Marketing
What the heck is Marketing ... and how's it supposed to work?
Yes, it’s time for THAT talk…
Saying the word “Marketing” makes most peoples’ eyes glaze over in unknowing disinterest. It might as well be an obscure magical incantation that produces invisible results. While professionals in the field rely on marketing to analyze demographics and improve sales prospects, most of the rest of us don’t have a clue what marketing is, or how it’s supposed to work.
Grab your favorite beverage and get comfy…
Nobody really wants to talk about Marketing and Selling, because nobody really wants to do marketing. Most people are not natural-born salespeople. But hey, in the world of social media, if you want to be noticed, you have to play the marketing game. We at DOLL-WORLD are certainly no experts, but we’re here to set up the board and the pieces for “Marketing Game Night.” Hopefully some of what we discuss will be of help without turning this into a mind-numbing session of hypnotism-by-boredom. So put on your brave-shades and scroll down for more…
DOLL-WORLD is here to tell you everything you never wanted to know about Marketing.
Buckle up, Buttercup, cuz it’s gonna be a really rough ride. Ready? Here we go…
For most people, Marketing SUCKS. For most normal people, that is. For them, Marketing is like an unsolved murder mystery. There’s a body – a very scary body – and no one can figure out how it got there or what happened to it. That’s the feeling most people get when they face the challenge of “doing some marketing.” Terms like “brand positioning” and “target audience” and “funneling” might as well be part of a foreign language that no “regular” person understands.
Leave it to the professionals. There are some savvy people out there – bright, hard-working – who understand obscure marketing terms and are always coining new ones to keep the uninitiated forever bamboozled. These people know their way around an advertising office like a high-class pick-pocket in a suit and tie, prowling an upscale bar lounge full of half-drunk people. These professionals are way out of the league of “regular” people, so let’s move on to…
The baffling enigma of the self-made social media star commonly known as an influencer. These charismatic, beautiful people know how to engage with their target audience and work the crowd like a snake oil salesman in a top hat, charming the pants off an entranced mob. That’s the influencer. (If you happen to be an influencer, here, of all places, reading this… And, holy cats, why would you be? …you have our sincerest apologies for any perceived insult.) For every social media algorithm, there’s at least a hundred influencers ready to tell you something you didn’t even realize you wanted – needed – to know. Like how to make millions in your spare time. They lay out the tricks of the trade in easy-to-understand steps that sound so deceptively simple, you know they can’t possibly work. And in reality, they probably don’t work. Yet you – now desperate to discover the secrets of instant wealth – will sit through a 17-minute video, only to come away feeling just as hopeless and confused as before. But the influencer “made you look,” getting you to do or buy something you wouldn’t normally, and you’re left wondering how that happened.
And THAT’S Marketing. LOL!
Now let’s take a look under the hood
and see how it’s “supposed” to work…
This is that “Verbose Missive” you were warned about…
What’s the point of Marketing?
MARKETING SELLS. That’s the point. Marketing done right, that is. Marketing is an essential part of nearly any business. Think of opening a business and doing absolutely no advertising to let anyone know you have opened a business. How do you expect to get customers? It’s like winking in the dark – you’re the only one who knows what you’re doing.
WHAT DOES MARKETING INVOLVE? Is it running ads on TV? Or subtly reminding everyone on Pinterest and Instagram that you have a business? Or just handing out flyers at the mall and asking friends to tell others about your business? YES – all of that, and more.
“Marketing is whatever you have to do, within your means, to sell whatever it is you’re selling.”
FISH OR CUT BAIT.
You can spend your time doing a lot of work to get items ready for sale. Dust the proverbial shelves and line up all the cans with the labels facing out. Everything’s spic-and-span, tip-top, ready for your first customer. You look eagerly at the bell atop the door, waiting for it to jingle, announcing your first customer coming inside to take a look around your store. But your brand new “Open for Business” sign is swinging in the wind like a tumbleweed skittering down the main street of a ghost town. Why don’t you have any customers? Do your potential customers even know where you are? Who are your potential customers? Have you let anyone know that you’re open for business and what you’re selling? If the answer is “No,” then your cute little “Open for Business” sign will just gather dust like the stuff you’re trying to sell.
“Marketing is typical problem-solving. It requires analysis of the problem and research to figure out ways to solve the problem. It requires realistic expectations and some common sense.”
FULFILLING A NEED. For hundreds of years, people have sold things in the exact same way. They set up shops to provide products or service where they deemed there would be a market – a customer base – for what they were offering. A barber shop. A general store. A dressmaker shop. A shoe repair shop. A doctor’s office. People who saw an opportunity to fill a need created businesses to provide for that perceived need, depending on their particular skillset. This initiative demonstrates the typical approach to solve a problem:
- Realizing they needed to make a living;
- Assessing their skillset;
- Finding a place with customers available to purchase what they were selling;
- Doing what they could to provide the means and opportunity to offer their services and products in a way that would appeal to and assist customers in procuring their services/products.
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TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’. With the internet in full bloom, store owners are no longer limited in customer reach to those who simply wander by. And customers are not limited to simply stumbling across a store of interest. Today’s market has gone global, with potential reach around the world. With a widespread infrastructure supporting online selling, we now have online payment systems, global delivery systems, and devices for selling/buying in the hands of those who want to and can participate. This has fundamentally changed the way people with something to sell reach people wanting something to buy. It has changed how selling – and marketing – works. The basics are still there, but the way those basics are accomplished is a lot different.
In the past couple decades, successful sellers have had to become more attuned to attracting and supplying a very large customer base that has extremely varied consumer desires. While a few sellers have tried to become the be-all-am-all for the world (Ahem! Amazon), the majority of sellers have chosen to stay within their product/service niche, although expanding their reach and, if possible, their product line. Nike still basically sells shoes. Gillette still basically sells razors. But now there’s competition in a way that has meaningfully disturbed the customer base of selling giants like Nike and Gillette. And that means there’s a need for new and creative ways to attract (or retain) customers, and convince them to buy. In a word: MARKETING.
HOW CAN SMALL NICHE SELLERS EVER HOPE TO COMPETE? Small niche sellers – doll enthusiasts in particular – are in a precarious, peculiar, but promising position to market and sell their items. The key word for this type of seller is NETWORKING. Networking involves connecting – making friends and participating in the doll community at large (and it is large – perhaps larger than anyone realizes). It’s a given that the main source of customers for doll items is doll enthusiasts. And most people who enjoy dolls know that doll fun is even more fun when shared with like-minded enthusiasts. However, doll enthusiasts are not limited to annual doll conventions sponsored by doll manufacturers, which can be expensive to attend or impossible due to location or attendance limits. Nor are they relegated to (sometimes cliquey high-school-esque) local doll clubs. With the internet, there are nearly endless possibilities. Doll enthusiasts will find existing platforms or create their own space to share their passion for dolls. Those “platforms” we mentioned? Yep, SOCIAL MEDIA.
In the next tabs, read more about SOCIAL MEDIA and other methods you can utilize to help accomplish your unique goals.
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Doll Marketing/Selling – Local Options
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SELL DOLLS AND DOLL STUFF. In this and following sections, we’ll list and briefly discuss different venues, platforms, and opportunities to sell dolls and related items.
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LOCAL IN-PERSON SELLING. These selling/networking ideas/opportunities may be of interest to some dollers if available in their area…
- The doll shop. Believe it or not, there are still physical shops where people can come in and buy doll stuff. These shops are few and far between, and are slowly dwindling, but there are still just a few. And that pretty much sums up physical stores.
- Doll clubs. While there may be thriving community doll clubs in existence, we’ve never seen one locally. To be honest, we’ve never actively pursued membership to the point we’d attend. Clubs come with the clutter of rules and meetings and membership fees, and it just seems antithetical, even though the events do allow doll people to get together and socialize. There is the occasional “doll meet” where people can buy-sell-swap items. Some doll friends that meet in clubs or online will continue on their own to have “mini-meets” where they unload stashes that others may have a better use for. But these meets take a lot of effort to organize and host. And really, it’s not an ideal solution to successful selling.
