How to sell a product: make it brilliant

How to sell a product seems such an easy notion. You make what people want and then you offer it to them. Simple. Except, of course, that there’s often more to the simple things than we might expect.

When you look at product sales in general, it seems that “shiny” things are outselling things that aren’t shiny. When Apple’s iPhone was introduced, most phones at the time were made of matte coatings: the iPhone was black, glossy, and highly reflective.

And when you think of cars, which ones are the most attractive? The glossy and glossy paint ones or the flat and matte ones?

People love shiny things. But why?

In a series of studies conducted in Belgium, researchers found that we actually prefer shiny things. And scientists have an interesting explanation for it. They believe that everything is connected to our evolutionary survival instincts. To survive we need water. Shiny things look wet and therefore trigger that basic animal instinct within us that makes water attractive because it helps us survive.

The research managed to rule out other explanations for why we prefer shiny products, such as social pressure or advertising trends, etc. The desire for something shiny was much more basic, the investigation turned out.

This has important implications if you want to know how to sell a product or service online. What if your product isn’t brilliant? How can you make it attractive? And if it is a service? What do you do to activate that basic instinct to be attracted to something wet?

There are several possibilities. You can make the web page you use to sell the product shiny, with a watery background, for example. Or you can pack your item in a glossy clear cover so it’s reflective and feels shiny, even if what’s inside isn’t shiny. Good packaging is a way to sell a product more often.

I remember a few years ago an internet marketer told me that his sales tripled when he started wrapping his CDs and DVDs that he sold online. The items were no different, they just had shiny wrappers and sold way more.

So if you’re selling a service, rather than a product, make it a product first. Many box services are available in High Street shops, for example, whereby you buy a shiny, shiny box as a gift and inside is simply a sheet of paper with a web address showing the recipient how they can receive their ‘break weekend” or whatever else you bought them. Turning services into brilliant products will help you sell more.

So how do you sell a product online? Make it a brilliant product. After all, Apple hasn’t done badly in inventing a brilliant phone.