• A good way how to establish yourself and successfully sell on online marketplaces is to build trust with your customers and develop credible, outstanding seller profile. Here are three main things you should consider with this respect:

1) Get references and customer testimonials - reviews from your customers help to increase your trustworthiness and catalyse word-of-mouth marketing (e.g. customers spread the word about yourself and your products).

2) Improve your credibility - establishing a credible profile among the community of your customers based on providing credentials, engaging in forums and sharing experience, and presenting personal background information will help to build trust with your customers and boost your sales.

3) Stand out from the crowd - following tips and hints to stand out from thousands of other sellers on online marketplaces will let your customers notice and recognize yourself, leading to increased sales of your products.

• Reviews from your customers will refer to two main attributes: A) your product(s), and B) your customers service (i.e. the way you treat your customers before, during and after the process of handling their orders). Both of these attributes are equally important and crucial prerequisites to obtain positive customer feedback.

• Your hard work to provide great products and customer service, can, in turn, lead to positive reviews. Seeing that others had a positive experience helps new customers feel comfortable making a purchase, especially if they have never purchased from you before.

• Also, how you handle unhappy customers can result in positive feedback as well. In any case, you should be confident that your products are good and your descriptions are realistic. Even though, however, some of your customers may be unhappy. In this case, make sure that you handle such situations professionally, as customers might in turn leave positive feedback about your great customer service.

• An experienced seller from an online marketplace for arts & crafts identified the following five ways to get great reviews:

o „Treat every buyer like they’re your first. Your shop’s success is dependent on the people that purchase from it, each and every one of them. I never let an order pass through my shop without reaching out to thank the customer personally. This means going beyond the automatic email that’s sent out when an order is placed and sending a direct Conversation message, written by me, expressing my gratitude. Not only is a timely thank-you note a great way to convey how much you value their support, but customers will often take the direct connection as an opportunity to ask last-minute questions that might be important to address before you produce or ship their order.“

o „Keep your shop honest. When you’re focused on capturing beautiful product photos and writing snazzy copy for your item listings, it can be easy to overlook the obvious question: Will your buyers actually know what they’ll receive after looking at your listing? Your photos and item description should set clear expectations for your buyers: Do your photos showcase each item’s size and what will be included with their purchase? Do your item descriptions answer any possible questions buyers might have?“

o „Deal with mistakes right away. Mistakes happen, no matter how hard we try to prevent them. Customer service snafus can be a total nightmare, and no matter who is in the right, ask yourself, is it worth arguing with a customer? What solution would you want if the situation was reversed? For me, this is the most painful aspect of running a shop on online marketplace, although the best solution is often a no-brainer: Give the buyer what they’re looking for, and come up with ways to prevent the same issue from happening in the future. While this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, I can say from experience that what may initially feel like a loss can result in a worthwhile gain down the line.“

o „Ask yourself, “Is there anything else I can do?” Think about what else you can you do for your buyer to ensure an exceptional experience. For me, this often manifests in how I package an order; I’ll include a little print as a wedding gift or include a handwritten note congratulating the couple on their upcoming wedding. After all, who doesn’t love to receive a thoughtful bonus with their order?“

o „Always follow up. Strategically following up with buyers after an order is processed is great for a number of reasons. First, you enable your buyer to alert you if they had any issues with their order so you can resolve the problem before they leave a negative review. You can also inquire about ways to improve, and proactively make changes to your shop policies and workflow to prevent similar issues from happening again. Your final correspondence is also a great opportunity to encourage buyers to leave feedback for your shop. The messaging and timing of your follow-up message is key, since you don’t want to seem spammy or too aggressive. I normally reach out around the time the item is expected to arrive to ask the buyer if they’ve received everything safely and as expected. I’ll also give them instructions for leaving feedback if they’re so inclined - that way I’m making the process as simple as possible.“

• However, as a new seller you usually have one disadvantage – no one knows you, your brand or your product. So, how to persuade potential customers to buy your product then? You can try highlighting your offer (a paid option), but customers will probably not trust your products, as they look for “social proof” from reviews and testimonials. There are several options to get your first reviews:

o Ask your customers for review. Remember, ask for a “review”, not for a “good review”. Also, ask them only after the purchase process has been completed.

o Instead of asking directly, you can motivate your customers to provide a review by putting links on review site to your e-mail signature, or add the request to a message about another topic (e.g. newsletter, follow-up distribution of relevant information etc.).

o Add a small gift and a small flyer (e.g. business card format) requesting customer to provide a review about how he/she was happy with the product and customer service.

o Look for active reviewers, offer them significant discount or free sample and ask them to leave their feedback.

o Ask couple of your friends to purchase your product through the particular online marketplace and place their reviews. Remember, they have to be honest and natural.

o Finally, do not worry. After getting to know your customers well, you will be able to find and utilize the most appropriate way to receive reviews. To boost this, try to understand your customers using a market analysis.

• How should good reviews look like? Helpful and trustworthy reviews that will help you to build trust among your customers should have the following parameters:

o Include the "why": The best reviews include not only whether your customer liked or disliked a product, but also why. Encourage customers to make comparisons with related products or services they have experienced.

o Specific: A review should be relevant to the product the customer is reviewing and focus on specific features or his/her experience. For video and image reviews, writing a brief introduction is recommended.

o Not too short, not too long: Written reviews should be at least 20 words, and the ideal length is around 75 to 500 words. For video reviews, 2 to 5 minutes length is recommended to keep the audience engaged.

o Sincere: Reviews should not be artificial, but they should provide customer’s honest opinion about the product.

• In addition to reviews, sometimes you also can include customer testimonials in your seller profile or shop at the online marketplace. These should be excerpts from genuine e-mails or messages from customers expressing how they enjoyed your products or buying process. This last point is important - customer testimonial that states how your product benefited them is much more effective than one that just says something like "Your product is great!".

• Online discussion forums are great places to give out tips and advice, answer questions, and acquire a customer or two.

• Use the forums located on the online marketplace you are using as your sales channel, but also try to Google search out some active forums that may directly relate to your product. When you post, ensure you aren’t breaking any forum rules when you promote your brand or products. Get to know the limits and restrictions of the forum, and stick to them. Using your forum avatar, signature, and profile page to promote your brand are usually well within the rules.

• You may feel the temptation to post and promote wildly, but keep it professional. No forum will tolerate constant promotion or posts full of links to your website. Bedsides, acting in such a way online will damage your brand in the eyes of other forum users. So, keep it simple by posting just enough for people to notice your activity, but not enough to constitute spam. Also, avoid coming screaming in, telling everyone what you have for sale. This will generally get you banned from the forum faster than you can say spam.

• Instead of trying wildly to promote yourself, always try to follow a customer-centric or "you-centric" approach rather than a "me-centric" approach. Try to provide value and genially help customers or peers with their problems.

• Finally, be patient and follow gradual steps to establish your trustworthy position in the forum. First, sign up, fill out your bio and “about me” sections, upload a real photo of yourself, but refrain from putting up links to your ecommerce website. Second, read and listen. The main point is to learn as much as you can from your audience. Remember, these are your future customers. Third, help. After you feel comfortable with your new community, feel free to help people. Helping people by responding to their questions and providing information to them will make you highly respected in any forum. Fourth, only now you should promote your products, but make sure you do it the right way. Start by going back to your bio and link to your website. When you feel really comfortable and if the forum allows it, create a signature that links back to your website.