- Flea markets. Let’s face it: most serious dollers wouldn’t set up shop in a flea market to sell their collector doll items. People who frequent flea markets do not normally expect to find these items, unless the seller doesn’t really know the worth of items being offered for sale. And flea markets are usually outdoors, dependent on the capriciousness of the weather dictating how many people may turn out for a particular flea market sale. And how many flea markets are there, anyway? Not very many anymore. Maybe a few enterprising mall owners may try to set up a vendor-style market inside an existing building to repurpose it, but honestly, that kind of situation is not common.
- Thrift stores. People go to thrift stores to donate items, not sell them. Dollers may go to thrift stores looking for cheap dolls or surprise finds to take home, but truthfully, thrift stores are not a suitable marketplace to sell dolls.
- Yard sales. Like flea markets, yard sales are open-air and totally dependent on the weather. And they’re seasonal, usually a semi-warm-weather activity for spring or fall, not year-round. People who frequent yard sales are looking for surprise finds at bottom-dollar prices. Not a place to sell collector dolls.
- Estate sales. This is a creepily morbid suggestion, but we have seen dolls for sale at estate sales. Unfortunately, one must have passed away in order to have an estate sale to sell one’s dolls. Not an alternative we would choose willingly.
- And that brings us to local online selling.
LOCAL ONLINE SELLING. Local online sales venues are represented by a variety of old familiar platforms as well as some more recently added new ones. Some are mobile apps only, or websites that don’t always take a cut of sales. These selling venues differ from actual online sales or auctions, and some folks may not feel comfortable handling all the logistics and meeting up with strangers. Also these are not generally sales venues where a dedicated customer base can be cultivated, as they are geared more for one-time odd-item sales. The list of these platforms – not all-inclusive – follows…
- Craigslist. Craigslist resembles the classified ads in newspapers, but users post and read ads on the site’s webpage for the user’s local area. The basic service is free to use. Sellers post an anonymous contact email (their real email masked by Craigslist), and users respond with inquiries. Sellers are responsible for making arrangements to meet with buyers and accept payment in whatever method is mutually agreeable. It is always advisable to meet in a public neutral location, to prevent unwelcome activity. Note that many potential buyers will contact and ask a seller to “hold” an item for them. Then they never follow up on the sale. It’s best to always accept the first reasonable offer and complete the sale before removing the sales listing. This is not a particularly lucrative or reliable sales venue for dolls – especially for expensive dolls!
- Facebook Neighborhood Marketplace. Facebook Neighborhood Marketplace can sometimes resemble an online yard sale or garage sale venue with ads streaming in a disorganized manner. There is a rudimentary search capability, but due to mis-categorized posts, the end result is a cluttered mess. Sellers are responsible for connecting with buyers to meet up in person and make the exchange of item for payment. Facebook will handle money transactions online for a 5% fee, and sellers must set up payment with Facebook beforehand in order to get paid. While sometimes unusual items sell on this venue, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly promising avenue for selling dolls.
- OfferUp (formerly Letgo, acquired 2020) According to Wikipedia, the phone app and accompanying website allow buying and selling used goods. The marketplace, optimized primarily for smartphones, features large photos of products for sale. No log-in is required to browse listings. Goods are displayed based on the location closest to the buyer. The app is integrated with instant chat functionality and includes video listings – and a housing section. We have no personal experience with this app and cannot make any recommendations on the viability of this platform for selling dolls.
- Online Membership Groups.There are a few online doll community groups that allow personal selling on their sites, but they are few and far between, and it appears that most of the selling takes place between members and not the general public looking to buy particular dolls. Some sites that were set up for self-upload sales listings with commissions on sales seemed successful in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but alas they are no more – at least we can’t locate any worth mentioning here.
- Online Auctions. This is not necessarily a “local” online option, but we have seen in the past auction sites that will list and sell a collection of items for owners, for a (presumably) steep fee. We have no idea how successful these sites are, or even if there are still any in operation.
And that brings us to the end of this section…
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Doll Marketing/Selling – Online Website Option
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SELL DOLLS AND DOLL STUFF. In this and other sections, we’ll list and briefly discuss different venues, platforms, and opportunities to sell dolls and related items.
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PERSONAL/BUSINESS ONLINE SELLING. A popular but time-consuming and potentially expensive method of selling dolls and related items is to create a personal/business online sales website. Here the doll enthusiast decides to create an ecommerce website and populate it with items for sale. Many small sellers of doll-related items (like hair rerooting suppliers, etc.) have gone this route to establish a known web presence for repeat visitors. This is the avenue we chose for DOLL-WORLD.
Common features found on many personal/business websites include:
- Informative or instructional content. Websites, especially those that sell specific doll supplies that require some knowledge base to educate the customer, will provide web content to help buyers decide what items will best fit their needs. This content is essential, since online shopping is oftentimes simplified and does not always provide the same context as physical in-store shopping. Pictures, descriptions, recommended usage, etc. are all likely to be found in this type of content meant specifically to assist buyers in making purchase decisions.
- A blog component. With dedicated doll-related topics, website owners expect to attract people interested in doll topics who may become potential buyers of the items for sale on the website. While individual blogs are notoriously low performers in the realm of web traffic, sometimes it’s not all about the traffic. Sometimes a dolling individual just wants to read or write about dolls, even if it’s not exactly a two-way conversation.
- Sideline entertainment content. While not as critical to sales as the other content listed, sometimes entertainment content can provide its own intrinsic value to the visitor. Entertainment content can consist of picture galleries or be more informative, like DIY projects, etc. Visitors who have a pleasant experience with a website are likely to come back and eventually become customers.
- Some sort of community aspect. While not as common as the other components listed, community messaging or chat functions can serve the purpose of binding a loose collection of individuals into a core strength of the website. The messaging board Doll Divas (https://members.boardhost.com/DollDivas/) is an example of this small core group environment. Sales between members are permitted on this board. DOLL-WORLD was created with the same type of community spirit in mind.
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Basic info and common costs associated with an independent personal/business website. Selling online with a personal business website can be rewarding but also be a bit confusing starting out, require a huge investment of time, and sometimes have a financial impact. Below is a basic discussion of website setup requirements, including typical costs to consider, before embarking on creating and maintaining an independent sales website:
- Domain. The first and most important requirement for a personal website is to secure a domain. A domain is required to give your website its own unique internet name and address so that visitors can find your website.
- Domain name. The domain name chosen for a website should reflect the unique aspect of the website while making it obvious what general type of website it is. This helps visitors find a particular website more easily by searching for common words embedded in the domain name, like “doll” for a doll website, or “hair” for a hair supply website. Other info structurally embedded in the website during the site-building process will provide additional identifying search terms for more accurate targeted search results.
- Domain address (URL). Your website’s unique internet address is known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). No one else can use that exact URL for a different website as long as the ownership registration for that URL is maintained. Individual pages of a multi-page website will have a URL tied to the main domain. Example: DOLL-WORLD’s domain URL is “https://www.doll-world.com”. The URL for the the subordinate “Accounts” page of the website is “https://www.doll-world.com/Accounts”, while the FAQs page URL is “https://www.doll-world.com/FAQs”.
- Purchasing a domain. A domain name can be purchased through a broker approved by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the international consortium that regulates internet access and provides structural and functional standards for the internet to operate properly and consistently. The price of a domain can vary anywhere from $15 to $35 or more, depending on the broker. Beware of “parked” domains – domains that are purchased with no intention of ever using them for a website. Unscrupulous people oftentimes find a popular trend in domain names and pay the nominal fees to reserve these names so that if anyone searches for and wants to procure one of these domain names, the seller will offer it for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
- Domain hosting service. Once the website domain is purchased, it must be “hosted” or stored on a server. A server is a physical memory-bank computer with constant internet connection that stores the actual files making up the website. This storage computer “serves” up the website on demand over the internet to any visitor at any time (ideally). There are several main types of website hosting options available in a dizzying array of price/service ranges.
- Self-hosting. One of the simplest yet most complicated options for website hosting is to set up a computer yourself to create your own server. Most people do not opt for this, as it requires a level of knowledge and equipment that is not available to the average person looking to host a website.
