Marketing Your Business: A Reason to Believe

Have you ever noticed that on eBay there are sellers that seem to be able to sell anything, even though there are multiple others offering the exact same item for less? If you\’ve ever stopped to wonder why, you may have thought it has to do with the seller\’s reputation.

But there is more to it than that. Something many sellers fail to realize is the role that marketing plays, even on eBay. One very effective marketing tactic is tapping into a buyer\’s emotions by offering them a great deal… or leading them to believe that they are getting a great deal.

We can see how this works with the following real-life example.

An order of ski jackets arrived at a retail store. But as they opened the box the order arrived in, it turned out that one of the jackets received a cut in it from a box cutter. All other jackets were left unharmed. Rather than returning the damaged jacket, the store manager decided to put it up on eBay, along with an undamaged jacket to run side-by-side with the damaged one to compare the performance of the two auctions.

Both eBay auctions were listed at the same time under the same account, both for a period of five days. But because he felt the damaged jacket would not sell well, he started it with an opening bid of just ninety-nine cents. The other auction he opened at the retail price of $75.

By the time the end of the auctions came around, the store manager was surprised to find that the auction which opened for less than a dollar ended at $72 with over a dozen bids while the other received very few page views and only one bid. The manager was perplexed at this turn of events. Why would the damaged jacket received far more interest and sell for nearly the same price as the undamaged one?

The answer lies in the emotions involved with an individual\’s purchase-making decision. Since the damaged jacket started out at such a low price, it appeared that a great bargain could be had. Even after receiving several bids to put the item out of bargain-pricing range, the bidders had already emotionally invested themselves in getting the jacket.

That\’s the power of getting a customer emotionally invested in your product. Emotion tends to defy logic… as well as make sales.

Stuart Lisonbee is a search marketing expert at Doba. Doba\’a goal to simplify the dropshipping product sourcing chain have resulted in universal access to hundreds of wholesale suppliers and a myriad of tools to help small online retailers succeed.