Profit-generating ecommerce and online stores don’t see the discounted or low price of their product as the most dynamic way to differentiate.
The Essential Staff of Any Ecommerce Website That Wants to Profit
There are a couple of major factors that separate ecommerce websites. Despite what you think, it’s not all online marketing and digital marketing specialists, plus high-speed servers, a remarkable development team, massive financing from huge backers.
Finding Freelancers
I remember only a few years ago there was the first of those “freelancer and client” marketplaces. The first was oDesk. What a horror that was. Within a year the average rate for any job was $2 to build a website to $8/hour as a Ruby on Rails Developer. Luckily, there was still Elance with top-quality freelancers and a reasonable fee for Elance services.
Then the worst thing for the industry happened. oDesk and Elance merged. Well, oDesk consumed Elance. oDesk had about 1 billion profiles, of which 90% appeared to be Pakistan-based. Even the Filipinos (with good quality English skills) fled oDesk. So, Elance.com and oDesk.com merged while they stayed separate for a year until they announced UpWork.com would be taking over. Thank God oDesk was gone, Elance, the only ever fair and marketplace with talented freelancers and oDesk were taken over by UpWork.
20% Hike on Fees Immediately
As UpWork gobbled up just about every freelancer/client marketplace on the planet, the first thing it did was rack up those rates. 20% is a massive amount for any client or freelancer to foot the bill for a simple service. They hold freelancer money for 10-15 days after withdrawal while holding it for something like five days after your payment is released as the client. So, yes, it is all getting expensive, and it is all getting slow.
What’s the other option if you are looking for a writer for your ecommerce products? Freelancer.com. The problem with Freelancer.com is that it is more like a contest most of the time. You ask for something to be done, and you get the usual bids, or you have competitions where you expect everyone to send in their work and you pick a winner. You can’t expect those who will do so to be very experienced at what they do.
Your Options as an Ecommerce Owner
Before we look at your options, if you are selling products in Australia and even overseas this is what you are going to need:
- Australian (or at least UK English) writers and editors – even clients reading your website in Australia expect it to sound Australian so your writers being Australian can be very good for your website.
- Have a good look at the high prices on Australian products selling in Asian markets.
- Writers who have some knowledge of your product and you are going to need to provide them with reference materials, and you will need them to research.
- People with experience, either in life or with your products.
Random Upwork 3 Hour-Job Scan
I just spent 3 hours straight randomly checking on UpWork checking out job offers. Here are my results after surveying 300 random jobs:
- 88 clients had never paid any money into UpWork
- 145 had spent less than $100
- 62 clients had paid under 1k
- 4 had spent over 1k
- 1 had spent over 30k
- Approximately 65% have a verified payment, which are those who have spent
- 99% of jobs had 10-15 proposals within minutes of being posted – teams rotate sending off premade proposals
- Many jobs called for an “Expert” in something and yet were only willing to pay $30 for something that would obviously take hours
A Favourite Job Posting
Most jobs across all categories from web design, development, administration, customer service were all single menial tasks, like make us a new logo, and my favourite, write 3 lines about rose products for iFloral.com, who were looking for experts to do a “massive” amount of short product descriptions, research and upload to their Shopify account – and they were asking for a sample, not allowed under UpWork Rules. Nothing really seems to add up, does it?
Is This Sounding Negative?
Maybe as an ecommerce site owner you have tried to hire, well hired and failed miserably with profiles that were obviously not by the people you were dealing with.
What is UpWork Good For?
Jobs like data entry if you can find the right person. Perhaps, a logo if you don’t mind getting a downloaded icon with a few changes. Basic tasks are what UpWork is good for. Jobs you have set up so that they cannot possibly go wrong and do not require any action other than the mechanical steps you have provided. UpWork is good if you don’t care if the person you are dealing with really is the same person each time.
The Common Choice for Product Descriptions in Australia
The most common option in Australia is not to write any description at all. No wonder retail is in such a slump. Walled retail stores are hard to get attention in or get what you ask for because the store representative doesn’t know what the difference is between a shirt and t-shirt. So, it’s serve yourself when you’re walled in or walking around in circles to try and find something. Then you get online at home or the phone and it seems like there are thousands of the same thing every time you look at Facebook or Google.
I was trying to find a pair of Melissas the other day. Not one shop attendant had any clue what I was talking about. Getting online, I searched womens shoes, then I searched Melissa and I got a list of Melissa Shoes results. Every website that had them had the exact same blurb. It was the copy taken from the Brasilian website (yes, I spelt Brasil correctly – check the Melissa website).
What is your solution ecommerce owner in Australia?
How are you going to get great product descriptions?
Are you afraid to pay for them?
Here is the Solution
- You look at the prices of your products and the turnover you expect and get reasonable about having well-written product introductions.
- Stop thinking this is only a few words that you only want to pay a few dollars for.
- Think about selling your products and what each sale it worth.
- Once a product description is written, it is written, there isn’t any ongoing cost.
- Plan ahead and go with a professional team, if you rush them, you will only get errors.
- Understand that writing product descriptions involves research (which could even mean calling around), it may mean a trial – let your production team trial your products or at least have some time with them.
- Understand that quality product descriptions don’t just involve a single writer and normally involve a number of editors and a proofreader.
- Allow sufficient time for product description production.
Now if you are ready to talk to some professionals and lift your sales, talk to someone on our team and show us a full list of the products you want to sell
By taking the approach that are outlined above, you will be surprised how much fun it is getting back into your products, getting those great messages out there, you and your people will get more of a buzz out of your job, we will feel that, you will feel good about it, and that will flow onto your production descriptions, and then watch your sales fly sky high. Great product descriptions are not descriptions at all; they engage emotions and solve problems for customers with extra benefits.
Get help for your ecommerce site and engage your customers with powerful product introductions produced by us at RD now.