- Commercial hosting. Businesses that offer dedicated hosting services may offer a range of hosting “packages” at different prices with different levels of service so that website owners can decide what’s best for their individual needs. Many if not most of these services also broker domains and include a “free” domain purchase with annual renewal at a reduced cost when combined with continued hosting service. Upscale hosting services provide exclusive storage/server capacity but charge handsomely for it, while budget-friendly hosting services offer allocated storage space on “shared” servers that house hundreds of websites. Shared servers tend to have more downtime and slower response but oftentimes fit the budgetary needs of people just starting out with their own website. The cost for hosting service can vary widely, from $2.99/month to $199/month or higher, depending on the services included with the hosting package.
- “Free”/low-budget subdomain hosting. Certain “free” or low-budget hosting services like Webs.com will offer website domains, hosting, and website building tools at no cost, or for a very low monthly cost. The drawback of this type of service is that website building tools for do-it-yourself site owners are often very limited in scope and capability, with very few customization options, so websites tend to look “canned” or generic. Also – and this is an important consideration – the domain is in fact a SUBdomain tied directly to the hosting service and cannot be transferred if the website owner wishes to use a different hosting service for the website. Example: DOLL-WORLD’s website URL on this type of hosting service like Webs.com would be “https://www.webs.com/doll-world”. And, last but not least, ecommerce is usually not provided free, but would require an extra cost for typically limited selling capability. For someone just starting out who doesn’t know a whole lot about websites and doesn’t need sophisticated ecommerce capability, this type of service might be just enough. But any growth in the website would require a new domain and a move to a better service. Starting over is never fun.
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- Building a website. The most difficult (and potentially most expensive up-front cost) for a personal website is actually creating the website. Most free and commercial hosting sites promise “hassle-free” and “easy-1-2-3” tool packages for building a new website, but for the average person just beginning to delve into website building, these claims are a blatant overstatement. Any website with ecommerce features is going to be more complicated than the average person can handle without doing some deep-dive learning to barely skim the surface of CSS, HTML, PHP, and JAVA script, and MySQL. Anyone who doesn’t know what these acronyms and terms mean should seriously reconsider trying to build their own website. However intimidating it may seem, here are some basic options and suggestions for getting the job done.
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- IMPORTANT: Start with a plan! You would not start a trip without planning your route first. Failing to do so would mean you’d likely drive and drive and drive, only to end up hopelessly lost with no idea how to get where you wanted to go. The same concept applies to building a website, no matter how simple or complicated you think you want it to be. Come up with some idea of what you want your website to do, and how you want it to look. Study existing websites to find ones with appearance and functionality that appeals to you. Pay attention to color schemes, structure, and overall look and feel to figure out why certain websites appeal to you more than others. Then plot out how many pages you will need to complete your website, and make notes on the type of content you want to feature on your website. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to create, then you can begin to figure out how to do it.
- Website-building tools offered by free/low-budget subdomain hosting. As stated before, a person who knows little to nothing about website programming might be able to learn a thing or two by using a free starter service for web subdomain hosting. The web-building tools at these starter services are usually rudimentary and simple enough for most web-inexperienced people to navigate the basics. It might be a desirable option to have a website with no ecommerce, but simply an email where visitors can contact the owner about purchasing items shown on their website.
- Deep-dive Youtube web-building tutorials for beginners. If you want something more involved and sophisticated than a subdomain website and are serious about building your own website, but don’t know how or where to start, Youtube can be a pretty helpful and informative resource. Go to Youtube.com and type in the video search space: “How to build a beginner ecommerce website for free,” and watch the most recent videos. You’ll quickly realize which content is reliable and easy to follow. Don’t forget to look up the definition of terms you don’t understand. Once you’ve viewed a couple videos and found out a few definitions for web-building terms, you’ll either start learning the basics that you need, or get overwhelmed and frustrated really fast and realize you need to try something easier, like the free subdomain option listed above.
- WordPress. WordPress.org offers a free open-source web-building platform with several options and blends of different options to build a website. (NOTE: We refer here to the build option from WordPress.org, NOT WordPress.com, which is the commercial hosting version of WordPress, a whole different animal that will cost $.). The free WordPress build version is used by newbies who know very little if any PHP or CSS, as well as experienced website builders capable of building an entire website from scratch using their own PHP and CSS coding. Thousands of precoded plugin apps are available for add-on functionality to perform almost anything imaginable, while thousands of prebuilt website templates offer a rich pool of possibilities for a variety of customizable websites geared for specific purposes from ecommerce shopping to restaurant menus. Additionally, with free versions of commercial web-builder plugins like Elementor and Beaver available, as well as open-source Gutenberg, and plenty of documentation and open-forum resources at WordPress.org, almost anyone can get a crash-course in web-building using very little if any actual coding in PHP or CSS. WordPress is available on many commercial shared-server hosting services, as it is quite popular with do-it-yourselfers who like to learn as they go, as well as those who already know what they’re doing. With perseverance and a whole lot of Youtube tutorials and other online resources, the necessary knowledge base can be acquired to build a pretty impressive website.
- Cpanel. Cpanel is a user interface that organizes folders and files for the website to make them easier for the website owner to find and access. Cpanel is used on many shared-server hosting services. With FTP, code files can be uploaded to the appropriate areas to build a PHP website from scratch without using any builder interface at all. Usually only the most experienced website builders use this option.
- Hire someone to build your website. If do-it-yourself website-building is not in your wheelhouse and you don’t want to become an expert, you can always opt to find someone to build all or some parts of your website for you. Options range from highly-paid professional web designers to entrepreneurs who design websites as a sideline income. Work-for-hire websites like Fiver.com have thousands of listings from people looking for web design work. Additionally, many shared-server and exclusive server high-end hosting services offer web design services. If you opt to engage a web designer or web design services from a hosting service, make sure you have in writing exactly what you are paying for and how much you are paying. There should be absolutely no conflicts about expectations versus results, and if there are, the written work contract should specify clear avenues of resolution. The most obvious drawback of this web-building option is that if you need any changes made to your website, you will have to hire someone to do those changes and pay additional money. Therefore this is considered a last-resort option for someone who has more money than interest in do-it-yourself web-building.
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Doll Marketing/Selling – Online Commercial Options
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SELL DOLLS AND DOLL STUFF. In this and other sections, we’ll list and briefly discuss different venues, platforms, and opportunities to sell dolls and related items.
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COMMERCIAL ONLINE SELLING. One of the easiest and most popular (but time-consuming and potentially expensive) methods of selling dolls and related items is to go online to a commercial ecommerce selling site. There are both pros and cons to selling on popular commercial sites like Ebay. These sites attract millions of potential buyers, but there are also millions of sellers competing for the attention of these potential buyers. Listing items for sale is usually pretty easy and straightforward, but it is also time-consuming when each item must be listed by hand, individually. It’s difficult to attract sellers when the market is crowded with competing sellers, and making your listings stand out may prove to be a challenge. Short listing periods and limits on the number of items that can be listed for sale in a particular time period can hamper sales if potential buyers are inundated by competitors’ listings and tire of searching before they find yours. Additionally, some sites charge to list items for sale as well as charge a fee when an item sells, so it can prove costly to renew short-term listings with few or no sales. Fees are usually high and accumulate quickly with payment processing fees added on top, further reducing the net profit a seller may receive from selling items. Read further to find out more about how to make the most out of selling your dolls on commercial selling sites.
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SELLING ON EBAY. Ebay offers one of the least regulated sales platform with the most exposure to potential buyers. Given the fierce competition for buyer attention, it’s prudent for sellers to utilize strategies to make their items stand out and seem more appealing than those of competitors. Many sellers have tried many different strategies for selling items on Ebay. Some strategies work better than others for different sellers. The important factor is each seller’s level of risk aversion. Our advice is for new sellers to use less risky selling strategies and only try higher-risk strategies with items they’re willing to lose money on if the risk situation takes a turn for the worst. Here is a detailed list of issues to consider when selling on Ebay:
Seller issues:
- Paypal account. To sell on Ebay, you SHOULD have a PayPal account in place and link it to your Ebay account to secure a safe payment method. While some people have had bad issues with Paypal, for the most part it seems to be a safe alternative for accepting payments online without exposing personal banking/credit information.
- New seller limits. Ebay may restrict the number of items a new sellers may offer for sale in a given period of time. Only after a certain number of successful transactions can new sellers increase the number of items they offer for sale.
