45 posts to get online in one hour. Next time I’d aim for around 30, it was so fast and crazy trying to get all of that on the event page in just an hour! I didn’t feel like I had time to go back and reply to those who had purchased items or answered the trivia questions and I ended up running past the 9 p.m. end time by about 10 minutes. Since it was a holiday sale, this is a sample of one of the trivia questions:
Here are sample posts of items that were sold during the event:
In all I sold 38 items, meaning each person who made a purchase earned a 48% discount! Happy holidays to all of us. 😉 The bonus part of all this work is that I was able to use the image/descriptions of the unsold items to list them on my website – something that was already on my to-do list.
I am planning on doing another one of these online sales, what do you think would be a good time? I’m leaning toward late April/early May thinking people will be on the lookout for Mother’s Day and Graduation Gifts. Once I get that figured out I’ll be sure and share the details here on the blog.
Blessings,
Lynne
A Randomly Creative Blog 