- Precarious feedback issues. Ebay’s feedback system clearly favors buyers and gives sellers no recourse to correct punitive/erroneous feedback left by flippant and ill-behaved buyers, or to indicate toxic buyers that should be avoided or banned. And there are many many badly behaved buyers despite most sellers’ honest attempts to make sales right when something goes wrong.
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Sales listing issues:
- Research the current market pricing before listing. It’s important to do careful pricing research of similarly priced items to hit a happy medium where a seller attracts a variety of seasoned buyers who know the worth of an item for sale and are willing to pay for what they win. When other sellers are putting up crazy overpriced or underpriced similar items, a seller should consider the possible advantages of putting up their own listing of a similar item. Crazy underpriced items usually create volatile bidding wars that could be advantageous to a seller with a reasonably priced item, especially when the bidding war approaches or exceeds the price of the reasonably-listed item. Crazy overpriced items almost never get sales – unless it’s a one-of-a-kind rare grail doll on someone’s list. If you have a similarly desirable item, listing it at a more reasonable price that you can accept will almost always guarantee a sale – assuming someone’s actually looking for that type of item.
- Optimum listing time. A sales listing goes live shortly after the seller publishes it, but it can take hours to be found by search algorithms if a lot of similar items are already listed. The seller can opt to save the listing as a draft and schedule a specific day and time for the listing to go live. It’s sometimes difficult to determine the optimum begin/end schedule for a listing. A rule of thumb is that if a seven-day listing starts on a certain day at a certain time, it will end on that same day and time the following week. So, if an item is listed on Sunday morning when some potential buyers might be in church or sleeping off a Saturday night party, the listing will end the next Sunday at the same time. This could create a bidding desert for that item. It’s best to anticipate when most buyers will be awake and looking to buy items without unexpected interruptions (like work or household responsibilities). A seller should consider the “average” or “typical” buyer and time a listing to start and end when it is most advantageous for buyers with similar schedules to be looking and buying on Ebay. Holiday schedules and vacation trips can also mess with optimum listing schedules, so think ahead when planning your listings.
- Listing duration. Sales listings can be set to last one day, three days, five days, seven days, or 10 days. It may take a couple hours for a listing to populate and go live. The chances of a listing being seen by a sufficient number of potential buyers in the less-than 24 hours left for a one-day listing are pretty slim, so we don’t think there’s much use going to all the trouble of listing an item, only to have the listing expire right away. Three days may still be too short an interval, unless a seller is trying to target specific days of the week for sales exposure, like Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Ten days seems a bit too long for a listing because many buyers don’t want to wait that long for an item or have to watch a listing that long. Ten-day listings might be more appropriate for a very expensive item. Our preferred listing duration is seven days, with five days coming in at a close second. With these listing duration options, buyers have the opportunity over several days to see the listing and bid on it.
- Listing fees. Ebay is one of the few platforms where you can sell almost anything without a listing fee if you make the right choices. “Listing fee” means that you pay up front to list an item for sale, whether or not you end up selling it. Ebay offers a number of different ways to sell an item, but the most popular is AUCTION style with a free BUY IT NOW option.
- Upgrade listing enhancements. Ebay offers listing enhancement options such as bold title or enlarged thumbnail product picture, but these options will cost extra, anywhere from $0.10 to $1.00 per listing. Sometimes Ebay will run a special and offer these types of enhancements free for a limited time. In our experience, unless that option is free, we don’t bother. Since most buyers perform a search to find specific items they want, descriptive titles are more likely to attract interested buyers. The enhanced title or product picture attracts attention only after search results have been delivered to the buyer. Choosing a simple auction style with descriptive titles has as much chance to attract potential buyers without all the extra cost. A no-enhancement listing will allow a seller to list up to 50 items simultaneously without paying any listing fees whatsoever. Exceptions to free listings do apply for certain types of items like cars. But for toys and other similar items, there’s no listing fee for a plain auction style sales listing.
- Emulate (but do not copy!) listings you find appealing. Chances are, if a listing “speaks” to you or somehow grabs your interest, it is doing the same for many buyers. Try to determine what it is about that listing that calls to you. Perhaps it’s the catchy title, or the layout of the body of the listing, or the way the seller describes the item. Or even the pictures the seller uses. If you find this type of listing appealing, more than likely many buyers will too. Be aware that copy-pasting other sellers’ listings into your own is considered copyright infringement and is strictly verboten, as is using others’ listing pictures. Doing this can get your listing automatically canceled, even if you happen to have bids on your item.
- Selling fees. Ebay’s selling fees are now about 10% of the final sale price for a listed item. When an item sells, the 10% Ebay fee is deducted, along with fees assessed by Paypal (if used) to process the buyer’s payment. Payment fees amount to about 3% of the total sale, which includes shipping cost collected from the buyer, leaving the seller, after all told, paying around 15% to sell and ship an item.
- Store fees. Sellers who maintain an Ebay storefront pay about $15 per month for the store, or more, depending on the level of store they choose and the number of products they choose to list. Listings usually expire in 30 days, meaning they must be relisted if they don’t sell, so the Ebay store does not create a permanent shop, just a space filled with temporary listings. There may be an extra cost to list an item longer. Honestly, we haven’t checked out Ebay store options and fees in quite a while, so this information may be slightly inaccurate, but you can be sure if it is, the costs are higher than what we noted.
- State your selling terms in every listing. It’s extremely important for sellers to clearly state their sales and return policy on every listing. Most sellers who offer free shipping as well as returns are careful to specify that returns with full refunds will entail a return shipping charge and a restocking fee that partially covers the original shipping cost. Ebay encourages all sellers to offer returns, but sellers can specify conditions of return, such as in same condition as sold, or no “changed my mind” returns without a stocking fee, etc. Every detail of a potential issue should be clearly stated so that buyers do not end up expecting concessions the seller isn’t prepared to make.
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Selling strategies:
- Best listing type (in our humble opinion) – Buy It Now with auction. Sometimes Ebay offers a free add-on “Buy It Now” feature to auctions without requiring an upcharge fee on the listing. BIN helps ensure a sale if someone finds an item appealing and doesn’t want to wait for an auction to end in order to get it. If the BIN option comes free with an auction, the best combination is to pick the longest-duration auction time to allow buyers time to find the listing, with a BIN price that’s reasonably higher than the auction starting price yet low enough to entice an instant buyer. Note that BIN goes away as soon as someone places an auction bid, and if they’re the only bidder, the item could end up selling for the original auction listing price, so it’s important to list the item for at least a minimum acceptable amount. Buy-It-Now price is always set higher. It should be enough higher than the auction starting price that an instant buyer is actually paying for the convenience of BIN, but not so high to discourage BIN. It’s up to the seller to decide a reasonable relationship between these pricing structures.
- The low price gambit (very high risk level). Many times a seller will list an item at an incredibly low price to attract more bidders, but this is always a gamble, especially if it’s a new seller and the auction time is relatively short. Sometimes only first-time bidders will bid early, and when seasoned bidders see a bidding war going on, or the price comes close to an expected price, they will not bid. The real problem occurs when a seller gets only one bid on a low-priced item. If no one else bids on that item, the buyer will get the item for the original low beginning bid price. It’s possible for a seller to price a $100 doll for $0.99, get only one bid, and end up having to sell the doll for only $0.99 – and pay more in selling fees so that the total sales return is even less than $0.99. Most sellers who do this don’t have a problem canceling a listing if they don’t get a sufficient number of bids to drive the price up, but doing that on a regular basis will cause Ebay to flag the seller’s account. Each seller must decide if this strategy is even worth the trouble. Sometimes just pricing a doll at a reasonable market price is a better option, because usually the only person that bids on a lowball priced item is someone with a lottery mentality looking to win something for nothing.
- Marketing brand referral in Ebay listings. Ebay has learned over the years that allowing live links to other sites in their seller listings is bad for their business and lowers safety and security on their platform. So they forbid sellers from putting live links to websites like their website home page inside their sales listings. (“Live links” means the link to another web page is clickable within the Ebay sales listing.) However that does not stop people from spelling out their website or blog address in their listings so potential buyers can copy and paste the URL into another browser window and visit the site to find additional items from a seller that are not listed for sale on Ebay. This very useful sales technique helps draw customers to your home base web page, blog, etc., so that you can interact with customers on a repeat basis without having to continue to go through Ebay to sell items to attract customers. This works only for sellers that have multiple items of interest and have another place where they can sell their items with fewer fees than Ebay charges.
- Pricing items to avoid paying out more than sales amount received. In a bizarre combination of low sale pricing and cumulative sales fees, a seller could actually end up paying more to sell an item than the net revenue received from selling the item. Ebay may not charge a listing fee, but makes up for that by charging a 10% sales fee (12% on books and DVDs) on the total sale price collected, which includes shipping charges paid by the buyer that the seller doesn’t get to keep as revenue. Also there’s PayPal payment processing fees of $0.30 for every payment transaction on top of 2.9% of the total sale price including collected shipping. Considering these fees, there’s a “break-even” pricing point for an auction, below which the seller will actually pay more in selling fees and shipping than the amount collected for the sale of an item. Many sellers forget to factor in the hidden costs of selling – supplies to pack and ship items, as well as trips to the carrier to delivery packages for shipping. After all that is factored in, selling an item for less than $1.00 is a revenue-losing proposition because you’re going through all the work of listing, packaging, and shipping items simply to give them away! If you have several similar-type low-price items you want to sell, it’s smarter to bundle items in sales lots for a higher total price and ship them all together as a unit.
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Buyer issues:
- Remove undesirable auction bids and block specific bidders from bidding on auction items. Bidder history on an auction can be viewed by anyone while bidders remain anonymous, identified only by unique bidder numbers. Because of the erratic tendencies of new bidders, many experienced sellers will block bids from buyers with less than five positive feedback comments, or remove their bids in the event they manage to somehow circumvent a block. Experienced sellers will also block buyers with whom they’ve experienced problems in previous sales. Once burned, twice learned.
- Block new buyers with no feedback. Sellers new to Ebay who don’t have feedback themselves may not want to take advantage of this strategy. However, seasoned sellers realize this is (most of the time) a good strategy to employ, to avoid wasting time with inexperienced buyers who don’t know what they’re doing and don’t fully understand the rules of engagement in the Ebay sales landscape. New bidders with no feedback and no history of purchases oftentimes foolishly engage in dollar-by-dollar bidding wars because they’re trying to edge out other buyers without risking a high bid price, even if they’re willing to pay that price. This discourages experienced buyers from engaging in an auction until perhaps the last minute or two when the auction time is ready to run out. Also, new bidders with little buying or feedback history are notorious for backing out of auctions they’ve won, because oftentimes they bid on many similar items in different auctions and win unexpectedly, then are not prepared to pay or never had any intention of paying for what they won. Occasionally a person banned from Ebay for gross misbehavior will create a new account and bid on items, never intending to pay, but is simply there to mess with sellers they see as competition.
Shipping issues:
- Multiple purchase shipping discount. Sellers who offer multiple separate listings at the same time usually offer to discount the shipping if a buyer happens to purchase more than one item listed. This is an incentive for buyers and encourages the purchase of multiple items from one seller. The downside is, the seller must specify that the buyer should pay from an invoice the seller sends after calculating the correct shipping cost for multiple items shipped together. This can create delays in receiving payments from buyers, and it creates extra work for the seller to prepackage and weigh everything before actually receiving payment.
- Insist on one payment per order when offering multiple-item shipping discount. Many buyers will be tempted to buy and pay for each item individually when purchasing separately listed multiple items from one seller. This does not allow the seller to provide an invoice with the correct amount of shipping, but instead requires the seller to REFUND partial shipping paid by the buyer for each separate item. Additionally, every time the buyer completes a payment transaction, Paypal (if used) charges $0.30 per transaction. So if a buyer purchases 12 separate items, the seller will get charged an extra $3.60 simply for excess Paypal charges. If the buyer waited as instructed to pay from the seller’s invoice, $3.30 would go to the seller, and not Paypal. If buyers insist on refusing to wait for an invoice and make multiple transactions, shipping savings should be reduced by the amount equivalent to the extra payment fee charges so the buyer, not the seller, pays for the buyer’s impatience or ignorance.
- Decide if international sales is something you want to get into. Selling abroad can be quite a hassle with the customs forms and outrageous shipping prices. Ebay used to offer global shipping – where if an item is purchased internationally, you ship to a global shipping warehouse that will reprocess your package for international shipping at no extra charge to you. Honestly, we don’t know if that’s an option anymore, and we don’t know how it impacts the price of the item for the international buyer. One thing we do know, customs in other countries can involve tariffs and extra charges, plus delivery delays that may turn into months – and a loss for you if the buyer files a non-delivery charge against you. If you decide to ship internationally, be prepared to deal with these headaches.
- Avoid the FREE SHIPPING vs. return/refund trap. Everybody loves getting something FREE, especially “FREE shipping.” But is the shipping really “FREE”? Savvy buyers will compare the TOTAL price of a purchase – the item price plus the shipping cost together – when looking at the cost of a similar item listed with “FREE shipping.” Sometimes the free-shipping item is actually priced higher than the combined price and shipping cost of a similar item. But when some buyers see the word “FREE,” they will ignore math and logic and end up paying more because they think they’re actually getting something for free when they’re not. This is neither good for the buyers nor good for the sellers. Ebay, like every other selling platform, knows this but pushes sellers to offer “FREE shipping” with the enticement of a “TOP SELLER” badge that shows up on a seller’s listings if they have over X-number of sales per month and offer free shipping as well as returns. A “Top Seller” seller’s feedback rating could be lower than some other sellers without the badge, but TOP SELLER still gets preferential treatment when a potential buyer searches for items. As long as people buy, Ebay and Paypal make money. Once the sale is made and a seller has offered free shipping, the seller is responsible for paying out of pocket for the shipping. If the seller has not included in the total price of the item the highest domestic shipping rate for the weight of the item, that will mean a loss of profit for the seller. If the buyer wants to return the item for a refund, since the shipping was “free” the seller will then have to refund the entire amount of the sale to the buyer, including the shipping cost that was rolled into the item price. And if the seller’s terms don’t include details about return shipping, the seller might actually have to pay for that too. Make sure you don’t fall into that money trap.
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SELLING ON ETSY. Everyone who sells on Etsy must maintain a storefront to list their items for sale. There’s no charge to create the storefront account, but a payment method must be set up and verified by Etsy before sales can be made. Originally Etsy was set up strictly as a sales site for handcrafted items, but the site has expanded their sales program to include sellers who sell supplies and crafts that are factory-made, further flooding the platform with competing items that no longer serve the personal handmade entrepreneur model that started as Etsy’s original concept. Additional information follows…
- Selling dolls and doll items on Etsy. Since Etsy’s original concept was to sell handmade and artisan items, commercially manufactured dolls were not part of the approved selling lineup. An exception was made for “vintage” items (older than 20 years), leaving the market open for dollers to sell anything made 20 years before the listing date. Of course dollers who make handmade doll clothes and other accessories are welcome to sell those items.
- Fees and other considerations. Etsy charges a $0.40 listing fee for every item listed in the storefront. Listing duration is four months, except for pattern listings, which don’t expire. Etsy charges a sales fee of 5% when items sell, assessed on the total order price paid including shipping. Depending on the payment method, there could be a payment processing fee as well when something sells.
- Recent changes and seller qualifiers. Etsy now strongly encourages sellers to offer FREE SHIPPING and buy paid advertising to get preferential listing positions in product searches, or to have a shop featured on the front page of the site. Because of these new preferential rules that serve mainly Etsy’s own income stream, several former Etsy sellers have exited the platform. Technically this is not a FREE UP-FRONT sales site but it is included in this alternate sales platform discussion because many crafters still sell on this platform, and it might be considered a reasonable additional sales platform for sales exposure. Limiting listings to just a few key items and including alternate sales sites in the shop profile could help drive customers to other sales avenues that are less expensive to participate in.
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SELLING ON AMAZON. Amazon may have the highest shopper traffic of any online site in the world with sales volume in the billions annually. Because of this, doll enthusiasts might think this is a good place to sell dolls. And some people do sell dolls on Amazon – unopened boxed dolls. But in our opinion, Amazon is not a suitable sales venue for the niche market of doll collectors. Sellers must qualify to sell in certain categories on Amazon. Sellers are required to maintain a monthly selling plan. Fees vary depending on items sold and type of selling plan the seller maintains. With a standard individual selling plan, Amazon charges $0.99 per item sold, plus a referral fee. The referral fee is a percentage of the item’s total sale price, including shipping costs but not taxes, and generally ranges from 8% to 20%. Media items (books, movies and video games) that are sold are subject to an additional closing fee of $1.80. A professional selling plan requires a $39.99 monthly subscription fee, with no individual item fee. The professional plan is best for sellers who plan to sell more than 40 items per month. These are high-cost requirements we simply can’t justify for a niche market like pre-owned dolls.
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SELLING ON BONANZA. Bonanza is an online selling site similar in structure to Ebay but certainly not as sophisticated in look or function. Bonanza’s sellers list an impressive range of used products, some of them dolls. But the categories on Bonanza are limited to “toys” with no “dolls” separate category. The term “dolls” can be searched to render results showing many items that are indeed dolls, but the overall quality and presentation of sale items leaves much to be desired. Based on this, we are guessing this is not a lucrative platform for collector doll sales.
Bonanza does not charge listing fees and charges sales fees based on final sales price of sold items, plus any amount of the shipping cost over $10. So if you sold an item for $20 and shipped it for $13, the fee would be 3.5% of $23, or $0.81, with a minimum fee of $0.50 per item. On sales totaling over $500 (including shipping over $10), the fee amount is 3.5% and is reduced to 1.5% on the remainder over $500. Bonanza also offers to advertise listings across the web in exchange for a higher percentage fee.
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SELLING ON MERCARI. Mercari is an online selling platform similar to Bonanza, Ebay, etc. Mercari charges the seller a sales fee of 10% of the item’s purchase price for every completed sale, plus a payment processing fee (2.9% of the item purchase price + $0.30 for every completed sale). Additionally, a $2 direct deposit withdrawal fee is charged on requests under $10, a $2 processing fee is charged for Instant Pay transactions, and a $2 processing fee is charged if the bank rejects a direct deposit transfer. A 5% cancellation fee may be charged if the seller cancels a transaction in progress. Mercari has established selling and withdrawal limits for new sellers. Other conditions apply, so it’s a good idea to read Mercari’s terms of service in detail.
Like Bonanza, the look and feel of the website is simplistic, and the overall quality of doll items sold on Bonanza – according to typical seller listings – is less than ideal to foster a trusted atmosphere suitable for selling expensive collector dolls. But for older used or boxed dolls, it might be an OK sales outlet.
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The list of online selling platforms we’ve presented is by no means complete or exhaustive. Many online platforms we investigated were localize to certain countries and global regions, so we chose not to include them. If you’re aware of a commercial market for selling dolls and doll-related items that’s not listed here, please drop us a line and let us know. And … that brings us to social media online marketing/selling, which we’ll discuss in the next section.
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Social Media: Marketing, Promotion, Monetization, and Selling
SELF-PROMOTION ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS. Most doll enthusiasts who’ve been involved with “dolling” for quite some time already know about and have access to various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. Many dolling folks visit these platforms regularly to enjoy content provided by active creators. As part of our examination of marketing and selling, we’ll discuss why and how social media content creators do what they do, to give a better understanding of the mysterious workings of marketing.
Content quality and upload consistency can vary widely among social media creators, and their reasons for being on social media platforms can vary as well. It’s obvious that some creators are just playing around and exploring the platform, or simply trying it out because everyone else seems to be doing it, so why not? Some are just starting out, trying to emulate the path of success paved by others, while those who have enjoyed success on their chosen platforms have learned what works and seem to be following a plan of action to continue and expand their success. These successful popular creators work diligently to develop and upload polished and entertaining content on a regular schedule, and interact with their audience on a personal level. This sets audience expectations they know must be fulfilled in order to bring back viewership again and again. We will focus on these types of social media stars producing doll-related content to analyze how they achieved proven, lasting popularity, and what actions they’ve taken as part of their promotional plan. Some topics we’ll cover include: Why are view counts and subscriber/follower numbers important? How do content creators know what content works, and what doesn’t? How are some content creators making real money or otherwise benefiting themselves on their platform of choice? What are the tricks to “game the system” and shift from a day job to creating social media content as a main source of income? We hope to answer these questions and more. (NOTE: Because our emphasis and interest lies in visual/video content, we will focus mainly on the Youtube platform.)
Crafting giants, toy reviewers, and doll customizers lead the charge. Those who’ve moved past the hobby level to establish themselves as legitimate doll artists or authorities on some aspect of doll collecting are marketing their products and/or expertise on a variety of social media outlets to draw interest to their “brand” through their social media activities. Some have built up a huge following of fans and potential customers. Anyone who has watched a doll video on YouTube probably knows about MyFroggyStuff, a prolific crafter who started out making doll videos with her daughter and has grown that activity into one of the most successful doll-related franchises on social media. For her, the Youtube video platform is her source of income, and she’s constantly coming up with new content to keep her family franchise in business. However, she also realizes other platforms provide a somewhat different audience pool (not everyone watches Youtube regularly), so she has attempted to branch out and establish a regular presence on Instagram, another visual-focused platform, in order to widen her audience reach and connect with additional fans. Her videos often feature free downloadable content that she makes available on her website, so that she can provide even more avenues to garner audience interest and participation. Her content’s entertaining and sometimes educational for nearly any age group, and can be quite useful in offering tips and ideas for doll folks who want to DIY their own dioramas and so forth.
There are other video channels like Doll Circle and My World (formerly Mommy and Gracie) who do mainly doll and toy reviews, and still others who customize dolls for fun or as a side job or main occupation. The social media sky is ablaze with shining stars in the doll customizing niche – Poppen Atelier, Dollightful, The Doll Fairy, Moonlight Jewel, and many more, as well as earlier trailblazing pioneers who helped popularize doll customizing – Maria Lazar, Mozekyto, Nicolle’s Dreams, and more. Currently there are perhaps 15 to 30 legitimately accomplished doll artists with a significant social presence on Youtube. Like MyFroggyStuff, many of these doll customizers post videos and other content on more than one social platform like Instagram and YouTube simultaneously to ensure they reach a wider audience. Some doll artists help support themselves in a variety of ways by selling their creations on Ebay or Etsy, and monetizing their social media presence. These people would have almost no exposure or success without social media platforms agreeing to promote them in exchange for them making and uploading unique content that engages visitors and attracts viewership to the platform.
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The peculiarly intricate symbiotic relationship between content creators and social media platforms. It’s difficult to fathom exactly how social media stars make money being social media stars. The various methods by which social media stars monetize their social activity have developed slowly, organically, in a capitalistic environment created by the social media platforms themselves. The monetization methods are varied and sometimes obscure, defying understanding, but one of the main features of any social media platform’s monetization schemes is ADVERTISERS. Companies are always looking for ways to expose more potential customers to their products. So companies will seek out and promote content creators that command a high viewership – the more eyes on content, the more eyes to see advertising. Here, in no particular order, is our attempt to explain some of the various monetization methods popular content creators use.
- Donations and subscriptions. Many popular social media stars have accounts set up with payment-collection apps like PATREON that offer paid membership subscription services. In return for a monthly paid fee, “patrons” receive exclusive content or products from the content provider they’re sponsoring. Patreon takes a cut of the fees to make money. The exclusivity of the creator’s premium content, kept behind the subscription paywall, attracts subscribers and provides a steady source of income for the creator. However, the creator must continue to deliver exclusive content and attract new patrons in order to balance out inevitable attrition.
- Branded merchandise. Content creators oftentimes employ the services of novelty item manufacturers like Cafepress, and similar online merchants, to produce and deliver creator-designed imprint items for sale such as stickers, tee-shirts, mugs, etc. The creator gets a portion of each sale as income.
- Sponsorship. Companies often approach successful content creators and agree to pay them a fee to do an infomercial about their products during their regularly scheduled content. Creators that have a high viewership are more likely to be approached with sponsorship deals from companies that either offer products used by the content creator or companies like Skillshare that have a platform offering exclusive paywall content made by creators.
- Paywall content Oftentimes creators have specific knowledge or skills they wish to impart to others interested in learning that knowledge or skillset. For instance, doll customizers’ viewership may include many people who want to learn how to customize dolls or who want to improve their doll-customizing skills. Once the creator has established a large and steady viewership, it might be feasible to go to a learning platform like Skillshare and upload exclusive in-depth lesson plans detailing the step-by-step process to do a specific portion of doll customizing work. A creator then receives a viewing fee for making this type of educational or tutorial content available on places like Skillshare.
- Free stuff. Companies that produce products likely to be used by a content creator will often provide free products for the creator to use and make a video about the product for viewers to see. This creates a promotional situation for the company to reach a wider potential customer base that is very likely to purchase their products.
- Affiliate sales. Oftentimes a creator can leverage an agreement with a sales outlet like Amazon to promote the purchase of favorite supplies the creator commonly uses. The creator lists supplies with a purchase link and mentions in videos that anyone who clicks on the link to purchase said supplies will allow the creator to earn a percentage of that purchase at no additional cost to the purchaser.
- Purchase discounts. Companies may strike deals with creators to offer purchase discounts to viewers. The creator lists the products and promotes them in the video so viewers who purchase using the link will receive a discount on the products. Like “affiliate sales” of products, the creator also receives a small percentage of purchases made with the link.
- Platform monetization. Social media platforms like Youtube often have reward formulas to determine payment to content creators whose content produces high viewership. The reward formula may be dependent on a combination of subscription numbers as well as view numbers. In some scenarios, monetization opportunities are offered only after the creator reaches a certain subscription level like 10,000 subscribers. Once the base subscription level is attained, then the creator has the potential to have videos monetized with advertising content that plays automatically at certain intervals during the creator’s content. The amount of monetization may also depend on whether or not the viewer watches the entire ad or a certain percentage of the ad. Combined with high view numbers, specific videos could potentially earn a creator a nice chunk of money.
- Direct sale of creator’s products. Content creators who create end products as a result of their content oftentimes announce the sale of said products on some outlet such as their website, Ebay, Etsy, etc.
BUILDING SALES POTENTIAL USING SOCIAL MEDIA. Many folks casually interested in doll-related activities look for videos from doll artists, doll reviewers, and doll crafters as a passive form of entertainment. Others are looking for reviews to help them decide whether to buy a certain doll. A certain percentage of viewers seeking tips on how to fix or improve their own dolls, see the creative influence of these social media stars and get bitten by the creative bug to become more enthused with the process of crafting, customizing, and enjoying dolls in general. A small number of these viewers may take up social media content creation by following the footsteps of their favorite content creators.
Doll content producers who first start out may not be very good at what they’re doing and may have a very small following. However, as their skills improve and their viewership increases, YouTube will more actively promote their videos, helping them to build an even bigger following as they perfect their customizing techniques. This approach may take years to develop a loyal following and may not be appropriate for someone simply wanting to sell some doll items they have on hand, or sell handmade doll accessories. However, it can be a way to engage with other people on social media who are interested in various types of doll content. And if these folks find out you’re selling items, they may become customers. It’s all about making connections.
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Selling on social media. Selling is difficult on almost all social media platforms, because selling was not the primary purpose when most social media platforms were created. The purpose was “maximizing engagement of the viewer” to facilitate face-time with paid ads. For the average doller, selling for free on social media is nearly impossible. However, savvy social media stars have learned different ways of maximizing their public presence as a marketing tool. Presence, presentation, content, and connection with their audience are all key factors in building a successful media presence. Sometimes the most useful activity is simply to showcase some of your interests and enjoy those of others. The act of participation and engagement can indirectly work to your advantage if you want to network and build a following for your items, then sell privately or redirect others to places where they can buy your items.
Following is a list of the most popular social media platforms and sales potential for each:
- Pinterest. Pinterest is a picture-posting and “pinning” service where members create “boards” to “pin” pictures of a particular subject or “interest” – thus the name “Pinterest.” Pinterest users can upload their own pictures as well as pin other people’s pictures to their boards. Members can follow certain boards to get new picture feeds. The archival structure is newest pictures on top. You can search the entire platform for keyword interests in a manner similar to Google that will produce a feed of pictures that match your search criteria. Pinterest allows members to list a website and other social media links on their profile page, but there is no direct selling mechanism in place. URL links can be be embedded in pictures and captions as a promotional and selling method, as described in this SproutsSocial article (CLICK HERE to view in a new browser tab).
- Instagram. Instagram is currently very popular for posting pictures, short pictographic “stories,” and short videos in a sort of blog format designed mainly for mobile devices. Captions can be added to pictures and announcements. Most people employ some kind of free design software like Canva to create announcements and other graphics. Archival structure is by time-post with newest posts on top. Members can follow other members to include their pictures in their feed, and like photos. The site is searchable by keywords but almost impossible to find specific content from a user once content moves down the feed archive. It’s very difficult to make Instagram serve as a selling platform, but a tech-savvy person might be able to do it by making pictures clickable in a manner discussed in this blog post by Neil Patel (CLICK HERE to view the blog in a new browser tab).
- Flikr. Flikr is a photo-sharing platform where members can upload pictures and organize them in albums. Individual albums feature latest photos uploaded as the first photos viewed, so viewers must scroll through pictures in sequence by upload timestamp. Members can promote their website and other social media in a comments area, as well as list descriptions or instructions to accompany photos. Flikr has group capability allowing a member to create a group dedicated to special interests where group members can upload pictures pertaining to that group’s interest as well as post comments or questions in the forum area of the group. Flikr has a “like” and comment capability for pictures, and direct email contact capability. Many people try to use Flikr as a photo/art selling platform, but licensing of uploaded photos is important. If a photo is marked CC (creative commons), anyone can use the photo in any way they see fit. By default, Flikr categorizes all uploaded pictures as CC unless users designate otherwise. Flikr has decided to take some CC shared photos and sell canvas prints of them for corporate gain, which many believe is not in the spirit of CC. Therefore many photos formerly in CC mode are being converted by members to copyright license. Flikr used to be king of the photo social media landscape, but has fallen out of favor as users have found alternate platforms with different features they prefer. Flikr is not particularly suited for doll selling.
- Tumblr. Tumblr is a short-form micro-blogging platform. Members can join groups and share comments and information, including pictures and videos. Some members informally sell items to other members in their group via messaging. Online selling can be accomplished by customizing the type of theme used on a member’s Tumblr account, as described in this Houston Chronicle article (CLICK HERE to view in new browser tab).
- YouTube. YouTube, owned by Google, is a giant in the video-hosting platform arena. It allows members to create a personal “channel” to upload videos for others to watch. Members can like and save videos and organize saved videos into personalized playlists that other members can view. YouTube employs a search algorithm based on keywords or member channel name. Videos designated as “kid-friendly” content are blocked for personalized ad-monetizing, and these videos cannot be searched or saved. YouTube has several means for members to earn money on their videos through their “Partner Program.” This includes:
- Ad Revenue – earning ad revenue from display, overlay, and video ads.
- Channel Memberships – receiving recurring monthly payments from members who join, in exchange for special perks the membership channel offers.
- Merchandise Shelf – fans can browse and buy official branded merchandise showcased on a channel’s watch pages.
- Super Chat and Super Stickers – fans pay to get their messages highlighted in live chat streams.
- YouTube Premium Revenue – channel receives part of a YouTube Premium subscriber’s subscription fee whenever subscribers watch the channel’s content.
- The route most doll artists take for selling their customized dolls is to make tutorial videos showing the process of customizing the doll, then mentioning in the video that the doll will be available for sale on Ebay, website, Etsy, or other ecommerce sales outlet. This sales technique works especially well when the doll artist has a large YouTube following, creating a targeted audience where the artist makes regularly scheduled videos to keep the audience engagement strong.
- TikTok. TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance. The social media platform is used primarily to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education, that have a duration from fifteen seconds to three minutes. While these videos may be of primarily entertainment value, it is possible to post doll-related videos. The effectiveness of such videos in a sales atmosphere is negligible at best, considering the competition for attention on TikTok.
- Blogs. Blogs serve many purposes, mainly to give a voice to people that would otherwise remain isolated and unheard. The one common theme with almost all blogs is that they languish unnoticed and then are eventually abandoned by the blogger. Blogs that remain successful usually grow a dedicated audience and then move forward toward a more sophisticated branding atmosphere because the blogger has specific products to offer. Most blog platforms offer a situation where the blog can serve multiple purposes – to create an archive for past articles, and to showcase specific products like creative endeavors or tutorials. Blogs can double as a hosted web presence, taking the place of a real website. But blogs depend heavily on the building of a following to remain viable. Most blog platforms nowadays offer the feel of a website with the informational (actual blog portion) of the site as a secondary feature to continue drawing attention from followers. Subscription or follow features of most blogs give the ability to create and build a blogger’s following. For doll artists and collectors who want to sell items, a blog may not be the most engaging platform to use because it is extremely difficult to build a following when there are so many other types of social platforms offering more attractive avenues for audience interaction and engagement. In comparison to other social media outlets now available, writing articles seems a bit static and old-fashioned, but people still keep at it.
- Facebook Selling on Facebook is a bit awkward and difficult unless a member already has a strong follower engagement. Most people use Facebook personal pages to connect with people they already know. For doll collectors, there are specific groups dedicated to doll sales that are set up to allow people to use the group as a message board to sell their items. The problem with that is the information feed on Facebook is most recent on top, so any posts for sales items can quickly become buried by posts from others listing items later. The Facebook Neighborhood Market is a “yard sale” or “classified ad” selling platform described more thoroughly in the “SELLING – LOCAL” section above.
Maintaining multiple sales platforms for more exposure. One of the most exhausting and expensive and time-consuming methods of getting exposure for your products is to sell on multiple different platforms. If you’re going to go this route, the best option is to do it the smart way and stick to FREE UP-FRONT sales platform models. The best thing to do when first starting out, is to do a couple trial sales on different platforms to find the ones you like best. Then you can focus most of your sales on that platform.
For more a in-depth discussion of sales strategies, read the content in the other tab sections, particularly “SELLING – COMMERCIAL.”
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Social Media Etiquette
GENUINE MEANINGFUL PRESENCE AND ENGAGEMENT. If you aren’t already active on a social platform that showcases your activities with dolls, you might want to dive in and make some friends. Networking can be fun and, along the way, you may gain a market following for what you offer, especially if you present it using engaging social content. An important aspect of social networking is to not make a nuisance of yourself by overselling. Nobody likes to see spam messages on their social network platform – it’s almost as bad as advertisements popping up all over the place, covering website content. By “spam” we mean when people post messages specifically to promote themselves, their website, or their products strictly to make sales or build a following. Most people who spam are not there to genuinely engage with others, but only leave messages trying to sell themselves. That is not social interaction, it is selling, plain and simple. And most people get extremely annoyed by it. That’s why there are usually rules in place to prevent spammers from joining social groups.
Social media etiquette and “breaking the ice.” If you are unsure how to interact on a platform, don’t just do what you want and hope for the best – that could get you kicked off the platform before you even get started. Do a little research first. Check to make sure you follow any rules in place. All commercial social media platforms have Terms of Service they enforce on all users. Likewise, groups formed on a platform like Facebook may have their own specific rules for members.
When you first join a group, you may be asked to introduce yourself, after which you can observe what kinds of interactions are taking place and see how others behave in the group. This will give you a clue as to how to conduct yourself. Once you feel confident in interacting, you can join conversations and comment on others’ posts or do whatever is appropriate for the social platform you’re on. Remember, always be polite and just be yourself – your best self. Before you post anything, think how you would feel if someone else posted what you are about to post. If it would make you mad or uncomfortable, it’s certainly going to do the same for others. Most important – try not to create or get sucked into any social drama, because social media is THE PLACE FOR DRAMA. It’s best to stay out of that sort of conflict. Which brings us to…
The internet and the cloud city of toxicity. Toxicity – or Toxic-City – is not a fun place to visit on the internet. The air is foul and the people loitering there are vicious predators. Toxic-City is not really a place per se, it is a roaming realm of toxic people who are not on the internet to share helpful information and make friends. It’s a realm where the people there have one purpose – to cause discord and discomfort. Their motivations can be varied – pushing an agenda, radicalizing, polarizing, creating conflict, airing their anger just because they’re in a bad mood, or just being their horrible and snarky selves in a place where they can inflict their tasteless and senseless brand of selfishness on new and unsuspecting victims. No matter the motivation of these horrible people, the result is always the same. They create havoc and make other people really mad or uncomfortable or sad. They take over a platform to make “regular” people who are not normally toxic not want to come back. And perhaps that is the real purpose. These toxic people are the proverbial bad apples that spoil the whole basket.
The Wild, Wild West. While the internet is not really “owned” by anyone, and sometimes it feels like the Wild, Wild West, there are in fact regulation standards in place (created by international committees) to help ensure that the many technical aspects that make the internet work are compatible across different platforms and browsers and – well, just about anything that people use to gain access to the internet. Informally, most device manufacturers and software providers have agreed to abide by these standards that are ever-changing as the needs of the internet grow and change.
Corporate social media platforms are not public utilities. What nobody wants to admit is, that private companies (or publicly traded companies) set up and provide most of the social media platforms that people use every day. And as long as those proprietary platforms remain under the governance of the companies that own them, those companies have a right to restrict how their platforms may be used. Unfortunately, while these corporations enjoy huge advertising profits and high valuation on stock trading markets, they also sometimes bend to pressure from government entities and customer demands to intervene and place monitoring controls in their own platforms to dissuade badly behaving users from … well … behaving badly. Even though they already have terms of service rules in place that prohibit certain kinds of behavior, enforcing those rules in an equitable manner is a horse of a completely different color.
Toxic influence. Unfortunately, in the last several years, people have been publicly encouraged by government leaders and some celebrities to be their worst selves. These people no longer believe it’s necessary to behave politely towards others, because they’ve been told that it is OK to be selfish and rude and endanger others with their thoughtless and uncaring behavior. This behavior model also carries over to social media interactions. In a nutshell, rude people have taken over the internet and spoiled it for everyone. Now we are all stuck in one great big stinking TOXIC CITY.
SkyNet, Genesis, Legion – whichever sequel you prefer… Bowing to the demands of regular people who still want to enjoy what the internet has to offer, social media companies have risen to the challenge of monitoring behavior on their platforms by instituting automated algorithms to seek out and shut down said bad internet behavior. Unfortunately AI – Artificial Intelligence – running most of these algorithms ain’t really that smart when it comes to identifying and dealing with problematic human behavior. So people who accidentally say a “bad” word in the course of a regular (not hate-promoting) conversation will randomly get banned from the platform and have their account taken down. Since 2020 and the shortage of human workers, AI’s have been put in charge of monitoring their own decisions – a bad decision if ever there was one – resulting in people that should be banned not being banned, and people that shouldn’t be banned getting banned. It’s a friggin’ nightmare, because SkyNet’s in control, and most people are now acting like spoiled five-year-olds screaming and throwing tantrums to get whatever they want, regardless of whether or not they deserve it, or should get it. In an additional bizarre 1984 twist, big government has seized this opportunity to enforce unreasonable censorship on content creators, demanding that corporate owners of platforms ban people who dare to challenge what the government, in its own self-serving “wisdom” has decided is the “truth.”
Our new reality. In an ideal world, stupid content and outright misinformation would be challenged with discussion and pushback from those with alternate views. But with this new government-sponsored brand of censorship in place, open discussion is no longer possible – or allowed. And freedom of speech has taken a huge hit, literally having been flushed down the toilet by pro-authoritarian fascism.
And that, dear doll friends, is the reality we’re dealing with in social media at this point: erratic censorship that makes no sense while poor behavior abounds unpunished. That’s not to say that everyone is misbehavin’, but it only takes one on a platform to start trouble. The best advice we can give is keep your cool and keep your distance if you run across that kind of situation. It’s best not to even engage … because that is what the troublemakers want – they crave attention. We hope you don’t let these warnings dissuade you from venturing onto social media, and that you found something useful in this “verbose missive.”
For the brave few who’ve made it this far, we offer our congratulations (and our sincere condolences). As a bonus consolation, we added some Cattoons for your enjoyment!
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FUN-TIME ACTIVITY:
Take a drink of your favorite beverage every time you read the name
“DOLL-WORLD”!
